Time for an update!
After meeting up with Hadi yesterday, I spent this morning briefing the rangers on the methods we will be using in the study.
Simple questions, such as how many livestock do you own, how long have you owned livestock and household size.
Participatory mapping of grazing areas and livestock depredation sites.
Predator ranking using cards with pictures of species and perceived distribution of various species in the wadi.
And then some more advanced questions, such as do you have problems with livestock diseases and how has grazing changed over the last century.
We did several role play sessions where a ranger would be a livestock owner and then another as the translator. This really helped to identify the more complicated sections of the interview and allowed us to practise these further.
The rangers have varying levels if English vocabulary, but the participatory nature of the interview helps to ease the pressure on the translator. Nonetheless, with consent I will be recording the real interviews using a dictaphone in case I choose to translate and transcribe.
So progress was going great until….we went to collect the vehicle and discovered the four new tires that were meant to have been fitted a week ago were not fitted! Omani time.
Estimated completion date – 1 week.
We are looking in to other options, but if worst comes to the worst and I don’t make it to the field site, I will only lose 4 research days.
Will I make it to Wadi Sayq this week?
Stay tuned for my next update!