For the first month of our
placement, Team SWOPA has mainly focused on interviewing the women members of
SWOPA. As we are doing baseline research for the overall 2-year project it is
important that we speak to as many people as possible in order to understand
the current situation of SWOPA.
SWOPA had up to 450 members by
2008 (but this number has reduced drastically and has not been updated) and the
members are split into 7 groups. We started our research by introducing
ourselves to the leaders so we could organise meetings with their groups as a
whole. We have intergrated well into the community but it was great to get out
and explore Sirigu further and to meet the leaders. Everyone has been so
welcoming so far and the leaders were no exception. They are very pleased that
we are here and we will work as hard as we can to ensure that they can get the
most out of SWOPA.
Team SWOPA at Madame Ayesia’s house, the leader of the
Anongtaaba Group
So far we have met 3 out of the
7 groups. Our first meeting, had to be rescheduled due to the funeral season.
The funeral season has been one
of the biggest obstacles to our research within the community. It generally
starts in January and ends towards the end of May. This is because in these
months there is the least amount of farming activities.
During this period there is at
least one funeral a week. The funeral is a custom where the death of a family
member is celebrated even if they passed away 20 years ago. Funerals are
massive events and comprise of a lot of singing and dancing, prayer, war dances
and eating. The preparation for a funeral is almost as big as the event itself,
family members and friends of the deceased come together to prepare food for
everyone and buckets of Pito (the local brew). Almost all of the women that we
are interviewing have been involved in the funeral celebrations and this has
lead to cancellation of meetings and lower numbers at meetings than anticpated.
As funerals are of such significance in the traditional culture of the region,
it has been difficult to overcome this obstacle to our reseach. We have learnt
to be more flexible by rescheduling meetings to a time and day that is more
preferable to the women. As the farming season is approaching and the women
would be more busy, there is not a lot that we can do, except to put on our
dancing shoes and join in the celebrations!
Our UK Team Leader Shauna dancing with the women of
Anongtaaba Group
Our meeting with the Anongtaaba
Group went well and we gathered a massive amount of information that will
benefit our project. However, despite having three Frafra translators with us
the language barrier still presented a challenge. Although our knowledge of
Frafra has slighty extended beyond “Hello, how are you?” we are not quite ready
to conduct an extensive discussion in the local language. Despite the fact that
we had 3 translators, 2 local translators and an In-Country Volunteer
that helped with interpreting, some of our meanings were lost in translation.
Team SWOPA waiting for the Atamolga Group
Going forward into the next week of meetings with the remaining four groups of
women, we will have to edit our questions with the help of our
translators so they fully understand the questions and so they are able
to communicate with the women effectively. In true Sirigu style, Team SWOPA is
in the process of creating a song in Frafra (acccompanied with a
choreographed dance) to present to the women at each meeting. All it takes is a
song and a dance to get the women at ease with us!
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