Sai Hankuri

Requiem for a Project: The Follow-Up Derailed

As I said at the very beginning of this blog, anthropologists spend months (sometimes years) crafting the perfect project.  The most fundable project.  But, exigencies in the field often mean that these pieces de résistance transform into deformed versions of their former selves – sometimes mutating beyond recognition.

I might have also mentioned that I am stubborn. And a bit of a perfectionist.

By way of apology, keep that in mind.

At the beginning of this project I intended to follow women home after their fistula repair surgeries to conduct a second interview and interviews with their family members, hoping to uncover how post-surgical identities are negotiated.  Does stigma disappear once a woman’s fistula is closed?  My project felt novel, theoretically interesting, ethnographically rich, methodologically exciting.

But I figured out pretty quickly that this second phase, the phase where I followed women home, wasn’t going to work.  The list of reasons is long.  And the threat of kidnapping by al Qaeda isn’t even at the top.

It shakes down something like this:

1. Women hide their fistulas. The majority of women with whom I spoke made significant efforts to conceal their sickness for years or even decades from some or all of their social contacts.  My presence alone could jeopardize a woman’s identity as a well person (not to mention how ethically remiss interviewing her family members would be)
2. Women aren’t getting surgeries. At the time of the initial interview, women in my sample had stayed an average of 5 months at their respective clinic (some had been at clinics well over 2 years), and the majority had not yet received operations.  So, by the time the second phase of my project rolled around, most women were not at home.  They were just where I left them. Waiting to be seen.
3. Women’s surgeries aren’t succeeding. About half of my sample had undergone between 4 to 9 previous unsuccessful surgeries. Indeed, of the women who actually received surgeries during the first phase of the project (about half of the women), only 36% left the clinic dry. It is hard to study the effects of a change if no change has occurred.
4. (As promised) al qaeda.

Still, it was such a nice idea. And I thought that follow-up interviews were important.  Necessary even.  Besides, I had such a solid plan!

So, determined to stop the metamorphosis, I compromised — starting off with just a handful of follow-up interviews with women close to or in the capital of Niamey.  I called all of the women before hand, explained what I wanted to do, and double-checked that I wouldn’t be ‘outting’ her if I showed up.

Zara’s house is a shed-like structure in the corner of a large lot where the carcasses of ravaged semi-trucks go to die (or potentially to be fixed, although I saw none of that).  Her father is the guard at this place, so they stay there rent-free. The house has walls made from a handful of wooden beams and plastic tarps. The ground is sand. The roof a single sheet of corrugated tin. She lives with her father, her stepmother, and their children.  About 10 of them call this place home.  Although there is tension between her and her stepmother, particularly since her father has been ill and money’s gotten tighter than usual, she explains that here she can eat at least one meal a day. Her mother, who lives in a neighboring country, can go two days without eating anything.  So she stays here and makes do.

I ask if there is anywhere private we can go.  We all look around and Zara laughs.  The latrine?  Snuggle in with the family of goats that have made themselves at home in the back of a skeletal truck? So, we whisper instead.

Zara is healed.  About two months ago I drove Zara from the clinic and dropped her off at home.  She isn’t leaking.  She’s a success story.

Still, Zara came to the city to seek care several years ago.  For many years she’s kept to herself.  Like most women, Zara employed various strategies of self-regulation — she never left the house for fear of leaking at an inopportune time, she forewent making friends and opted for a safe invisibility instead.  Zara doesn’t leak anymore, but she still doesn’t go out.  I ask why, and she seems to be caught in a catch-22.  She says that she doesn’t  go out because she doesn’t have any friends, and if you don’t go out, how can you make friends?

As I anticipated, the interview was fruitful.  She explained to us that fistula is stigmatized only when coupled with poverty.  She spoke of disease and structural violence. She dodged questions about her relationship with her family (for obvious reasons).  She spoke of fears of remission, suspicion of men, and lingering shame.

A few times a neighbor, a friend of her father, or someone with some business at the truck graveyard would walk in.  They’d say hello and begin prying into who I was and what my business was.  “So where was Zara?”  “What was wrong with her?”,  some would ask me in French (a language Zara does not speak).

I lied.  I hedged.  I pretended not to speak French well enough to understand. I didn’t feel good about it.I began to see how my presence was dangerous for Zara.  How concealment work continues long after there is nothing left to conceal.

We wrapped up our interview, and after several uneasy glances, and redoubled efforts on the whispering front, I asked “You’d prefer that I didn’t interview your family members, yes?”  Zara nodded.  I apologized for the inconvenience and went home.  Swallowing my pride, soaking in my guilt, and looking more seriously at the mutant that would be my new project.