Of Hitching and Footing

Decked out in my dusty red fancy hiking shoes, ratty jeans and XL red TCE shirt I am ready to visit the field. Almost. An umbrella, sunglasses and sunscreen to shield the sun and black TCE backpack filled with paperwork, plenty of snacks and frozen water bottle complete the outfit. Field visits are very necessary but very exhausting. To get to any field takes between 1.5 – 3 hours. Usually two to three ‘hitches’ (hailing down unofficial taxis from the roadside) and then an hour or more of ‘footing it’ through the bush. In this sparsely populated country houses are few and far between, usually reached by walking through maize fields and jumping fences and oshanas (temporary lakes made during the rainy season). Houses here consist of a number of buildings – some concrete, some made of corrugated tin and some open-sided ‘tent’s’ covered in thatch - both ringed and roomed off by a fence made of mopane wood covered in broad leaved squash plants – quite beautiful really. Mopane wood is twisted and knarled which lends a hobbit/woodland air to the whole setup.

Having reached a compound the Field Officer I am visiting calls out to the inhabitants inside the compound and we enter the main door, squatting in the first ‘room’ under a thatched structure that serves as a reception room until the resident, usually a woman, comes out to meet us. There we extend greetings, a very important part of life here.

Wa lala po Meme/Tate? (Have you spent the morning mother/father?)
Ee. (Yes)

Onawa? (Really well?)
Ee. Wa lala po, Tate/Meme? (Yes. Have you spent the morning?)

Ee. (Yes)
Onawa? (Really well?)

Ee.(Yes)

Once every combination of participants has extended this all important greeting we get down to business. The Field Officer pulls out his/her Household Register and Field Officer Guide, a picture guide developed by the CDC which guides the Field Officer and the client through the process of registering, educating, risk assessing and counseling clients. I observe while they talk in Oshiwambo, trying to assess and evaluate the scene before me and the Field Officers skills. With the exception of one household where I was asked “Meme, give me $10 for beer” (the clients refusing to believe that anyone would volunteer to do anything for free, therefore assuming I was rich), most people are incredibly friendly to us white visitors. In our first three field visits Brian and I returned with a 5kg sugar bag filled with round groundnuts, a dozen lemons, one large pumpkin and one large winter melon. Recipes for the pumpkin and melon are welcome as Brian and I don’t know what to do with them much less how to open them. After the visit we talk about what was said, any problems with using the new Household Register or Guide and any problems that may have arisen, such as OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) that have not been registered for government support, etc. Then through the fields under the hot sun to the next house.

Three or more hours of this later we walk the hour back to the main road, flag down a taxi and make the long trip back to DAPP. A day of hitching and footing over.