Incubator 101.

One of the best parts of being in Tanzania is getting to enjoy new and different cultural experiences. It is this neverending pursuit of broadened perspectives that led our hostel to attend to 13th annual Miss Kilimanjaro competition. We loaded up on a couple of bottles of Konyagi (Tanzanian spirit, $3.50 for a 1/2 litre bottle) and showed up ready to roll. The competition itself was fairly lame, and seemed more like a competetion for strippers than a beauty pagent as people would come up to the stage and give the girls money as they danced. Despite this, there were quite a few good local bands who performed which salvaged the night. The highlight of the night was this fat middle aged Tanzanian in front of us, who somehow felt the need to be the only person in the audience standing up and dancing with the choreographed performance. Of course his dance moves were not in sync with the performers and he mainly just rubbed his man-breasts as if to say "Mmmmmm I should be Mr. Kilimanjaro". Many drinks and cat calls increased this mans courage to the point that he ran up on stage and started dancing with the girls. Oddly enough, nobody did anything and after a while he grew bored and went back to his seat. Only in Moshi.

The next morning we were going out to Genesis' house for our pig roast. This was our second time out to the region but our first time actually meeting his family. If there is a heaven, I would imagine it looks something like the plot of land where the Kiwelu family lives. His house is situated about 10km outside of Moshi threw fairly thick rainforest style jungle filled with black and white colubus monkeys. The family has a very nice european style home and about 2 acres of land where they grow mangos, maize, beans, berries, coffee beans, bananas, tomatoes and hot peppers. They also kept around 40 chickens, some pigs, a couple cows, and a couple bee hives for honey. We met his four kids, who are probably the kindest children we have ever met. The food was absolutely incredible, which can only be expected when everything is just fresh from the land. Everybody had an excellent day, except for a certain someone who had too much Konyagi the night before and had to make several quick exits during the afternoon to empty their stomache.




Work has been going very well the past week or so. Besides our usual visits and presentations we have also been experimenting with a couple of our American friends at the hostel building cheaper and more efficient technologies to introduce to the community. The first things built were a stove and oven which will greatly reduce fuel and woods costs for project operators who run small restaurant businesses. To celebrate our success we whipped up some batter and deep fried a Mars bar on our stove, which was sensational. The other project we are working on is building a home made incubator since about 20% of the businesses we have met are poultry keeping projects. Buying an incubator here can be really expensive (Between $500 and $800) and we found a design to make one for closer to $20 so we decided to go around and look for the parts.




We split up to cover more ground quicker but met up with our friend Jake around lunch to pick up the goods. He was very excited to tells us about this paranoid schizoprehenic who runs an electric shop where he had found most of the electrical goods we needed. Apparently the owner had cornered Jake and told him how almost every business in town was actually a drug front and everyone in town was blind to the fact except for him. He needed our help to raise awareness so we could smash these internaional drug rings. Excited to meet this man we rushed into the shop, totally unprepared for what was waiting for us.

When we got to his store the man quickly shook our hands and without wasting any further words handed us a hand written note on a piece of construction paper. The note basically said the following - We need to watch, analyze, study, and scrutinize the comings and goings of people, particularly women, who were part of an international drug smuggling operation. These drug barons were restaurants, internet cafes, jewelers, hotels, and every other business. After this he asked us where we were from, and began rambling about the followers of Aga Khan who have set up a huge drug dealing network in Canada and told us we needed to be very careful of these people. As if to pick up his claims on drug traffickers he began pulling out scores of newspaper articles, some about 2 years, about drug busts that had taken place. We thanked him for enlightening us, paid for our goods and bid him a fond farewell.

Back at home we began the process of wiring our incubator. We were using a dimmer switch, since this allows you to control the temperature of the incubator better but on our first attempt we only managed to light up the bulb without dimming. Undaunted we spliced the cables, rewired the dimmer, and taped it back together. We learned this was a bad (and dangerous) idea when there was a small explosion when we plugged the light back in. Luckily, we had bought extra wire and were able to discard the old wire and wire our light back up again. This time, the second we put the light in the socket the power in the entire house went out. Unsure if this was due to us or just a coincedence as the power had been flickering earlier we tried again in 15 minutes once the electricity was back up. Turns out it was us. We wanted to try again, but nay sayers like Katie Baglole put an end to that idea. Clearly she isn't as interested in saving Africa as we are.




Besides our heroics we have had a recent change in plans for our travel itinerary. Previously we had planned to climb Kili around the 3rd week of June but realized that they were better things we could be going with $1200 per person. This better things materialized in the form of a 2 week trip to Uganda and Rwanda. The highlight of this trip will be gorilla trekking in Bwindi national park in Uganda, where you hike through the rainforest up to a family of silverbacks and just sit and hang out with them for an hour while they go about their daily lives. We finally got in touch with both the Ugandan and Rwandan tourism boards early last week to inquire about availability. Rwanda was booked solid, and Uganda only had permits available on the 12th of June. So long story short, on 3 days notice we decided to drop everything and boot it across country for the trip. We also plan to go white water rafting at the source of the nile, spend a couple days canoeing and mountain biking on Lake Bunyoni and many other things. The whole thing just seems like much more value for the money than just climbing Kili (which I would still love to do some day).

Anyways we have a few more little stories to share, such as our recent "business trip" to Same, but are running short on time since our 26 hour bus trip leaves in a little under 2 hours.

Just Another Day in Njiapanda, TZ

Today we were visiting the Njiapanda WODEF group as part of our weekly presentation tour. The following is our day, in sequence.

-On the way out to Njiapanda our Daladala was pulled over and turns out our driver did not have a license. As he went off to pay his bribe to the local gendarme another driver materialized out of nowhere to take his place and off we went.

-After our presentation we had to go around and visit the local projects as per the norm. However today we were transported around with 20 other ladies in the back of an old pick-up truck.

- While visiting one of the projects random people kept coming up and trying to Mzungo us. Instead of politely asking them to leave us alone, the GZA threw them away. Us Mzungos are property of WODEF and the GZA is very protective.

- As we were walking to another project we came across a stage setup for a Serengeti Lager and being Mzungos we were called up on stage to sign some gigantic soccer balls, provide a few token words of wisdom on the microphone, and Katie received a marriage proposal. She said no.

- On the way back we were given the posh treatment of shotgun in the DalaDala. This is very luxurious when you consider there are 20-odd other people crammed into the back with exhaust fumes circulating. I asked the driver in Swahili if I could driver, he said not unless I had a license. I didn't see why this should matter as he probably didn't have one either.

All things considered a pretty sweet day. Combine this with the fact that we might head to La Liga tonight (prositute capital of Moshi) I think we're well ahead of the 8-ball.

We are also invited out to the GZAs house on the weekend for pork and bananas. We are very excited. If anyone has any ideas for good Tanzanian gifts to bring please let us know.

Updates Live from Tanzania

Been keeping extremely busy and journal writing has been an unfortunate casualty. Hopefully we can resurrect the journal and try and remember the past 2 weeks as best we can.

Volunteering has been very demanding to say the least. Days can range from being very good to extremely frustrating and disillusioning. On the good side of things we have started a traveling road-show trying to teach people how to start and manage their businesses. But that story starts a week earlier when we were first told by Genesis (who will hereafter be called the GZA) that we would have to give a talk to 250 people. Then the next day he told us he was going to give a presentation and we weren’t. The day after that it was hinted that we may give a talk. Anytime we tried to ask questions about the presentation we were given the standard Tanzanian answer of a pause and then a yes.

The morning of the presentation we took a white-knuckle Dala-Dala ride out to the village we were speaking at which is an hour outside of Moshi. After a quick stop into the local government and WODEF offices to sign their registers we made our way to a half built school. We could faintly hear singing as we walked into the school which grew louder as we moved towards our classroom. The singing turned to tongue clacking as we entered the classroom filled with around 100 Tanzanians. How to react to that? Do we click our tongues back? Clearly we had stepped about as far away from the classrooms at UPEI and into the furthest regions of bizzardom and possible.

The presentation was a flying success. I spoke for about an hour while Katie signed some certificates for the attendees certifying they had successfully completed a course on entrepreneurship. Afterwards we were the guests of honour at a massive feast and visited some of the local projects.

The people of the village were easily the nicest people we have met so far in Tanzania. They accompanied us to every project and waited for us while we talked to some of the project operators. One of the most touching places we went to was the local dispensary where we stayed for tea with the doctors and nuns who worked there. Their generosity knows no bounds as they often forego a months salary to provide medical assistance to local villagers who can’t afford it. Overall, the day was one of the highlights of our trip so far and an excellent lead up to safari the next day.

Safari is much better told through the pictures we have taken rather than words. We were picked up from Moshi at 6:50 by our guide Davis who took us back to Arusha and then onwards for our adventure. Our first stop was Lake Manyara, one of the smaller national parks in Tanzania but home to a varied group of animals due to its diverse habitats. A lot of the park is forests which made for some extremely close encounters with animals. The highlight of the day was bumping into 2 herds of elephants fighting in front of us and later right beside us. Everyone was a little nervous, especially our driver about making too much noise and having the aggressive giants charge us. Katie loved the baboons the most, possibly because there is a close resemblance. We came across a couple of large primate families who were completely unfazed by us. One little guy even jumped up onto the hood of our jeep and started tasting it. The park also had some very active hippos, with one guy even waddling around out of the water. The next morning we took off for the Serengeti the largest national park in Tanzania and the largest mammal population in the world. May is the perfect time to visit the park as there are around 5 million animals there, half of which are getting ready for the great migration up to Kenya. We had our first encounters with lions, one lioness even eating a zebra a few feet away from us. We camped overnight in the middle of the park and had giraffes in our campsite. We also heard a few lion calls during the night but weren’t going to venture too far out of the tent to check ! We woke up at 6 for the sunrise and took off for another 5 hours in the park before packing up and heading to Ngorongoro Crater. The crater was formed after a massive volcanic explosion millions of years ago when a mountain larger than Kilimanjaro imploded leaving behind the world’s largest crater. We camped in the extremely cold climate of the crater rim for \which none of us were prepared. We had zebras in our campsite there and an elephant came up to drink out of our water tank. The next morning we slowly descended to the crater floor to visit the amphitheatre of death. We saw some jackals hunting flamingo and 2 lions picking clean a zebra carcass but this was no where near enough for Katie’s bloodlust. Luckily for us a lioness was setting up to hunt a large pack of wildebeest and zebras and we had front-row seats. It was very good drama, somehow the animals sensed the lion and began stampeding off in a new direction. Everyone in the jeep was rooting for the zebras and wildebeest to get away except for Katie who was out for blood. It wasn’t meant to be though and the animals got away….. for now. Later on in the day we saw 3 black rhinos (1 of which was a baby) which was very impressive considering there is only 21 left in the world. We left the trip extremely satisfied except for Katie who was hoping to hunt the rhinos for their horns. Her thirst for blood is only matched by her hunger for ivory.

Ok, I’ll take it away from here. As Jamie mentioned, the safari was a once in a lifetime, unbelievable, almost surreal experience.

On Tuesday we were back to the real world and back to work with WODEF. After the success of Thursday’s presentation, we were in high demand – the GZA lined up another presentation for Thursday and 3 for next week. Tuesday we had an office day and we prepared for our presentation and tried to make some leeway with our website (we’re trying to get a website up and running for WODEF to give them a voice abroad and to provide information to potential volunteers). We spent the remainder of the day wandering through Moshi and had our Swahili lesson that evening.

Wednesday morning we were invited to Mwanga where the villagers were putting on a traditional dance (everyday is a surprise at WODEF!). The dance was really cool – 3 male drummers sitting in the middle of a circle while they were danced around. The chairman of the Mwanga group was translating their song to us which was about the dangers of HIV. One of WODEF’s initiatives is to educate it’s members on the dangers of HIV.

We then visited several projects in the area. I had been on the hunt for fabric to have a kanga made (Africa makeshift skirt) and one of the women sold just the item as a project. I found the perfect fabric and I think that it will hold a fond memory of our visit. We then met the African superwomen – the next project was operated by a woman and went something like this: gather giant rocks from the mountains (approx. 1km away), carry rocks via buckets on her head back to home, smash rocks fearlessly with lead pipe (bare hands) into gravel, and repeat. We were blown away by this little mighty Tanzanian woman. She took a special liking to me and actually told me that she loved me – I don’t think there is actually a word in the English language to describe how sweet these people are. We then went next door and met another woman operating the same project. Again, we were impressed. We were then informed that she had given birth the previous day and had actually worked up until she gave birth. They were amused at my utter SHOCK and awe and simply said – well, we gotta eat! We were then given a feast (fried fish, fried bananas, avocado – the usual). I actually think that if I eat one more fried banana I will turn into a fried banana. They taste like potatoes by the way. So we wrapped up our visit in Mwanga and headed back to Moshi.

Yesterday we were off to a very remote village called Kahe – most treacherous dala ride to-date. Because it was headed to such a small village we got a tiny dala. The combination of giant potholes and a low ceiling left poor Jamie with big headache by the time we arrived. The dala was the most packed we’ve seen it and 2 guys actually sat on the roof. Halfway there the man on the roof dropped his baskets so we had to stop and wait while he ran back to get them and we were off again. I thought the only thing that could complete the picture would be some poultry. Low and behold, there was a woman sitting in front of us with a chicken in her bag. So we finally arrived in Kahe and we were greeted by the group members and a girl named Jennifer that would be our translator (she is also the teacher at the school). First stop – village school. Typically when we encounter Tanzanian children, they are over the hills with excitement – can’t get enough of us. These children didn’t really even smile when they saw us.

They welcomed us with a song that they had prepared for us. The translator then told us that there were singing about their needs and deprivations (chalk, food, water, a building that didn’t have walls made of cardboard, etc.).

I was a bit shocked and taken aback. But this was the poorest community we had met by a long shot. The children were quite sullen and a handful of them had very bloated little bellies and probably had severe worms which was heartbreaking.

The people were literally in the middle of nowhere and their land doesn’t have much to offer. Ok so we then started with our presentation. Our translator (Jennifer) made it to grade 8 in Kenya so spoke minimal English – this made for a very frustrating presentation. Also, it was very difficult to give these people advice as what they really need is outside support – to get our of their poverty they would need a helping hand. We then went around the community to visit projects and as per usual, were treated to lunch compliments of the local Pastor. The people were absolutely fascinated by my digital camera and we had a couple photoshoots. The women there were especially fond of me (see picture of women swarming / grabbing me) – they were awesome.

After our long day of mixed emotions we headed back to Moshi. Somehow our 30km trip took 1h30 minutes and we sat in the back of the dala breathing in petrol fumes the entire way. Lastnight we went out for dinner with the hostel gang and had some much needed beers and foosball. Today we are taking the day off and go back in tomorrow and Saturday.

Safari Shots: Ngorogoro Crater, Serengeti, Lake Manyara

Here are a couple of the close to 300 pictures we took on our Safari. We will write a proper update of the past couple of weeks, which has also included a presentation to 100 people in a village on how to run your own business but for now just enjoy the animals ! The four-days on safari flew by way to fast and some highlights included close calls with elephants and lions, camping in the middle of the Serengeti and having giraffes and zebras as visitors to our campsite

A river in the Serengeti


Baboon with baby


Mmmmm Wildebeast


Hungry lioness ready for lunch


Elephant flapping his big ears


Giraffe (and another one behind him) under African flat-top trees


Cheetah - not at all phased by us


Female lion waking from siesta


2 young lion cubs


Hippos saying hello in Lake Manyara


A young baboon tries to taste our Jeep


Gazelle on the Serengetti


Can you count how many Zebras are there (more than 2)


Elephants fighting


Baboon

Pole Pole (Slowly, Slowly... The Tanzanian Way)

Quick update as we are having some technical problems getting our journal from my laptop onto the internet here.

We have started volunteering for WODEF - Womens Orphans Disableds Development Foundation and it is going very well so far. We spend 3 or 4 days a week out in the field interviewing local business owners and then a couple of days in the office trying to come up with business solutions to try and expand their projects. Some of the projects are very simple such as selling used clothing on the street, but others are more complex such as harvesting and selling rice, or raising and selling chickens. This Thursday we are going to give a presentation to 250 people on how to start and manage a business. It seemed a bit daunting at first but a lot of these people know absolutely nothing at all so the people at the NGO seem very happy with everything we do.

Visiting the kids in the village is absolutely hilarious. As soon as they see white people they start shouting and running after us everywhere we go. One kid couldn't stop laughing whenever he was looking at us, and had to keep burrying his face in his hands. They seem to be fascinated by the freckles on Katie's arms and poke at every single one of them. Once she brought some candy for the kids, but pretty soon 4 kids had turned into 400 and a donnybrook took place.

On the weekend we went hiking around Marangu which is at the base of Kili. Very cool rainforest area with lots of jungle and waterfalls. Some of the local kids brought us a chameleon from the woods which was very cool. We tried some of the local banana beer - both banana and beer should be terms to be used very lightly. A more apt title would be Shitty mud drink stored outside in scorching heat with 10% alcohol but I suppose that wouldn't fit on the bottle.


Anyway better take off for now. We promise to try and get the full journal up with a lots of pictures sometime soon. Friday we are taking off for a 4-day safari, overnighting in Serengeti, Lake Manyara, and Ngorogoro Crater which will be very cool.

Cheers for now,

Jamie

Moshi, TZ - Home Sweet Home

May 05 2008 – Day 5 & 6 - Moshitown

We woke up at 5:30 and got ready to head out to the bus terminal. As it was still quite dark, Katie petitioned vocally to take a taxi. Luckily the night guard was able to find one for us and off we went. The bus was very nice and our tickets entitled us to free pops, water, sugar biscuits, and pipi. I don’t know what a pipi is, but if its free its probably pretty damn sweet. Driving out of Dar Es Salaam we witnessed some of the poorest areas of the city. There were massive slums filled with mudhuts and shacks without electricity or running water. We passed quite a few villages with mudhuts along the way, but none were overcrowded to the extent of the slums of Dar. Besides that, the scenery along the way was awe inspiring. The trip was interspersed with jungle and rolling mountains. About 40 KM outside of Moshi we witnessed the biggest mountain of them all – Kili. Truly massive. The 8-hour bus-ride to Moshi flew by and before we knew it we had arrived.

We had to wait at the station for Denis from the hostel to come and pick us up. While we waited we were hassled by a few touts, although they seemed to relent once we told them we were volunteering. As it’s the slow season right now, I imagine there is only a fraction of the touts around as there normally is, which is lucky for us. The hostel itself is located in a quiet part of Moshi, just outside of the main center. The hostel is in its own compound, guarded 24 hours a day by Masaai guardsmen equipped with spears and bow and arrows (and pet monkey). Besides having a monkey on the grounds, we also have 2 dogs, 3 turtles, a plethora of lizards and geckos and enough insects to feed them until the end of time. There are lots of palm trees on the land, as well as a banana tree and a nice big garden out back. Denis took us through the main hostel, and out back to where we will stay. Luckily for us we have our own room in a guest house shared right now with an Australian couple. We met the other 10 volunteers staying at the hostel and took a quick nap.

Amanda, one of the girls who runs the hostel, woke us up in a little bit for supper. One of the perks of Hostel Hoff besides its name and shrine to the Hoff, are that breakfasts and suppers are all included and cooked for you. Laundry is also included in board fees which makes it possibly better than home as you don’t have to endure passive suggestions that you should learn to wash your own clothes. We signed up to take Swahili lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, another service offered here. The people seem really nice and I really think we will enjoy staying here. Over dinner we made some quick plans to go on Safari with the Australian couple within the next 2 weeks.

The next day we got up for breakfast and made a long overdue trip to the internet café (as most people reading this will know). Later we were shown around Moshi by Irene, a girl who works at the hostel as well as the organization we plan to volunteer for. Moshi seems like a very small and slow paced town. There are 2 main shopping strips, almost all tailors or shoemakers. Some are tailor/shoemakers. Finally she took us into WODEF to meet the people we will be volunteering with. WODEF as we’ve been told stands for Widows Orphans Disabled Foundation. The E apparently doesn’t stand for anything, or maybe something in Swahili. Nobody seems to know. Anyways the head of WODEF, Genesis (like the Bible not the gaming console), was a really friendly and welcoming guy. He seemed very pleased to have us there, and the feeling was mutual. From what we picked up from our conversation today is that we will be visiting different grounds around Moshi, both urban and rural and helping with different events. For some groups we will be visiting local entrepreneurs and help with business and marketing plans. For others we will visit with orphans and teach English. Although it would be nice to stay in one place and maybe make more of an impact, I think this is a great way to experience a lot of what Africa really is. Tomorrow we will go in and shadow a couple people for the rest of the week before starting to go out on our own with interpreters next Monday. Scary thought, as we haven’t really been given teaching plans and I’m not sure how relevant my Weighted Average Cost of Capital or Lease vs Buy lectures will be (sorry Sean Hennessey) but we will have to see. We headed home for our first Swahili lesson where we picked up some helpful knowledge for our day to day activities.