Field survey from my perspective Part 2 ~Accra~

Hi this is Risako, M1 in Kawasaki Lab. This is part 2 of my trip blog!

Day 5

Drive to Accra. It was actually the 1st of January, and the prof. Kawasaki and my friend Eyad went to see the sunrise from Gulf of Guinea!! I missed it bc I was sooo sleepy ;;) Maybe next time :)

At night we had a new year feast at a nice Japanese restaurant. And we got special new year present from the hotel!

Day 6

First survey day in Accra. We had another meeting with enumerators for Accra. There were less questions asked than in Keta so I was a bit worried.

Day 7 

Survey day! The field was more crowded than in Keta and less breeze so I made sure that everyone including myself was hydrated and had some rest in the middle. 

This time, we had a bit more flexible system to support enumerators. We, university staffs, split up and followed different enumerators so that we can support every one of them as soon as possible. That's significant growth, even in such a short period. 

Day 8

Sunday was off! I slept like mud X0 

We had an excellent dinner in an Italian restaurant Tomato.

Day 9

Second survey day! I don't remember much, but we were walking all over the area wandering in houses structured like a maze. 

Day 10

Last survey day!! I felt I was getting a little tired and couldn't be active till the end of the day. I was very thankful that other staff members worked a lot when I couldn't.

For dinner, we celebrated the success of the field survey in a restaurant with live music! We danced to Ghanaian traditional songs:)

Trip finished! I really appreciate everyone who supported this survey, namely, JST and JICA for funding, JICA officer Takano san for the arrangement, Ghanaian profs and students for the arrangement and support, my fellow enumerators for working hard under the harsh weather and being patient with the long questionnaire, prof. Kawasaki for giving all kinds of advice and support, and finally Eyad for being my best teammate. Yet, the research has not finished; we are expecting another survey in May, so let's keep up!!

Field survey from my perspective Part 1 ~Keta~

Hi, this is Risako again! we had an opportunity to visit Ghana again to conduct household survey. This is my first time doing this kind of survey in anywhere in the world so I was very much excited.

Day 1 

Arriving at airport. So relieved that we did not get our luggage lost this time. I was so worried about this actually.

One step out of a car, I felt like I had head attack because the temperature was around 30 degrees celsius whereas in Japan it was around 10 at that time. 

Day 2

I had a nice breakfast with the most stunning weather and nature around!

breakfast

We had meeting with enumerators and explained our research, questionnaire, schedule purposes and so on. They kindly asked many questions and suggested improvements which helped us a lot to make the questionnaire more fit to the field.

Then we went to the field that is damaged by coastal disasters and had trial runs.

Day 3

This was the hottest day for this trip. Sun was very strong but the sea breeze helped a bit.

I was with each enumerator seeing how they are doing with questionnaire if there is any problem or not. Turned out that the questions were too many to reach the sample size we aimed. Therefore, we had a long meeting and made a big revision for the questionnaire.

Day 4

This is the last survey day in Keta. I was able to talk and come with almost all the enumerators!

Thank you so much for your support.