We asked her the usual questions. I'll take some time here to explain what we ask about, since I have them memorized by now. We first ask for the persons name, whoever happens to be home. We have interviewed kids of age 10 and up. We then ask for their husband or fathers name. Only one woman we have interviewed has answered that she is not married, and she was 15. I've met a girl who was 17 and was already married with a baby.Most of the women are around 25 or 30. We then ask for their address, W88 or W85. They are then supposed to tell us their house number. Some enter their homes and return with laminated cards which have important information which Asha has given them. A lot of them do not know the number, and it sounds like some of them make it up. In one row of houses we encountered 16, 4, 367, 45 and so on, so it doesn't seem to be in any particular order. Next we ask them their age, which I discussed before that they are not all sure of or willing to share. Our questions pertain to the persons whole family. First is if they have had fever, particularly in the evenings. Then if they have had a cough for the last 3 weeks. If they say yes then we ask if there is ever any blood when they cough. Next is if they have lost weight, only we phrase it as -have your clothes become loose-. Then ask if they have had decreased appetite. In this season we have to preference it with -not if this has been caused by the heat- because people often lose appetite in the summer. Then we ask if they have any difficulty breathing. Some suffer from -Asstama- (asthma!-took me awhile to figure out that's how they pronounce it). Then we ask if they ever have blood mixed with their urine (in case of TB in the kidneys) or lower back pain (spinal TB). We also ask if they have any round mass on their neck or other places. Then we ask if any of their family members or neighbors have suffered from "a disease". We are never allowed to mention "TB" or "tuberculosis". There is so much stigma surrounding the disease, since it was fatal until recently here, that we just say it is a general health survey. Next we ask if they smoke; cigarettes or a cheaper version known as Bhiri, chew tobacco, or drink. This is always a touchy question because it is a Muslim community. Fairly often the women will explain that their husband or father does one or other, but I've only done one survey where someone has done both. Finally we ask if they have had any other respiratory illnesses.
I would say 70% of the time, the answer is No to all the questions. One of the issues is the honesty behind the answers. One time while we interviewed one woman, I heard a man coughing a lot. When we interviewed him however, he said no to the question about coughing. Sometimes people have round masses, or they show us something on their children, but it could be a lipoma. It is great news that most of the people say no to the majority of the questions. Shiny, our Asha team leader, usually knows who has had TB because they have already been treated. She pointed out one house where the entire family had it, but thanks to Asha, were all cured. Nick and I have been working on learning the Hindi of our questions. An Asha woman or Anurag will translate the English questions into Hindi and we write down the response.
In classes this afternoon, I taught the younger and older girls separately. It made such a huge difference because I was able to teach at a good pace for the students' ability. It was day 5 on question words for the younger set. We went over them in English, made sentences, and went over the hints I had taught them, such as "time" for when and "place" for where. Then I set up columns for matching the Hindi word with its English translation, to make sure they knew what the word means in their own language. Then match the hint, and finally write an example. Anjum, age 9, got the first 3 but then wrote "where do you like?". I was very disappointed because I thought they really understood by now. One part that is confusing is that in Hindi the question words do not go at the beginning. I am determined for these girls to learn question words down cold even if its the only thing they learn!
After this frustration, it was refreshing to meet with the older girls. We quickly reviewed question words, and worked on superlatives. I taught them that for 2 people comparisons you add "er" and bigger Than X. We lined everyone up in height and then age order and had them say "I am taller than so and so". Next we learned "the most" ends with -est-, Priyanka was the tallest and Dimple was the shortest. Finally we read a short version of the Three Little Pigs. In my dictionary there were no translations of "straw, sticks or bricks", not to mention huff and puff or chinney chin chin. I made do drawing pictures and acting it out and the girls learned some vocab and understood the moral of the story; to do your best.
Wednesday evening we went to Fab India so Devin and Nick could purchase some Kurtas, traditional indian dress for men. We asked where we could get our sari blouses made and were directed to a store nearby. We managed to all fit in the small corner store and asked how much it would be to have our shirts made for the next day, so that we could wear them to Devins birthday dinner. The plump middle aged woman nonchalantly told us 350 rupees per blouse and double that to have them the next day.Now, we had only paid 150 for the whole thing, so spending 700 rupees, almost 20 dollars, didn't sound like a very good deal. We debated for awhile, comparing what we would pay for clothes in the US made us lean towards doing it, but then considering how much we had paid for this fabric made it seem like a rip off. Devin had a brilliant idea and called his friends girlfriend who told us for her graduation sari of 8,000 rupees she only paid 200 for tailoring. We realized after calling a couple Asha workers that this woman was scamming us. We left and called Anurag for another tailor. He told us to hop a rickshaw at 20 rupees a person to "central market". We agreed to pay the slightly elevated price of 100 rupees for the four of us in the interest of having time to get our measurements taken. We squished into the rickshaw and told the driver to hurry. After 15 minutes Anurag called and asked where we were, not wanting to worry him we assured him we would be there soon. He called another 10 minutes later asking to speak to the driver, he did and we figured now we would get there soon. After ten more minutes he called and talked to the driver again. The driver pulled over and started yelling at us in Hindi. We didnt understand and Anurag explained that we were going to the wrong central market. Sweaty and annoyed we arrived back at our original place after sitting in traffic for another half an hour. The driver then demanded an extra 100 rupees, but why should we pay when we didn't even go anywhere? We handed him what we had agreed to pay and walked away. As we headed toward Anurags car where he was waiting to pick us up we realized the driver was following us! We picked up our pace getting quite nervous and feeling glad we were in a large group. We jumped in the car and Anurag swerved around the driver who had stepped in front of the car. We arrived at central market, Vasant Kunj, within 10 minutes. We hurried out to a small tailor where Anurags mother is a regular. The tailor took our measurements and assured us we'd have the saris ready for 200 rupees at 6pm the next day. Satisfied that our mission had finally been accomplished, but frustrated at our out of the way rickshaw ride, we agreed to go out for dinner. We had some south indian food, dosas (sort of like a crepe but filled with food and dipped into three sauces) and headed home to sleep.
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