Teachers... and rough days

All I have to say for tonight: I definitely couldn't be a teacher. (Good job, mom -- I have increased appreciation!) I have spent the last two nights from like 7 - 11pm reading survey after survey after survey from my "kids" who are gathering business and agriculture data for me in the community. I feel totally like I am correcting papers -- 50 of the same survey, each night. AND I have to find their mistakes... no matter how many times I instruct them on the intricacies of our 50 questions, there's always someone who manages to totally miss what I say and make the mistake that I tried so hard to preempt. I just have no attention span for this "paper correction" process, and am really sick of repeating myself. siiiiiighhh!

Today I was totally grumpy because we were up really late working on our data and then had our usual 630am wake-up -- AND THEN in the field I distributed the blank surveys produced by the Isibania IT shop (which is oddly called Charity Computers) WITHOUT fully checking them -- only to find they'd mixed up mine and Crystal's copies. So one of the Nuru employees had to run out on a 'boda' (motorbike -- our form of transit) and track down all my guys in the village to get them enough of my actual surveys. I think unfortunately my grumpiness translated to impatience with the guys and their (in)abilities to understand my every word (which they generally do a surprisingly good job of, given their limited prior exposure to my mzungu accents and terminology).

Other things that made today a rough day in 'field work land':

• In the middle of one of my interviews, a cow walked between me and my subject, stopped, and took a really large dump.
  
• Gaby forgot her coffee on the counter, and hence was also grumpy.
• Crystal was ridiculously dehydrated, and hence was generally unhappy.
  

Chelsea made brownies in a pot over charcoal tonight, though, which basically made most stuff better. (It didn't correct my papers for me, though.)