out to the wild west

so, i think the one of the last substantive posts i did was just a lazy copying and pasting of my research proposal for this year. what that post managed to conceal, of course, is that it is the fruit of years and years of secondary-source research practice, strong analytical and verbal skills...and a tremendous ability to bullshit my way into situations in which i feel ultimately out of my depth. i certainly never concealed the fact that i have virtually nothing (ok, just nothing) in the way of field research experience. but, given my blithe confidence (and, to be fair to myself, legitimate excitement at the possibility of new data sets...god, how do i have friends), it didn't, y'know, really come up.

and now, my friends it is time to pay the piper. i leave tomorrow for humla (which, if you look back at the original proposal, is a change of plan), which is, arguably the most remote district in nepal...one of the last truly roadless places in the world....'cause that sounds like just the sort of thing i do for fun, right? i am going to be using methodologies (rapid assessment/participatory rural appraisal), with which i have only a desk-chair familiarity in a place where the language barrier will be significant, working with a translator whose english skills are about at the level of my nepali skills (if that).

basically, there is no part of this little adventure that doesn't turn me into a quivering, gelatinous pile of anxiety.

i am a jello mold of neuroses.

with that said, i had a long chat with a friend who's just spent about eight months out in humla. i don't know whether it was the sage advice or the multiple beers, but it really helped. he helped me recalibrate my expectations of myself and this trip significantly, reminding me that field work is always unpredictable, no matter how prepared you are, and that this will be a valuable experience, no matter what kind of data i get on this particular jaunt. and he said, and i believed, if only for a second, the magic words: "and that's ok".

we'll see if i still feel that way when i haven't showered or eaten anything but buckwheat pancakes for two weeks, and am trying to hitch a ride out of the district on a WFP rice 'copter before i get snowed in...but i guess we'll have the answer to that when i get back in a few weeks.

let's dance.