When we got to Jaipur, the first thing we did was to go to Unicef and explain our research plan to the Unicef-Jaipur regional office. We were lucky to be provided with 22 full time data collectors! The data collectors were students at the Home Science department of the University of Rajasthan. They spoke Hindi, English (with varying ability!) and Marwati (one of the local dialects). I was amazed at how difficult it was to communicate with the data collectors. I have never had that problem before in India! Some of them spoke quite well, and others not so well. Many of them were shy to speak English around us.

The Unicef office left the training of the data collectors up to us, but the entire thing was conducted in Hindi, so it was a sort of awkward situation. They practiced conducting focus groups, key informant interviews and a survey. We also trained them in the proper way to weigh and measure children. It went smoothly but I felt sort of odd "training" a whole bunch of other graduate students when I had less experience in village situations than they did...but I guess it was our research so we had to let them know how we wanted it done.

Mary with a stadiometer (measures height) in front of the Jaipur Palace Hotel where the training was held.

Girls Practicing Conducting a Focus Group