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Julien’s Journal

 

Meeting the farmers…

 

I have lined up today to go out and interview the farmers. Each interview might take 1.5 hours, so I’ll be happy if I can do 4 or 5. I’m going off very soon to meet my interpreter and we’ll head into Dingleydale. I’ll be VERY pleased if these interviews go well as I’ll have made a big start to my work by the end of the week. I only intended to speak to 12 – 15 farmers while here so I’ll have hopefully done a considerable piece of my work by the time I see everyone back at Hectorspruit on the weekend.

 

I attended a farmers’ workshop yesterday and got to address a small group of farmers, extension workers and officials. It seems they will need considerable prompting in the interviews to get answers out of them. I’m hoping this won’t cause a problem of validity with my work as prompting them too much may be leading the interviewee.

 

The only thing keeping me back at the moment is my guts. I’m just about to dash off again and Immoduim is fast becoming a staple of my diet. Not fun at all.

 

I also went on one of the most frightening bushwalks of my life yesterday. Sarah, one of the other students here, who assured me that she was an accomplished bushwalker decided that we would go out, in our shorts and see what bugger all is out there. After seeing that snake when I first got here I won’t go anywhere unless I’m safely tucked away in my car. These snakes are as long as I am tall and the venom gets through your blood faster than gin. You don’t even have time to say “ouch” before these things have killed you. And there I am, in the middle of the long grass, following a girl in shorts whacking a big stick into the bushes. Geeeeeeeeezzzz! No wonder I’ve got the shits so much!

 

Now, getting on the internet has been a bloody mini-series here and so I’m not even going to bother this week. I’ll do another entry on Saturday and upload everything I’ve been doing on Saturday at Nelspruit mall, the only place in the country so far I’ve found a decent internet connection.

 

Bye for now,

 

Julien