Community work during rainy season

In Malawi rainy season  is experienced between November and April though the trend seems to be changing during these recent years, with such an experience  community based studies have hectic time visiting households. Chikwawa district  is one of the districts that is prone to flooding in Malawi, this is because its topography is  very flat and is also located on the west bank of shire river.  In December 2015, i had a rare opportunity to join one of our study teams  carrying out their community engagement activities within the area we are currently working in and on that day it had just rained the previous night.  The village we  expected to visit is located about 15 kilometers from our field site but getting there was not as easy as we used to travel during dry season. This time the roads were almost impassable however with the help of community members from the same area we had to find our way to the village as they were eagerly waiting for us the whole morning. Having

Community members crossing a small river

Crossing the river

 such an experience i visualized how hard it is for the study team to conduct their activities during the entire season which had just started. One of the  team members shared with me his experience saying that sometimes they reach a point where the fail to visit other villages because the villages are not accessible either by motorbikes or vehicles. The same problem affects the villagers because they can not access any health facility once they are sick, children are the most affected because the areas are Malaria endemic. Such harsh working conditions do not only affect the study team but also  extend the period a study is conducted. On the other hand for some reasons carrying out community engagement  during this period might also become a problem because the villagers always expect  handouts from  organizations  helping out flood victims. For other villages that are not heavily affected by floods, the villagers spend most of their time in farm and its not easy to book meetings for either scheduled follow ups or other activities. One thing i noted for sure was the stress  that originate from this whole experience;  the study team has its targets to achieve by the end of the day, that means they have to get in the villages on time but unfortunately the terrain of the roads do not allow that to happen easily. With that in mind i decided to understand this all the more.