If you've been following, you know that I spent the summer working with all of our local partners collecting  data of various stripes and colours in order to measure progress in our work. So I've now passed from the data collection phase to the data analysis phase. It kind of feels to me like the opening scene in the movie "The Matrix" where all  that code is streaming down in Japanese. If you saw the movie you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't, I feel like there's these waves of numbers washing over me and I've got to figure out how to make sense of it all. 

So that means statistics. Yup. And in order to generate those statistics, I've latched on to an open-source system known simply as "R', thanks to the recommendation of a former boss of mine. R is recognized as one of the top systems (languages) for statistical analysis, and is supported by a large community of statisticians, scientists, and nerds like myself. Besides being very powerful and flexible, it has the advantage of being free. 

I'm just learning, and have barely scratched the surface of what this thing can do, and like much open-source software, figuring out what to do is not always that obvious. So today I was quite elated when I learned how to get R to read and process Thai script. This means I  don't even need to understand Thai--which I don't--I can just ask the program to analyse it, and spit the numbers back to me. Once its in the condensed form after processing, I can then get key words translated (either by a human or by the internet), and voila, things make sense. 

My apologies to those you who are not from Ontario, because you're probably not going  to know what I'm talking about. I try  to keep this blog non-political, but I have to say that I'm totally against the idea of getting rid of smart metering. If only for personal, non-political reasons. Since the building I live in switched to smart metering, I've been  saving about 30 dollars a month on hydro costs, through a combination of keeping my lights off except when necessary, not running air conditioning excessively,  and other saving measures. So the removal of smart metering would be an economic loss for me. And it seems to me like it is better for us as a province. It is more accurate, cheaper to administer, encourages energy conservation, and personal responsibility. So what exactly is the logic for getting rid of it?

Please I urge who ever gets into power this fall in Ontario, keep smart metering!

Home. Hot shower, three loads of laundry, microwaved take out. All the things I couldn't do when travelling. Now I will crawl under a rock for a day or two and decompress. As the song says, "I had to close down everything, I had to close down my mind." (Extreme Ways, Moby)

The last picture for the summer of a bunch of farmers sitting around in a meeting. For a few months anyways. When I was younger,  I used to think that meetings were a complete waste of time. I would rather be out doing--taking action. But I've come to realize that meetings are, let's say, a necessary evil. 

It reminds me of a movie, Canadian Bacon, starring John Candy  as sheriff  Bud Boomer. In the movie,  a rebel band of angry Americans decide they are going to invade Canada. As Sheriff Boomer rallys his troops at Niagara Falls, on the eve of  their invasion, he says, "There is a time to think, and a time to act, and this my friends, is no time to think."

So it seems  to me that there are occasions when ideas need to be shared, differences need to be resolved, plans need to be made, resources need to be accounted for. At this point in my life I would say that meetings are not inherently a waste of time, but it is still true that a lot of time is wasted in  meetings. Meetings, just like anything else in life require certain skills and knowledge in order to do them right. That is one of the benefits of these participatory tools I keep talking about. They can turn a random shouting match into an exciting breeding ground for new ideas. They're just one small piece of a much bigger puzzle, but they help at least take some of that time wasting out of the equation.

Today is the last of the participatory workshops in my summer of evaluation trips. I'm looking forward to it, and am sure it will be fun, interesting, and a profound learning experience,  but I'm also just looking forward to it being done. I feel like I've been sprinting for a solid 2 months. The stack of boarding pass ticket stubs I've accumulated is looking like a deck of cards. But soon the summer will end, and my fall of data analysis will begin, followed by my winter of report writing. That will put me up to January, when I'll probably start getting cabin fever, and be ready to  be back on the road again, or more accurately, in the air again.

Yesterday I noticed this pot in the kitchen and wondered  to  myself a) why would anyone keep using a pot in this condition when there are dozens of others b) what happened to it--it's heavy aluminum so you would really have to work  to put these kinds of dents in it. So this morning I asked my landlady, "What happened to this pot?" Her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, it's 70 years old! It belonged to my grandmother! It's made of pure aluminum, and you can't find pots like that anymore. When I die, I'll leave it for someone else."

Which just goes to show, don't jump to conclusions about anything. It doesn't exactly tell me how it came to acquire that particular shape,  but this pot must have cooked  rice and beans all through World  War II, the Trujillo years, the cold war, Balaguer...

Waterfalls and sunsets, the two things no one can resist taking pictures of, no matter how much you know in your heart that you can never capture the moment with anything remotely resembling justice. But here it is, my waterfall shot from some river somewhere in the Dominican Republic. I'm not even going to tell you where, because, honestly, this spot is so beautiful, and mostly undisturbed, so I selfishly want to keep it that way. It has been so hot and humid here,  and the water was so cool I had  to go for a swim, despite my lack of preparedness. I will  definitely come back here  again. I  should  add that I was in this spot for work reasons, scoping out a  potential  project site. The swimming was  more of  an  accident than  anything else.

I just want to address the question about the economic classification tool from a few days back (see Sept 9, 2011).

The short answer is `yes`, the voting can definitely be influenced. If that is a concern, there are a couple ways  to address  it  which I will try to  outline  here as briefly  as possible  (not all that brief):

1) Closed ranking:  as opposed  to open ranking which is what you  see   in the photo.  In  closed ranking you would pass out pieces  of paper for example,  and each person would write down  the proportions they think  apply  to each economic  class by themselves,  the submit the results,  which the facilitator would then  tally. This approach requires the majority of  the group to be  literate.
2) A comprehensive list of every family in   the community  is tabulated,  and each family  name written on a  separate  index card.  A small  group  of trusted community  members--selected by the larger group,  are  then given  the responsibility  to go  through   the entire  `deck`of cards and distribute each family according to the  appropriate  class. I have never done  this, and while  it  would  give a definitive result, it seems like a  lot of work as well as being somewhat intrusive  of people`s privacy. Maybe if someone reading this has had experience with this variation, they could comment.


The other aspect to consider is that  extraction of information  is not the primary  purpose these types  of  participatory  exercises. The ultimate goal is to get the community themselves thinking about their own situation, and to start to help them look at ways to address their own needs and goals, rather than having outsiders doing all the research, analysis, project design etc, etc. Nevertheless, if you look closely at the photo, you will see that the seed distribution shows that the `rich` class is smallest in proportion, and the mid and `poor`class are approximately equal, with a slight edge perhaps for the mid class. This I  think is a reasonable, although  not a perfectly precise reflection of reality, especially when one considers that in  this  particular exercise,  the mid-class  usually approximates the majority of those attending the meeting--the exercise is a reflection of self,  so to speak.

I hope that answers the question. But let me know if it doesn`t.

Here's the final result,  although a) I'm not  sure there were 400 people.  My guess would be 200 to  250 and  b) as  is often the case, the people that ate, I  don't think really realized  how much work went into the preparation--I  wouldn't have either if I didn't see it myself. The day started with Catholic mass and I would say  maybe 50 people took part in communion. Then their  were plaques handed out to some of the elders in the  family ('the oaks'), then the meal,  then merengue and swimming. Although  with the heat, more people seemed interested in swimming.  I  did neither.

This morning my landlady, and the organizer of this family event started her  day  at 6 am  and  has  been running around ever  since  like a benevolent dictator of a tiny country, commanding her army of 4, "Get another pot!", "Don't put so much salt in!", "Go fetch me more onions!", "Make Bob some breakfast!", and so on. I've slipped away for a  couple of hours to try and get some more  data entry  done. Just a little bit everyday.

Yet another pile of surveys to plough through. The stack in the back I entered this  afternoon (about 1/6th of the total) and the stack in the front is unentered (and  about 1/3rd of the total). This survey looks much more intimidating because it is 7 pages, versus the Haiti survey which is printed on 2 pages but both surveys have approximately the same amount of questions and therefore represent the same amount of work more or  less. I've got a week and with the help of the head agronomist here, I think we can get it done. (I'm in the Dominican Republic now, by the way)

On a completely different note, the family where I rent a room when I am here is having some  kind of big family gathering tomorrow for a mere 400 people. The woman in  the middle, with the black hat on has taken on  the responsibility for preparing food for everyone. Crazy. But she owned a restaurant for many years. In the photo is one of 2 pigs they are  cooking, and I don't know probably what seems like about 50 chickens. I'm invited, and actually it seems like I'm almost obliged  to go. I'll let you know  how it goes.

Somehow in the process of answering the question in the comment to  this blog, I managed to delete the entire Sept 9 entry. So here I am reconstructing it from memory (unfortunately I also deleted the comments):

I`ve probably talked before about participatory methods. Pictured below is an exercised called a  wealth ranking (aka poverty ranking). The idea is that community members with the help of a facilitator identify the different economic classes  in their own community  and the associated characteristics that distinguish each class.  For example one of the criteria  this group  used was number of animals owned,  with the `rich`class being seen as owning 15-20 animals,  the `middle`class 2-4 animals, and the `poor` class 0-2 animals.  A number  of other criteria are identified and outlined by the group until they are satisfied with their definitions, and then  a ranking takes place. Each group member is given seeds as counters--in this case 10 seeds per person-- and the everyone  places the sees in  the three classes according to how they think those three groups are distributed in  the community. In  the end you  get a pretty revealing picture  of the economic structure of the community.

A small victory. The survey  data for Haiti is completely  entered and  now  exists in  digital  form. This  meant pretty much a solid week of sitting at my  laptop as  surveyors  brought in  the forms from the field,  typing in  the  information and then double checking  every single data point before finally sending to  the  online data base we  set up for  this purpose.  I  recently read  a  stats  analysis  book where the author claimed that he  spends  about 80% of his time getting data ready  for  analysis,  and about 20% of his time  actually  doing the analysis. I was comforted  to know  that, because  I thought  maybe it was only my problem.

Today was a rather uneventful day of meetings and data entry. Meetings to talk about research, meetings to talk about watershed management. Pouring through stacks of household surveys and typing numbers into boxes on my computer. Sorry I've got nothing more than that.

Here's a Google Earth 3D view of one of the watersheds where our work is situated. I spent the better part of this afternoon working on this and related maps. Kind of pretty, huh?

Sunrise in Haiti

More pictures of little trees struggling for survival.  One of my favourite things I guess.  

A farmer plot fenced off to protect seedlings. You can see trees growing in the fenceline and hopefully the little blobs of green inside the plot which are trees too.

Same plot up close. Not sure if you can see but there are dozens of trees here, about 1.5 to 2  metres tall. This plot is probably about 18 months old.

Another plot about 5 years old. For those who know this is the Pere Albert Memorial plot.  You can see outside the fence there is not many trees at all, and one of the culprits lurking for more food.

A tiny leucaena which has seeded naturally from the larger trees in the above picture. In a couple of years this little tree and a half a dozen others I saw scattered around will start to fill in the space in the bottom part of the plot in the picture above. Here's to you Pere Albert, where ever you are.

It was so hot in my room last night I decided to grab one of the earthquake tents  and sleep outside on the porch. This morning when I woke up, I got up and went to grab the stuff sack to start taking down the tent and this huge tarantula jumped out of the stuff sack and onto my hand. I jumped too and yelled. So lesson learned, keep the stuff sack inside the tent.