Interviews Days 3 and 4

After a bit of time off helping the Gowers with a visiting mission team, I've jumped back into interviews. On both Wednesday and Thursday I was able to complete four interviews with more random people. Previously, we had been going to the houses of people that Maria knew, or who were members of the church--it was easier to get started with people we knew! These past two days, we've just been wandering through the barrio, finding people who are sitting outside and are willing to talk. From there, people in neighboring houses get interested, or the people being interviewed suggest a friend or family member who would be willing to participate. In this way, it's becoming more of true "snowball sampling."

A few interesting observations:

• After 15 interviews, not one person has declined to talk to me, or even seemed reluctant to spend 30 minutes of their time talking to a stranger. Lifestyles here are so much more unscheduled and laid back, and since they're just sitting outside in the shade anyway, they're glad to have someone to talk to. 
• Thus far, I have only interviewed one man--an older man who interviewed together with his wife. I'm trying to decide if that's problematic or simply reflective of the social make-up here. Households are largely based around the women of the family and men are generally absent, either due to work demands or other factors.  It also tends to be almost exclusively women who attend the clinics run by short-term medical teams, so it makes sense to be interviewing them.  
• On Thursday, 3 of the people I interviewed had the resources to go to private clinics. Interestingly, they were much more critical of the lack of organization in the public system and of the quality of care in the public system overall. I'm wondering if they feel free to criticize the system because they have other options, or if their higher level of education means that they can articulate the problems with the public system more clearly. (The people who use the public system don't like it, but often don't point out specific problems.) 

 I'm glad that I'm getting some more socioeconomic diversity amongst my participants, but since I"m not specifically asking about their socioeconomic level, I'm mostly having to infer that from their education, the type of house they live in, etc.

I also got some questions answered about the insurance system here--public vs. private which is helping me to focus my questions more sharply.