Is exactly like looking for a needle in the haystack. Or the synonym of the mandarin idiom 'Da Hai Lao Zhen' (translated to be fishing for a needle in an ocean). Or like looking for a person without a head.
As part of our
comm med research project, we also need to do interview based survey on selected residents in Kg. T (the village which our research is based on). But who are these selected residents? How are they selected? Well, this is the interesting part.
There's actually a few methods la of selecting our sampled population cz we cannot possibly interview every single one of them in the whole village. But we had to do random sampling (statistic kids shd understand the meaning of this, but for non statistic noobs its just some boring terminology really which just means a lot of work and frustration involved) instead of the much more convenient but maybe less accurate convenient sampling cz our
much loved ahem ahem wanted us to do it that way. So with the great SPSS program, we got a list of our sampled population which we were to find and interview. Sounds fairly easy? NOT.
Beautifully designed flyers to be given out as well. Come 8th of May, if u r interested to get free health screening, play games and hear us talk, then u r most welcome too.
We had all been to the village once; to the village head man's house. And prior to dividing the areas to be covered by each of us today, a mapping had already been done and it was estimated that house A will be in this area, house B in that and so on. Which supposedly will be able to assist us in finding the said house with the selected resident from the SPSS to be interview.
But alas, easier estimated than reality. In the estimated map, everything looks clear and simple enough. In real, it's the direct opposite.
This was the road me and DD was to cover. The houses we were supposed to look for is supposed to be along or around this stretch of road.
We circled this entire stretch of road umpteenth times, both by car and by foot. One hour plus had passed but the houses we were looking for were nowhere in sight. Bayang-bayang pun tak ada. Why? Mainly because most of the houses in this village,
do NOT have an address. Like really, house A is just known as Kg. T... (the name of their village). House B is also known as Kg. T... (the name of their village too). Really cemerlang one. I wonder what happens when someone wants to post things to their place. The postman must be really hebat one.
if they do have an address, the address is not the same as the one determined by the land municipal council (or whoever who determines our hse addresses). The address according to the municipal council is based on their land lot but the address they actually stick outside their door is smt else. Like totally different addresses one.
Another cemerlang thing was in the estimated map, got all the road name nicely one. But in real, it's so hard to spot any signboard at all that can tell which road were we on. Really sakit otak and can faint one. I think even gps is useless in places like this.
Why cant the gov fix nice signboards that bear the road names in the village? Why cannot make them or give them an address that is standardized with the land municipal council? Looking for houses with proper and complete addresses in itself is already at times difficult. Some more wna look for houses with
no address on a road with
no road name and
no one noes. It's really frustrating when you had to walked passed the same road dno how many times just trying to searched some invisible houses getting no where, no headstart as the clock ticks by.
Open burning in the area. The hazy appearance is the smoke from the open burning.
We decided to ask the locals for help.
But as i said, they also dno where's the hse we were looking for cz they only know the address based on what they gave themselves or the ones with no addresses, dont need to say.
Some more some of the residents totally ignored us. They were at home but the minute they heard us, they just shut their doors and dont wna choi us. Pretend like no one at home but the minute we walked away then they can come out from their house.
So sad hur hur. Got so many more to finish plus had to walked under the hot hot sun plus cannot find the houses plus hungry cz it's lunch time.
But you know what. Like everywhere else, thank God the number of unfriendly ppl was just that few. Most of the villagers were actually quite nice and friendly. They were willing to participate in the survey and tolerate our list of seemingly never ending questions and helped us finished our tasks in the end.
Most of the houses in the village are still wooden houses like this.
Damon's dung (don bother, inside joke with Mich). These are the moo moo dungs. They can be found in the middle of the road one then cars will go over them. Eeee..
Sights of the village.
They may not be as develop as the city is, but i think their life is much more tranquil and less stressful. They don seem to worry much about crimes in particular. Cz most of the houses do not have window grills, they can leave their windows open even with no one home and ppl can really look into their houses fr the open window, they don lock/close their gates even when they go out and they can leave their doors open wide and there's just one elderly or children at home. They are more healthy too i think cz they rear their own cows, goats, (fresh milk everyday!) chickens and plant their own vegetables and fruits. So organic.
Malaysia has no sakura but we got cotton tree. hehe. This cotton tree is blooming at it's max. See all the cotton flowers.
By the way, yes GIRLS, this is good news to you all. I noe we girls are often very conscious about our more voluptuous lower half, ahem buttock in particular. Well, one of this uncle i interviewed today said this,
'Kalau ada punggung tu bagus tau. Sebab kalau pesakit kencing manis tu, semua tak ada punggung. Tak percaya lain kali u tengok. Pesakit kencing manis ini semua flat sahaja. Tak ada curve.'
(If you have a butt, it's a good thing. Cz diabetic patients all have no butt. If you dont believe me, see for yourself the next time. All diabetics have flat bottom. No curvature)
He said this in response to my question if diabetes can cause weight loss despite good appetite. What he mean by saying 'having butt' is actually when one is healthy and normal in size, our bottom are usually voluptuous but when one starts to really lose weight tremendously, they will lose fat and of course, lose the voluptuouslity, thus looking flat. What a good sense of humor. haha.
At the end of the day, i realized that it's really not easy for ppl who goes door to door trying to do survey/census or whats not. We usually just turn away ppl who comes calling or knocking on our door especially when we hear that they had questions to ask and such, whats more tink about if that poor fellow is actually secretly dying of thirst and dehydration. But really, after experiencing myself today the feeling of being turn away and rejected, i realized even if it's a few mins ppl are willing to spare to complete the survey, im grateful. Therefore, the next time someone comes with a whole list of questionnaire, i wont be too haste to turn them away. :)
