Tomorrow's Another Day

When I told people who had worked in South Africa that I was coming here to do my thesis research, they told me that I may have some issues with bureaucracy. I understood what they meant and prepped myself accordingly, but what I didn't realize is that it's nearly impossible to be my usual Type-A self here in Jo-burg. I've had to really put all that aside and just resign myself to long waits for updates and information, constant follow-up and Murphy's Law (what can go wrong will go wrong). Still, today was challenging even with that mindset.

Working with a NGO, it's difficult to ask for much when you know they're restricted in terms of both resources and time, and you may not be their highest priority at the moment. They are all wonderful people and are helping me coordinate my focus groups for next week as much as possible, but it's still falling on me to do a lot of coordination. And it's a bit daunting to recruit teenagers for these groups in four locations all over South Africa when I barely know how to pronounce the provinces they're in. So, a couple of times today, I thought to myself, "Why did I think this would be a good idea again?" I have to remember though that I'm here precisely because LoveLife doesn't have the resources and time to do this work, though it could really help improve their mobile social network and communications -- and therefore, help prevent HIV among young people here. Having this kind of data could really help improve their chances of getting better grant funding.

I did make some progress today though. I finally nailed down the locations and days I'll be doing the groups. Ideally, this would have been done before I even came (!), but because I just got my South African study approval, etc., I am happy it did happen today.

Here's my schedule for the focus groups next week --

Tuesday: My first group will be in the Langa township near Cape Town (I'll be flying there Monday to see a bit of the city beforehand since it's a public holiday, of course! Less time for me to do the groups!)

Wednesday: Second group in a rural part of Free State province. A driver will take me there straight from the airport when I get back from Cape Town. It's about a two-hour drive from there.

Thursday: I'm back in J-burg to do another group in the Orange Farm township south of the city.

Friday: I head to Witbank, another rural area in the Mpumalanga province.

Is this humanly possible? Four focus groups in four different South African towns/cities in four days? We'll find out. The hardest part will be recruiting and getting youth to the locations and engaging them in a meaningful discussion about how and why they use this mobile social network, and how it can be improved. Luckily, this is a MOBILE social network, so I do have all their phone numbers and can text them too. I hope to have kids lined up tomorrow.

I'm was feeling a bit defeated earlier and am still pretty freaked out because of everything that needs to be done, but tomorrow's another day. I am hopeful it will all come together.