conversations

Today I interviewed about 15 Zambian women to be supervisors or enumerators (i.e. surveyors) for the upcoming intervention. (Intervention refers to the actual field experiment of sending out enumerators to households to survey the women.) I decided to incorporate some role-playing in the interview to get a better sense of how experienced these candidates were. I decided to throw in some scenarios we had seen in the pilot....

Candidate: Hello Christina, my name is Doreen Chanda and I am from the Society for Family Health. I would like to conduct a survey on family planning.

Me: Hi.... [looking at her suspiciously]. Who are you again? Why are you interviewing me? Are you a Satanist? Are you going to put a curse on my family after you interview me?

Candidate: Oh.. why no, I am here to conduct a survey on family planning. I am affiliated with the Society for Family Health. Here is my ID and a letter from the supervisor.

Me: [grudgingly] fine... ok, go ahead.

Candidate: Ok... now Christina, how many more children does your husband want you to have?

Me: Well... I've currently got about 4 children. My husband doesn't think that's enough, since he wants 6 children. So... he wants 2 more children.

Candidate: Ok. Now, Christina, how many times have you had sex with your husband in the past week?

Me: Oh... my... hmmm... I'm a bit shy. I don't feel comfortable telling you this.

Candidate: Oh, you don't need to worry. We're both married women. We both know about sex. We can talk about this freely. There's no need to feel embarrassed.

Me: Ok... 2 times.

Candidate: What type of family planning method did you use when you had sex?

Me: Withdrawal and male condoms. But I'm looking to switch to another method since my husband is tired of withdrawal and doesn't like condoms. Also withdrawal is not reliable in preventing pregnancy.

Candidate: Ok... what would your husband do if he wanted you to get pregnant within 2 years but you didn't?

Me: Well, he'd be disappointed.

Candidate: Ok, can you be more specific? What would he do? Would he be supportive? Leave you for another women? Quarrel for you? Beat you?

Me: Well.... don't tell anyone this... but... I'm afraid he would leave me for another woman if I don't produce.

Candidate: I see.... that's understandable... now, has your husband ever threatened you with physical violence?

Me: Sometimes....

Candidate: Has he ever hit you in the past month?

Me: [looking down]... actually once. But that was when I was arguing with him about money.
_____________________________________________