Data Collected!

Last week I followed up with Lian about when, exactly, she thought my best shot at distributing an attitudanal survey on community views of domestic violence would be and she said, I think at the opening ceremony of the Women’s School. 

When is that, again?  I asked. 

Wednesday, she said. 

So with a solid five days ahead of me I set out to create maybe the least-scientifically sound questionnaire ever created by man.  For those of you who are interested, the process of how I did so is detailed below:

First survey, son!

First, I began by pulling every validated domestic violence/intimate partner violence-related instrument I could find off of the Internet, compiling them into one massive list, and pestering Sondang on all of her cigarette breaks (there are a lot of those) until she agreed to go through the contenders with me.  Then, I sat with her, read aloud each possible option and discussed which ones she thought would and would not fly.  Often the wording on the validated items was changed to try to increase its cross-cultural translatability…so lord only knows if they remained valid.  Sometimes, we also made Eka—Sophie’s 19-year-old pregnant, live-in nanny—sit for some of the questions to see if they made sense to her.  Then, after widdling down the list, I put in a 5 point Likert Scale format (Strongly agree-Strongly disagree), complied with Sondang’s demand that space be present for the women to opitionally and qualitatively explain their answers, and, with one day to go, handed it over to her to translate.

When will I get over how cute Lian's legs are?

The night before the opening ceremony I diverted Lian away from a nap and instead demanded she sit with Sondang and me in our Poso hotel, approving each item.  At that point, Sondang typed up a version of an informed consent page that included things I shouted out to her as I thought of them and we passed it on to a “layperson,” Ibu Lina, to make sure everything made sense.  This process was officially capped off by everyone—Lian, Me, office manager ChiChi, docu filmmaker Sue, facilitators Ibu Masna and Ibu Lina, renegade Sondang, driver Sam, and cutie Sophie—dropping by a late night copy place/internet café somewhere in Poso after dinner to wait patiently while one man single handedly photocopied 130 versions of the questionnaire and individually stapled them each together.  I bought 2 boxes of pens.  Didn’t want to just assume women would show up with them.  That night, we passed out the survey to all of the facilitators, I fed them chocolate, and we went through the items together with Lian translating, trying to ensure that they all understood what each question was asking. 

Masna and the early arrivers

Seriously though, that would annoy you too. 

The first hour of the ceremony was reserved for the women to fill out the survey.  Ibu Masna, one of the facilitators, explained what it was to the women as they trickled in.  I sat anxiously on the side with my arms folded, tapping my foot, and imagining all the ways the directions were not being explained to each woman uniformly, convincing myself that there would be nothing reliable or accurate about the information I was collecting.  Sondang sat there next to me telling me I had to learn to let go.  She had also done this twice the night before.  The first time was when I told her no one could go to dinner yet because I needed to reformat the entire questionnaire so that “Sejutu” (or Agree) could fit on one line.  Then second was when I requested that she read over all five pages of the questionnaire for errors before we rushed off to the printer's.  She said absolutely not. 

Just some interfaith ladies, coming together post-destructive conflict to find peace and share their thoughts on DV!

So that’s how it happened.  That fast.  And when it was all over, I had 65 complete answers from women aged 21-60, of Christian, Islamic, Catholic, and Hindu faiths.  And as it’s been explained to me—and as I agree—for many of the women, it was the first time anyone had ever asked them their opinions on these things.  Can a woman divorce her husband if he physicaly hurts her?  Should others be allowed to intervene if a husband is physically hurting his wife?  Is a husband entitled to have sex with his wife whenever he wants?  Does a husband own his wife’s body? 

Again, work here is often work done for the first time.  I’m not gonna try to take this data over to Psych Services or journals of that stature, but it’s sort of cool to feel like I accomplished even this.  I feel like it’s providing a lot of insight into the attitudes here and I feel like it’s a solid start.