Kaduna Oct 12

I've been in Kaduna now for almost six days. There have been some research ups and downs, but I think things are going well overall. I've hired a local NGO-worker and friend as a "consultant" for the next week to help me find high-quality RAs. I've found two people already whom I really like and want to hire, and am meeting several others tomorrow. I've also found an office that I'd like to rent (if they accept my offer) to use for administering my questionnaire. The big challenge in the next week will be fine-tuning my sampling strategy and deciding exactly where to send my RAs to first recruit respondents.

I've gone through my questionnaire with a few people here and so far am getting what seems to be very good feedback. I don't seem to have been way off-base on most of my questions, though I've been alerted to a few questions that will be hard for people to understand. So far, as much as I love it, people haven't been crazy about my one-chicken versus the gamble scenairo question (for those of you who have seen my survey). They much preferred the risk question that focuses on keeping a stable job versus a risky but potentially high-yielding job. But chickens sort of seem strange to people, I guess.

Otherwise, it has been a holiday here yesterday and today, as it's the end of Ramadan. I went to what I thought would be a smally family barbeque at a Hausa Muslim friend's house last night, only to find a huge bash of about 70 people eating and dancing (though no alcohol of course, which made the dancing part a bit rough for me). I'd never been to a party quite like this before. The parents of the people throwing the party were away in Saudi Arabia for the holiday, the crowd was almost entirely twenty-somethings, yet everyone was impeccably well-behaved and kind of on the quiet side. Girls chatted and danced with girls, and guys with guys, and there were plenty of hijabs to be seen (though many of the girls weren't wearing them). The crowd was quite wealthy, it seemed, as almost everyone I met had either been to the UK or the US at least once. The food was incredibly spicy - jollof rice that nearly blew my head off, and several other spicy meat dishes were washed down with high-sugar pineapple juice. Really nice overall, although I felt a bit out of place at times and they had hired a photorapher for the event who kept snapping me dancing (incredibly awkwardly, I'm sure).

Today is a slow day, though, thanks to the public holiday. I'm working on scripts for the RAs to use in the field and in the office right now, sitting in a hotel lobby while Nigerian club football is on TV. There's not too much else to report today, though my roommate took me shoping and I found a great vegetable market and a good shop where I bought soy sauce, sliced bread and even nutella! This will really help diversify my diet (which, up until now has consisted of spaghetti with tomatoes and onions almost every night). Hopefully, by the next time I send an update, I'll have a successful RA meeting behind me and have eaten a decent stir-fry. For anyone reading this, definitely send me emails, it's quite lonely here....