Week 3 in Mysore — Public Health Research Institute of India
Welcome back :)
Monday
This week we started off by doing another mock interview for my project and this time we conducted it with a different set of people to go through my survey questions to get more edits. There was a pretty large audience for this mock, and I felt like that was a more stressful experience to go through. Each time I would do a practice run with people, I was getting different edits on what exactly to say. My brain had become a confusing conglomeration of varying Kannada phrases, and I just felt defeated after the mock as it seemed like I still didn’t sound as natural as they wanted me to be. Later on, I caught up with Rashmi would be at all of my interviews and she highlighted that I should just try to keep one set of phrases and just do what I was most comfortable with.
That evening I went out to try some different chaat food stands around Mysore. My relatives told me that they knew some really good places to eat, so I braved the street food scene and really enjoyed it! I had some delicious Masala Puri, Dahi Puri, and Pani Puri. Afterwards we stopped at a shop to get some Jalebi. I usually don’t like to eat Jalebi, but these were delightfully warm, crispy, and the right amount of sweetness!
Tuesday
I learned that PHRII doesn’t usually start projects on Tuesday as it is not an auspicious day, so I had another day to prep for my interview. It ended up being a really fruitful day, as I was able to conduct 2 mock interviews with people who were not at PHRII, and thus had a more general knowledge of the organization and the work it does. The first mock interview was with a women who worked for a different NGO in Mysore, that seeks to enable and uplift women in general by providing more skills and technical knowledge. It was lovely to hear about her work in a different non-profit and gain a greater understanding of the non-profit arena in Mysore. She said she was generally able to understand what I was saying, but due to a lack of knowledge of anything about the cervical cancer screening program or specific knowledge about cervical cancer, her answers to the questionnaire were very one-sided and lacked the critical thinking that the ASHAs/AWW could really help provide us with.
I ended up lucking out as I also got to a mock interview with an ASHA! The ASHA had come to the clinic for other business, but had some spare time to work with me and this was extremely helpful. This ASHA was from the urban area, and would not be recruited as a participant from my study, but had the exact level of knowledge and comfort with the cervical cancer screening program. The interview went really well and took around 20 minutes, and we also got really good feedback on our program. This mock interview helped me boost my own confidence with conducting these interviews myself, and I’m grateful that I was able to have this mock before starting my project on Wednesday.
That evening, we ordered some biryani and curd rice but it fell pretty flat. I also felt like it gave me a stomach pain which is foreshadowing for the rest of the week….
Wednesday
My project officially started today! Wow, I’m so glad that we finally were able to start; to mark the start of this journey we had a Pooja to Lord Ganesha to ensure that the project would run without any obstacles. My interview materials such as my guide and chart that I use was placed in front of the Pooja.
After the Pooja, we got ready for the interviews and I was told there would be 3 ASHAs coming into the clinic today from the nearby areas in Mysore City, and thus these ASHAs worked in urban areas and the urban slums.
My survey consists of 30 Likert scale questions using a emoji chart to demonstrate the level of agreement with the statements I ask. There are 4 sections of statements which we ask which include provider level factors, participant level factors, community level factors, as well as the ASHA/AWW’s own awareness and education of cervical cancer. The last section of the survey consists of open-ended questions which allow the ASHAs/AWW to freely give feedback on our program. Thus, my project is considered mixed-methods as there is both qualitative and quantitative parts, and also requires a fairly large sample size in order to get generalizability.
By 1 pm, we were done with all 3! I was surprised by the efficiency of my survey and how quickly we worked through the interviews, and I felt like they were quite successful. All 3 of them were able to understand me pretty clearly and rarely had any questions they wanted me to repeat. The most interesting information we go through the open-ended questions as we were able to get very concrete feedback on how to improve the cervical cancer screening program, and barriers that limited the overall success of the program. For example, recruitment of participants when screening camps are conducted is critical as PHRII attempts to get at least 80% of women screened in a community, but an ASHA mentioned that advertisement of the screening camps could be stronger. She mentioned that word-of-mouth advertisement is often not enough, and suggested we put up more flyers or even provide a WhatsApp message/image that could be uploaded on status. People always use WhatsApp for communication, and thus Status Updates could be an easy way to quickly spread the accurate information and details about camps. We were all happy to gain concrete feedback on the improvement of the project and this was only the first day, so I’m pretty optimistic for the rest of the interviews.
That evening, things went downhill for me, personally. I ended up feeling very sick, and it felt like a bad case of food poisoning. I had relatives try to give me some medication that night so that I would feel better at least during the night.
Thursday/Friday
I woke up with a fever and chills, and continued symptoms so I decided it would be best to go to a clinic to ensure that it was just food poisoning. It was really interesting to be in a clinic in India, as you pay for your services even before you go see the doctor. In addition, the prices for the appointment were so affordable relative to what the same appointment would have costed me in America. Thus, the entire billing and insurance process was also cut out. I thankfully got my diagnosis of a stomach infection, got prescribed 5 medicines, and went home.
I just slept and rested most of the day, and tried just regain strength.
Saturday
Today, I finally went back to work and I was able to catch up with the staff a little bit. Then I was told we were actually going out into the community today to meet with a few ASHAs and an AWW, which I was really excited for. However, I realized we were leaving at 11:30 which I meant I would miss lunch and that we would probably come home later, which meant Saturday wasn’t really a “half-day” of work. We also would be leaving with Leona, who would conduct an IDI with one of the ASHAs I also interviewed.
Around noon, we started our journey to Ramanihalli which actually was the home-town of Satya, our driver. We stopped at the Anganwadi, and Satya told us that his two sisters actually worked as an AWW and Asha respectively. I started off with the two ASHA interviews, and it was interesting to hear their perspectives and suggestions. They both spoke in length about the continued lack of awareness of HPV and cervical cancer really being a health problem, and also described past struggles in convincing women to come to the health camps. The ASHAs seemed very overloaded with work, and also described the difficulties managing their time across these expectations to dedicate time for cervical cancer awareness and camps. The AWW interview was noticeably different than the ASHAs, as we had to go through the interview guide a lot more slowly and thoroughly. It seemed like the AWW had less general knowledge on the cervical cancer screening program and also struggled to really understand our survey questions. Rashmi and I later discussed the need for greater simplification of the survey specifically for AWWs, if further AWW interviews run the same way. Still, it was great to have conducted my first AWW interview and also bring my total interview count to 6!
Afterwards, we had to stay a lot longer as Leona’s IDI took over an hour, and by the time we got home it was 4 pm!
Later that night, we decided to go out to see the 777 Charlie movie, which has become a super popular movie here. It is a movie surrounding a labrador and a man whose life changes drastically when the dog enters it. If it wasn’t made apparent in my previous blog entry, I love dogs, and so the movie really pulled at my heartstrings and I even cried a little. It also felt special as a lot of the movie was shot in Mysore, and scenes were even shot on the street my cousins live on.
Some random facts that you didn’t ask about movie theaters in India (or at least Karnataka):
- They play the national anthem
- Nobody buys popcorn/snacks at the start of the movie
- There is a 10 minute intermission in which everyone buys their snacks and drinks
Sunday
We all woke up a bit late as we had slept late after the movie, and my cousins and I decided we all wanted to do some shopping. I was looking for a relatively fancy Anarkali that I could wear to functions, but also wasn’t entirely grandiose. We stopped at a couple of shops, but decided that maybe the mall would have a lot more options. We went to the Forum Mall, and on our way there we saw another movie shooting! At the mall, we looked around a few more stores, but I still wasn’t finding what I wanted at a reasonable price.
I met up with my roommates at the food court, and we all went back home together. Later that evening, my cousin decided to cook me some of her famous white sauce pasta to see if it lived up to the taste of someone from the US. I was a bit hesitant coming off of an upset stomach, but it was really good! She mentioned that white sauce is the most favorite sauce here, and that people also prefer corn in their pasta. In addition, I noticed that everyone uses Amul cheese rather than the typical parmesan or cheeses that we expect in the US.
Overall I was really satisfied with my weekend, and I was glad I was able to turn my week around after feeling sick.
For previous blog posts, check out my other blog posts!
