What to expect when you're expecting to do some quantitative research in rural Nepal: Part 1

Many of you (OK, let’s be honest, only some of you) have asked the following, very appropriate question: What exactly are you doing over there in Nepal?

The answer, right now, is a multitude of different things and they include, but are not restricted to: Running away from small children who believe that I, on account of my white skin, have pockets full of candy; and roaming around rural villages with a saddle-bag that is (in reality) stuffed with survey packets and dull pencils.

However, currently, our main objective is to collect 300 questionnaires from teenagers about their economic status, emotions, and ideas about caste-ism. Teenagers, and this may come as a surprise, are particularly… challenging. They are simply too cool. Kids are easy. They can be lured by candy. Adults are easy. Playing on their compulsion to chastise, all a foreigner need do is make cultural blunder before they feel it’s their moral obligation to correct you. With finesse, such a reprimand can quickly transform into a mutually agreeable conversation about the weather, kids these days, or the perils of drinking un-boiled milk. Kids want you to teach them. Adults want to teach you. But teenagers… they want NOTHING to do with you.

I’m pretty sure I now know how it feels to be a Grade 3 Creeper, as we spend considerable effort strategizing about “how to get closer to the teens.” We’ve tried offering candy and treats; we have followed them home; we have asked their friends to tell us the whereabouts of other friends; we have laid in wait outside the school, ready to pick off the stragglers at recess; we have loitered near playgrounds and soccer fields. Yes, our methods in finding these 300 consenting kids to survey certainly smack of sexual predation, though it truly is ethnographic work. I think we’ll get a van for next field season.