I’m Back!

Only a few days to the year since I left Tanzania unsure of when I would return, I am back in Bongoland! I arrived Monday night to Mariah and family waiting for me at the airport – a bit of a relief as only a few causal emails had been sent about my arrival! The smell at the Dar es Salaam airport is so distinctive and familiar now - a mix between humidity, jet fuel, the faint smell of burning garbage and a touch of sea air. It made me smile as I left the plane, its good to be back.

The power was off when we arrived at Mariah’s aunts’ house. She had prepared Chapati and Maharege for me (my favourite Swahili foods!) and we all settled on the floor by candlelight to enjoy. I was amazed at how I could wake up in Den Haag that morning and by late evening find myself here, a place so familiar yet so very different from my home in the Netherlands.

One of many delicious dinners with Mariah at her auntie’s house.

Since arriving I have been busy getting myself sorted – first step as always is a new phone number! Unfortunately I left my TZ sim card at home so I got busy collecting the numbers of friends still here. My first week was busy with emailing/calling and confirming interviews and getting organized for my trip to the field (Dodoma) to conduct focus group discussions. After a few unexpected hurdles and one or two sleepless nights of worrying I was able to sort things out for travel this week and also squeeze in two interviews in Dar. I am also now an official volunteer with an NGO called Tanzania Youth Coalition, the organization Mariah works for. Perhaps more work for me but this collaboration has aided me greatly with my field work!

On Friday I moved to a friend’s house for the weekend and was able to catch up with folks still in Dar. Mariah’s aunties’ house was far from the centre of the city and I wasn’t able to get out in the evenings to meet friends so it was nice to catch up. Gita was such a lovely host and cooked fabulous meals, took me along to a fun house party and organized a beach day and movie night with Indian take out – a really fun few days!

After a day at the beach a sundowner to enjoy the view at Coral Beach (notice the new hair).

Monday I was able to move into my new room in the house beside the Irish bar. There seems to be all sorts of people coming and going so it should be an interesting place to live! Its good to finally have a home base and be able to unpack…though early Tuesday morning I was on a bus headed for Dodoma! A previous colleague here in Tanzania has been kind enough to take leave and accompany me to help me with the discussions in rural communities. I would have been lost without her as we navigated our way through the various district officials and administrative procedures to gain the proper permission to go out the villages! By way of luck the District Medical Officer for the region we planned to visit happened to be heading out to one of the villages Wednesday afternoon (though we had planned to travel Thursday) so we were able to catch a ride and start the focus groups rights away! He also was able to stop in another village to ask someone to gather some women the next day as well as lend us the use of his car and driver (as long as we paid for petrol). Having just arrived back today it was a productive and eye opening experience and should contribute to an interesting report…though also an incredibly ambitious and challenging task for me to have taken on in retrospect. Again, thank goodness for my super star facilitator!!

So tomorrow we head back to Dar! I am looking forward to having some time this weekend to reflect on these past few days (perhaps from a beach?) and seeing some friends I haven’t connected with yet. A whirlwind of a trip so far but so interesting and challenging! It is great to be back…

Kwa Heri Tanzania!

Well yet again time has slipped away from me and here I find myself back in Canada, unable to sleep and trying to remember why June was so busy!! Mostly because of work and the job aids project which forged ahead at breakneck speed as I tried to do as much as I could before I headed home on Tuesday. This past month we made great progress and produced first drafts of the materials, held a stakeholder review meeting and travelled out into the field to test the materials and gather feedback to develop the next drafts.

I have to admit it was very satisfying to be out in rural communities gathered with Mamas and their babies seeing them respond to the materials I helped develop. The overall response from our target audiences and stakeholders was really positive and thanks to our great illustrator folks seemed to understand the key messages through the images alone (which is important as many rural women have low literacy skills). This has been such a great project to have been involved with!

(notice the brochure)

(testing the images on one of the posters)

In other news, my photography challenge I mentioned in my last entry did not go very well. My housemate was traveling most of June and kindly left me the keys to his car so I was driving around Dar (which is hard enough without also trying to take pictures!). Its funny, when I first arrived you couldn’t have paid me to drive in the chaos that is traffic in Dar but after being accustomed to the combat style of driving as a passenger, once I got behind the wheel I realized how much I missed having a car and the freedom it provides. It’s funny how adaptable we humans can be. Now that I am home I just have to get used to driving back on the right hand side!

Anyhow I have included some random photos – though they do not nearly capture my life accurately. (walk to work)

And I am officially old. I had a lovely joint birthday with some fellow cancerians two weekends ago on an island off the coast of Dar. There were about 25 of us that stayed overnight and enjoyed good company, food, drinks and a big bonfire. Really - hosting a birthday celebration on a tropical island all to ourselves is pretty spectacular!

The 5th was my actual birthday and I gathered with friends to enjoy a nice dinner and a bit of dancing (of course). A good friend even joined the band for a few songs and performed with a few twirls with me in between – so fun! I think the funniest part of the night was when he announced to the crowd “happy 21st!” For those of you who know my ACTUAL age it’s amusing that people actually believe that (but they do!). Thanks to everyone for the lovely birthday wishes near and far!

(me and the singer, Will on my actual bday)

My last few days in Tanzania were a bit of a whirlwind. I headed to Zanzibar last weekend to catch some of the ZIFF (Zanzibar International Film Festival) and then wrapped up things at the HKI office on Monday and madly ran around Dar Tuesday saying goodbye and finishing errands before flying out that night.

(at ZIFF)

I just arrived back home yesterday evening and aside from waking at 4 am it’s lovely to be home but a bit surreal at the same time. I feel like I never could have properly said goodbye to everyone that I wanted, the way I wanted and that makes me a bit sad. I also struggle with the fact that I can just board a plane and leave all the poverty and injustices behind when the vast majority of Tanzanians will never know what its like to fly on a plane let alone travel to a place like Canada. I guess life isn’t fair.

I have learned so much over these past 10 months. Not too many answers or solutions but more a deeper understanding of how complicated development work is. Everything is intertwined and connected and there are no simple solutions. There are so many challenges and wasted dollars. There are too many people working from comfortable offices in Europe and North America who have wonderful ideas but no sense of the challenges and constraints of working in the field. However the work needs to be done and there are also lots of wonderful projects and people making differences in people’s lives. I feel optimistic and more committed than ever to this path and look forward to what is next….

Speaking of which, I have a few options at the moment and am contemplating my next steps. I know in my heart I will be back to Tanzania…it’s just a question of when.

For those of you in Canada – call me! I look forward to catching up in person. Give me a ring or drop me an email and we can make plans to see each other. For those of you in TZ, badaaye! I am not sure where or when our paths will cross but thank you for a truly incredible year.

So this adventure has come to a close. Soon on to the next….

Mikumi with Mom

Just a quick note to say that I had a lovely visit with my mother when she was here earlier this month…highlights include a rainy but wonderful visit to Zanzibar (aside from the choppy ferry ride home in which I was hugging the seat in front of me in fear and my mom was sick to her stomach along with the rest of the passengers), an incredible safari in Mikumi National Park, my mom finally meeting my Swahili family, seeing where I have worked and lived and meeting some of my new but dear friends here.

At times I think it may have been sensory overload and she certainly found it hot and humid (while we who live here have been rejoicing with this cooler, rainy weather).

The visit also made me think about how I will share my life with folks who haven’t been to visit once I return…so inspired by my mother who had no shame in taking hundreds of pictures I am going to try and start capturing pieces of my life here through photos. Not the easiest thing for me to do because I have always struggled with wanting photos for after I have left somewhere but not wanting to remove myself from being in the moment while I AM somewhere. Especially since what I love most about Tanzania is the people and my everyday encounters. But once you pull out a camera the dynamics instantly change and I still haven’t figured out how to negotiate those situations in a way that everyone feels good about in the end.

It will be a new challenge and a bit of an experiment – we’ll see how it goes…

In the meantime I have posted below some of the best shots from our Mikumi trip. Luckily the animals really don’t care about having their photos taken…in fact I am convinced that the baboons actually ham it up for the camera!

Out to the Field

May is flying by! Since I last wrote I took a quick trip to Mombassa, Kenya (long story) where I was lucky enough to be hosted by yet another MEDA affiliate. This time Ben was able to hook me up with a great place to stay, fun people to hang out with and an all round lovely one night away. Wish I could have stayed longer but Sunday morning I was back in Dar, up bright and early and on my way to Dodoma!

This trip out into the field was an incredible learning experience. The trip had a number of purposes but my role was to talk to teachers and students and assess how well the science modules on trachoma, nutrition and hygiene that HKI developed with the Ministry of Education have been integrated into the curriculum. We chose to visit Dodoma as 80 teachers from 20 schools in this district were trained on these new modules.

The first few schools we visited were impressive. Well supported by HKI they had access to water and hand/face washing stations set up in front of the classrooms. An ingenious invention, the jerry cans are filled with water with a hole near the top. A rope attached to a stick on the ground allows a child to step on the stick and get enough water to wash his/her face without wasting the precious resource.

Students also performed a skit on Trachoma for us and later, with the help of the HKI optometrist, students were screened for eye glasses. Amazingly one of the little girls was completely blind in one eye – and her teachers had no idea. It was an incredible process to watch! After the children are assessed they are provided with free eye glasses where appropriate or referred to additional testing at the nearest hospital.

The school below is supported by the World Food Programme which provides breakfast and lunch to the school children. The woman in the photo is Mama Nelly, the District School Coordinator who accompanied us out to the schools.

However over the following days we visited many schools much farther down dirt roads and hours away from Dodoma town where teachers and students struggle with no access to water and unusable latrines. Many students walk up to 5 km to school which is too far to walk home for lunch (if there is lunch to be had) and who go all day without eating or drinking. Children in these more rural areas appear so much smaller for their age due to poor nutrition and stunting. Often dirty and wearing raggedy school uniforms these children did not look well.

How can a country develop when its future are stunted from malnutrition? How can students learn when they are going to school hungry? Having a basic need met like access to water (even a water tank to collect rain water would be a start) could go so far and yet this primal human need is still a struggle for so many people around the world. And as I write this its day two of torrential down pours in Dar es Salaam…

Time Flies

Is it really May already? Friends from home have started to talk about patios and warmer weather and flip flops…its hard to believe that two seasons have passed in Canada while its been hot, hotter and now hot and wet here. I’m not sure I realized how the seasons act as such important markers of time for me and perhaps that’s why my sense of how long I have been away is a bit skewed at times.

Since I last wrote there have been lots of big changes. I said goodbye to Flora (my housemate) and moved to my new place in Kinondoni. My “cabana” as my mom likes to call it was originally designed as servants’ quarters. The building is two floors with my sitting room on the main floor and then my bedroom and bathroom upstairs. It’s a bit odd as I have to take the stairs outside to get one from the other but it works and I feel comfortable and safe here. The really lovely main house I use to cook and use the internet (yes internet at home!!) and hang out with Neil and Matt my two new Irish housemates. I am really enjoying being closer to town and the market and being able to walk to work along the ocean each day.

After moving into my new place I enjoyed a week off between my contract ending at MEDA and starting at HKI. So I headed off to Zanzibar to spend a few days in Stonetown wandering (I was lost almost the entire week), exploring prison island, snorkeling and squeezing in some Swahili lessons. It was a really relaxing week away. I stayed at my friend’s house and to my surprise she had cable!! It was such a treat and I caught the Amazing Race episode where they travel through Dar and Zanzibar – quite surreal to be watching the race through Stonetown while in the heart of Stonetown!

Once back in Dar I started my new job which has been going really well. I have been learning lots lately about vitamin A supplementation and deworming for children and new mothers and have been busy developing job aids for health workers to promote and support theses efforts. HKI has helped Tanzania achieve over 90% coverage in the area of supplementation which has quite significantly lowered the child mortality rate.

I was also able to attend a conference organized by the WHO on maternal, newborn and child health. I learned quite a bit about the challenges facing women and children in many parts of the world to access quality health care for themselves and their babies. A short film was shown at the opening of the conference that highlighted the challenges facing women in Tanzania. A woman told her story of trying to get to a hospital on the back of a bike and having to stop and labour by the side of the road in the dark alone. Two health workers described how they have 35 – 60 births at their clinic a day and only two staff. Another health worker described how they write out a list of supplies for women to bring with them (like rubber gloves) when they come to give birth as they don’t have their own adequate stock. Giving birth for many women in Africa is a dangerous and scary time and women talked about how they say goodbye to their children when heading to the clinic in case they do not return. The challenges people face in rural Tanzania sometimes feel never ending.

Also as part of my work I was able to travel to Lindi (Southern coastal Tanzania) to help out with a sensitization workshop for local government and district health officials on Essential Nutrition Actions that we will be training health workers on next month. Following protocol is very important in Tanzania and obtaining the support of local officials is essential for any work. Yet sometimes the chain of command also feels never ending. Fortunately HKI has quite a good relationship with the folks in Lindi and the work was fully supported. It was also my first visit to a district clinic and the first morning we arrived at the hospital there were almost 100 women waiting with their babies. The baba, mama and watoto clinic is one of the places that will be rolling out the ENA program and using the job aids I am developing and hopefully helping those babies to grow into strong and healthy children.

I have included some photos of Lindi above and below. Take note of the bustling airport and breezy departure lounge!

Other than being busy with work, not much else is new to report. I took a trip over Easter to Lushoto, which is lush and green and much cooler than Dar. There were about ten of us that drove up and we stayed in a lovely place nestled in the hills where they made their own cheese (my personal version of heaven). We swam under a waterfall, had bizarre experiences at local restaurants and mostly lazed around with wine enjoying not sweating. It was a fun trip, although the highlight for me was running the first morning with a trail of small children screaming (happily and not in terror for once) alongside me.

So two more months and I am home. What a crazy trip life can be. Luckily I don’t have to wait that long to see my mom – she is arriving next week and I cannot wait!! I’m sure we will have lots of adventures to report on the next time I write. I am also planning to do some more traveling out to some schools with HKI in the coming month that will require long bus rides – those are also inevitably an adventure as well! Hope all is well and you are enjoying you own adventures (small or big) wherever this may find you. I thought I should include a photo of me in case you are starting to forget what I look like! This was taken at the end of March when we threw a goodbye party for Flora before we moved out of our house. It was tons of fun and everyone was drenched in sweat from dancing all night. I am terrible at taking photos so there are lots of better pics floating around out there (especially on facebook) but unfortunately I don’t have copies!

Back to Nairobi and Wrapping Up

Since I last wrote I took an unexpected trip back to the Nairobi Hospital for some medical treatment…nothing serious just a little minor surgery and some tests that were unavailable here in Tanzania. It makes you appreciate the health system in Canada when there is not one Ear Nose and Throat Specialist in all of Tanzania (at least not one my doctor was comfortable referring me to).

I was treated to warm hospitality from a previous MEDA intern now living in Nairobi which made the week much less expensive and much more comfortable – I am very grateful to the MEDA network for continuing to be warm and welcoming to me.

Now that I am back in Dar things have started to wind down as my contract wraps up in a few short weeks. It is amazing how time has flown by but when I think back to when I first arrived it also seems so very long ago. I feel as though much has changed for me over these last six months, both personally and professionally.

So looking back, what are the highlights?

Settling in with my fellow housemates. Looking for a place to live and dealing with the wildlife in our house, black outs and water shortages would not have been nearly as much fun on my own. It’s interesting how circumstance throws people together who perhaps never would have met otherwise. Now I am not sure what I would do without you in my life!

My colleagues. Who have taught me so much about life in Tanzania, debated controversial issues, shown great patience with my Kiswahili, answered my endless questions and always, always looked out for me in true Tanzanian style! Ahsante SANA!

Opportunities for professional development. I have been blessed with an amazing supervisor (Melanie Newman) who has always been receptive, supportive and encouraging. Melanie has allowed me to work quite independently, trusted me with representing MEDA in various capacities and pushed me to develop new skills and experience while trusting that I would deliver. I have especially enjoyed helping to see the development of the Youth, Livelihoods and HIV Prevention concept through to its final draft. From establishing partnerships, to brainstorming with stakeholders and doing background research I have thoroughly enjoyed contributing to this initiative. We are now in the process of looking for funding and I am hoping to stay in the loop as things proceed over the next few months.

Unexpected moments. One thing that I appreciate most about living here is the unexpected, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes funny, sometimes difficult moments in which you are abruptly reminded that you are somewhere very different from where you grew up. These sometimes involve random interactions with strangers on the street or misunderstandings with friends or colleagues and are usually followed by my seeing something in a whole new way.

Exploring Tanzania. Last time around I climbed Kilimanjaro, toured the northern Safari circuit, lounged on the beach in Zanzibar – pretty much the top tourist activities…and yet there is so much more to do here! Exploring Islands off the coast of Dar, wandering Stonetown, hiking mountains, exploring Lake Victoria, going south to the less traveled parks or coastal towns, chimp trekking or heading north to enjoy cooler temperatures (and rumor has it great cheese) in Lushoto. So much to see and do still (and don’t even get me started on all the countries surrounding Tanzania and the many adventures to be had there).

Meeting really interesting people doing really interesting things from all sorts of interesting places. I have met a lot of people here over the last few months and the folks I tend to hang out with are doing similar work or research. Sometimes I take a step back and do a mental count of how many nationalities are in the room – and there is much to be said for the commonalities among us. It’s hard to understand sometimes why we are always focusing on the differences!

The call to prayer and the silhouette of a palm tree against the setting sun. Gets me every time and I think to myself, how lucky am I to be here in this very spot at this moment.

So I have decided to stay.

I have been offered a short term contract at Helen Keller International, which I will be starting at the beginning of April and will keep me here till July. I will be working in the area of blindness prevention and eye health, specifically supporting the school health program that HKI runs focused on nutrition and eye care. This opportunity will allow me to go out into the field and do school visits which should be very interesting. I will continue to keep updating the blog while I am in Tanzania, so stay tuned! I am looking forward to the new experiences ahead.

However, at the same time it’s hard to say goodbye. Goodbye to my good friend and housemate, goodbye to my colleagues and Melanie, goodbye to our lovely house, wildlife and all. So it’s on to a new chapter in a few weeks. Until then I am appreciating my last few days at MEDA. I have included some photos above of the MEDA Microfinance Team for your enjoyment!

Meetings & Music

The past few weeks have been incredibly busy! The MEDA Board arrived at our office on the morning of January 29th for a whirlwind visit to learn more about the work that we have been doing in Tanzania.

After a busy morning of presentations, I was privileged to take a small group to visit an unplanned settlement in Keko, Mwanga, a community nestled within largely industrial surroundings where folks lack proper access to water and waste management services (amongst many other things).

The purpose of the trip was to see firsthand some of the work that an organization called WaterAid has been doing in this area as the MEDA Microfinance team will be working with WaterAid in the coming months around these issues. I think the visit impacted all of us quite deeply and I appreciated being able to talk about the experience afterwards with some of our visitors. There are so many challenges facing the urban poor and by visiting people in their communities the reality of these challenges can be quite daunting. However, it is good to know that we are working to be part of the solution to these challenges.

The rest of the week continued with meetings with stakeholders, dinners with the Board and a reception at the Canadian High Commission. I hope that those of you who I spoke with and got to know enjoyed your travels after leaving Dar es Salaam – it was really a pleasure (and please share pics from Keko if you have some)!

After the excitement of the Board visit I resumed my focus on the Microfinance Roundtable that I was organizing to discuss how Microfinance Institutions can better support Youth in Tanzania. The event was held on February 7th and I am happy to say that it was a success. My colleague Boaz and I co-facilitated the discussion and we had a fruitful morning with interesting presentations from our guest speakers and a lively discussion to follow. Since then we have been in touch with a number of participants who are interested in learning more in this area and continuing to be involved with MEDA.

This past weekend I took a break from the meetings and took the ferry to Zanzibar to enjoy the Sauti za Busara music festival. Check out this site if you are interested in learning more and listening to some of the music: (http://www.busaralive.com/).

It was a great (although exhausting weekend) where I heard all kinds of great new African artists and danced my butt off in the centuries old open air fort. Some of my favourite acts included a Zimbabwean/UK collaboration of which the singer had a gorgeous voice and the acoustic guitar was really delicate and beautiful (http://www.netsayi.com/) and a group that included a Mozambican singer, Zimbabwean percussionist, European Trombonist and Flautist and some crazy beats sampled in – the whole crowd was dancing! http://www.servus.at/pntgm/msbn.htm Loved it!

In a bit of a crazy turn of events I made friends with a bit of a local celebrity (who will remain nameless) who invited me to spend an afternoon on his boat. Needless to say it was a great day spent snorkeling at a coral reef, listening to some good tunes and enjoying the white sand and turquoise water on a sandbar in the middle of the ocean. Only in Tanzania! Honestly, Zanzibar never disappoints (as I have discussed in previous postings).

Now that I am back from my island adventure, the next few weeks will be spent working on finishing the concept paper for the Youth, Livelihoods and HIV/AIDS project – we are almost there which is very exciting! I will let you what happens next with this initiative…