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….