Last Post From Africa

Saturday, Spetember 25 - This is my last scheduled post from Africa.  If there is another African post, it will mean I've had transportation problems of some type.

Don in front of his new TZ business

Typical Marketplace Shop

More Shops

Dala-dala - Holds 20 people

Peddle-power Sewing Machines

My favorite memories of TZ will be the warm, open, friendly, helpful people and the amazing animals.  This is a place you should experience.

That's all until I get home.

Hard Work

I am totally amazed at how hard people here work.  Many people work at manual labor jobs where people-power is used rather than machine-power.  This is good because it employs more people.

Education is another place where we see hard work in action.  Primary school (K-6) is provided by the government.  There are also private primary schools.  There are national exams which last all day for a week to get into secondary school.  If you don't get a high enough score, you move to the manual labor group.  You may be selling oranges or cell phone chargers on a street corner or working on a farm. 

There are both private and public secondary schools.  Only 10% of the students attend secondary school.  If you score well enough to enter seconary school, there are 4 levels.  These are called Forms 1-4.  Each year you must take a national exam (all day for a week) to see if you can progress to the next form.  If you complete all 4 forms, you can go to Forms 5 and 6.  Forms 5-6 would be similar to our community colleges.  It is very unusual to get through Form 6.

Then you can apply to a university.  Again there are public and private universities.  As in the US privates cost substantially more than publics.  The government offers loans (no scholarships) to university students.  These are repaid with interest beginning one year after graduation.

I spoke with a Form 3 girl yesterday who told me her dream was to attend university, but that she needed to really excel if she was to achieve this dream.  She wanted a career where she had her own job, rather than working in her father's restaurant.

Good sites

Tee shirts and sweatshirts are very popular attire for people in TZ.  Many of these are donations from US groups.  It makes for some good laughs seeing what some people are wearing.  Last Sunday we were in Bomalongombe and attended church at one of the preaching points of the Lutheran church.  We saw a girl approaching the Roman Catholic church wearing a bright pink sweatshirt that said in large letters across the front, "I'm not FAT. I'm knocked up!"  I wonder if she knows what it says.  This morning we saw a young guy with a "Chick Magnet" tee shirt on.  Again, does he know what it means?

I'm at a place called Neema Craft which employs handicapped people who make clothing, jewelry, greeting cards, etc.  It's a neat group to support.  They have an awesome restaurant with a balconey overlooking the street.  It also has an internet cafe and is a WIFI hotspot.  Good group to support.

Two days until I leave for my return trip to the US.  I'm taking a public bus from Iringa to Dar Es Saalam.  That should be interesting.  I will catch a taxi from the bus depot to the airport.  The rest should be easy.

Thoughts on Tanzania

I am nearing the end of my time in TZ.  Today I walked for over an hour alone in Iringa and never saw another caucasian.  I wandered through the markets, past small shops and through the hospital grounds.  I never felt threatened in any way.

TZ is an interesting country.  Religion is a very important aspect of everyday life here.  About 1/3 of the country is Christian and 1/3 Muslim.  The rest have no belief or believe in traditional, "native" religions.  Everyday I see kids walking to school.  There will be groups of Muslim girls walking with groups of Christian girls.  I have seen very little friction of any kind.

This is a year of the presidential election in TZ.  We asked one of the university research assistants that Don works with if religion played a part in the election.  He gave us a funny look and asked why would religion play a part in politics.   Interesting comment.  I can remember when John Kennedy was running for president and the "talk" was that if he was elected, he would be taking orders from the pope.

Don is off at a pastor meeting talking about agriculture and the need for the pastors to be leaders in this effort.  I opted to stay back in Iringa, read, relax and explore.  We had a very traditional meal last night at a small place called Mama's.  It was kitimoto, ugali and chipsies.  The chipsies are like French fries.  The ugali is the traditional dish of the working poor (most of the country).  It's corn flour dropped in boiling water and made into a ball of tasteless goo.  It is thicker than oatmeal or grits.  It will stay in a ball shape if you mold it into one.  The kitimoto is cooked pork.  The cook will hack away at a side of pork and cut everything into pieces about 2" in size.  It can be deep fired but last night it was cooked in a hot sauce.  You eat everything with your fingers.  It would have been nice to have a napkin, but pants and hankie had to be my substitute.

All in all, this has been a marvelous experience. I look forward to returning.

Safari Time

On Tuesday, September 21, Don and I drove to Mwagusi Camp for our safari. This camp is in the Ruaha National Park. The park is 100 km west of Iringa and the camp is 25 km inside the park. Mwagusi Camp can be checked out at www.mwagusicamp.com. The camp holds 26 people at maximum capacity and has 35 full time staff along with 12 trainees. That means you have almost 2 staff per guest. If you want to sit at a table, there is always someone to pull your chair out and help you sit.

We stayed in a banda which is a tent with a thatched roof, a porch overlooking the river and a full bathroom. Thatched roof structures make up the office, dining room and every other structure in camp. We had a large, male elephant in residence in the camp. He was standing outside the banda of one couple who were to join us for the afternoon game drive yesterday. They couldn’t leave until MR. ELEPHANT left. So, we waited for them.

Going on a safari has been a lifelong dream for me. This was better than I expected. Ruaha Park is unusual because there are very few tourists at any one time. In the Serengeti if one group finds a pride of lions, they will be quickly joined by 10 other groups. It has become very commercialized. On 3 occasions we sat along with groups of lions. We were so close to a giraffe that I needed to use the wide angle setting on my camera to get all of the creature in the picture frame.

The food in camp was beyond wonderful. Last night we had dinner under a full moon at a table sitting on the dry bed of the Great Ruaha River. This was not the trip for weight reduction. I guess I’ll work on that next week. For brunch today, we sat overlooking the Great Ruaha River and watched herds of 100s of impala coming for a morning drink of cool water. I have more pictures than I know what to do with.

We are off to a meeting tomorrow to see a group of pastors. I wonder if they will be as exciting as the Ruaha animals.

Greater Kudu

Zebra Brothers

Nap Time

Good Ears

Tea Country

Today, Monday, September 20, I spent the day with Ray Menard and his wife Lonnie touring a tea producing cooperative.  This was near the town of Mkonge which is south of Iringa past Mafinga.  This area is at the same altitude as Boma, around 6,500 feet above sea level.  The countryside is made up of gently rolling hills covered in tea plants.  The tea fields were a brilliant green.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Tea grows on bushes which seem to be only 12 - 18 inches tall.  These remind me of bonzai trees.  They are constantly being trimmed to keep them at this helight.

We saw people hunched over with large baskets on their backs plucking tea leaves.  They work a 12 hour day and are paid $2.65 per day if they pluck 200 pounds of leaves.  Seems like a really good way to have a back ache at the end of the day.  Migrant workers are used by many of the large corporate plantations.  We were meeting with a cooperative made up of over 500 small farmers.

Once the tea is plucked it must be taken to the processor within a couple of hours.  Otherwise, it starts to spoil.  At the processing plant it goes through a drying process and is chopped into fine pieces.  It is then sorted and graded and fermented before it is packaged for sale..  TZ tea is supposed to be among the best teas in the world.  We'll see.  I bought some to bring home.

Tomorrow our safari begins.  Two days of animal viewing should be a blast.

Bomalongombe #2

This is an amazing place.  It sits about 6,500 feet above sea level.  There are lots of trees and the soil is very fertile.  This is a stark constrast to the other parts of TZ I have seen.  I've rarely seen greeen trees and the soil seems to be red clay and difficult to farm.  Corn and potatoes are the main crops in the Boma area.  The houses are different from Iringa, Kidibaga and Tungamalenga.  Here wood is the basic building material rather than bricks.  This structures in this town resemble Guatemala which also has an abundance of wood.

Boma has electricity because CEFA, an Italian nonprofit aid organization, built a hydroelectric plant.  They built a dam on a small river at the top of a hill and directed the water through a spillway and into pipe.  The pipe ran down the hill to a building which held a turbine which was spun by the rushing water.  Pretty slick.

We took part in a 2 1/2 hour worship service.  It was shorter than usual because the main pastor wasn't there.  It was the most spirit-filled, liveliest and most fun service I've been to in a long, long time.  The time flew by.  The music absolutely rocked.  I recorded some of the music on my phone.  It's pretty good.

We then had a 2 hour meeting with the town leadership where Ray Menard updated the group on the plans to build a potato storage facility.  The town wants it done immediately.  Ray has convinced them to form a co-op to gain group buying and selling power.  It was a really positive meeting.

Bomalogombe

Tomorrow, Saturday, September 17, Don and I are traveling with Ray Menard and his wife to Bomalogombe.  This is south of Kidigawa.  Ray is planning to develop one of his Cheetah Development project in Boma.  This is a potato growing area and the village needs a way to store potatos and move them to market when the price is advantageous.


Ray is having meetings with the church elders on Saturday afternoon.  We will be observers at the meeting.  We will stay overnight in Boma, attend church on Sunday and return to Iringa Sunday afternoon.

Should be interesting.

Abandoned House

It is impossible to drive for more than 10 minutes without seeing another abandoned house. This one seems to be in better repair than most. The new house was being built a few feet away from this one.

Today we drove to Tungamalenga and saw this scene repeated mile after mile.  More on that trip in a different post.

Arid Hillside

I know Africa is huge and contains every type of landscape available – from the Sahara desert to dense jungles. This is the dry season in TZ and here is a typical arid hillside in the Iringa region. It looks like Arizona. I don’t know if this hillside is lush and green in the rainy season.

Brunch

A tradition in TZ is to invite visitors into a home for tea and treats. Upon arriving in Kidigawa we were escorted into the pastor’s house for tea. There were 2 plates of what we thought were mondazis. Mondazis are similar to big donut holes about the size of a billiard ball. They are fairly dense and have a slightly sweet taste. We were told one plate was mondazis and the other was bagiyas. Our translator pointed to the bagiyas and said, “Pigeon.”

Well. I wasn’t super excited about being the first to try the pigeon. I had these visions of feathers and beaks inside the dough ball. It turned out they were very similar to mondazis only salt had been added to the dough rather than sugar. Sadly, no feathers or beaks. I don’t know what the pigeon reference was all about.

I did learn that a good way to enjoy these was to have a mondazi in one hand and a bagiya in the other.

Kidibaga

Thursday, September 16, we went to the remote village of Kidibaga. It is about 1 ½ hours southeast of Iringa. The first third of the trip was on paved roads. The rest was dirt, gravel, ruts and bumps. We went to tell them their sister church in Forest Lake, MN, won’t fund another year of agriculture test plots unless they move their test fields. The test fields were in a very remote location and no one went to tend the fields. Hence, they got very poor yields of corn. The whole idea of the test plots was to show them that they could increase yields if they followed recommended farming methods. Part of their responsibility was to tend, water, weed the fields. They were not happy to hear this news.

They did find a field near one of their preaching points which looked good. Now, we need to get them to commit to working and weeding the field. We will present this proposal to the church in Forest Lake and see if they will fund another year. I hope they do because this village is not growing enough corn to feed themselves. They need some new methods which will increase their yields. This area has been hit with 3 years of drought which doesn’t help the matter.

Furniture Store

This is a familiar scene in TZ.  There will be a shop which features woodworking.  They will be taking raw lumber, and using hand saws and chisels, and making bed frames and/or frames for sofas and chairs.  Located close by is usually an upholstery shop which will take the chair frame you purchased from the neighboring woodworker and complete your chair.  Sometimes there will be an inventory of 2 or 3 chairs or sofas in front of the upholstery shop.  I don’t know if these are completed products to be delivered or picked by the owners or if they represent completed inventory ready for purchase.

The landscape is so dusty that I think it would be impossible to keep this furniture clean before it is purchased or delivered.  That may just be my Western way of seeing the world.  I guess when houses don’t typically have windows, that a little dust isn’t a big problem.

Heavy Load

So many interesting sites pass by our balcony.  This morning, while eating breakfast, these two guys came pushing and pulling this cart of fresh produce.  A short distance from here the road becomes a bumpy gravel road.  Their work will get substantially more difficult.  I think I could do an entertaining picture show just of sites from the balcony. 

For example, yesterday during lunch a group of more than 100 teenagers came marching by 4 abreast.  Each was carrying a rifle and they were chanting army-style.  One person was calling cadence.  They marched off to the northeast at noon and back to the southwest in the late afternoon.  They were not in uniform.  Don’t have a clue what was going on.

Maasai Shop Lady

Wandering around Iringa one day we found a small Maasai gift shop along our regular walking path to the marketplace.  We were admiring the hand work and the shop keeper told us about a larger Maasai shop away from our normal track.  The two shops were obviously connected otherwise she would have never told us of the other.  This is the larger shop’s key sales person.  Who could resist buying from her? 

An interesting Maasai tradition is that the men, who are cattle herders and warriors, also are the main hair braiders.  We have seen Maasai men sitting on a rock with a woman on the ground getting her hair braided.  Also, wandering through a marketplace yesterday, we saw a woman in flip flops having her toe nails painted by a male shop keeper.  I’m not sure any woman would want me braiding her hair.

We will visit the Maasai shop again.

Time

What time is it?  When does the day begin?  In the Swahili culture the day starts at sunrise.  In the Arab world the days starts at sunset.  In the Western world the day starts at midnight.  Since most of East Africa sits on the Equator, the sunrise is at 6:00 a.m. and sets at 6:00 p.m.  You get 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness every day of the year.  Thus, the day begins at 6:00 a.m.  

The Swahili day divides into these time periods:

·         Alfajiri – early morning when the morning light has started to shine, but the sun has not risen

·         Asubuhi – morning time between sunrise and a little before noon

·         Mchana – around noon to around 3:00 p.m.

·         Jioni – 3:00 p.m. to a little before 7:00 p.m.

·         Usiku – 7:00 p.m. to early morning

Sample times are:

·         5:00 a.m. – 11:00 alfajiri

·         6:00 a.m. – 0:00 asubuhi

·         7:00 a.m. – 1:00 asubuhi

·         Noon – 6:00 mchana

·         6:00 p.m. – 0:00 jioni

·         Midnight – 6:00 usiku

It’s really quite simple.  Fortunately for me, all clocks in town run on Western time.  Although, we did try to have breakfast at a local place called Lulu’s.  Their sign said they opened at 8:30 am.  They were not open.  We went back home.  Perhaps they were operating on Swahili Time.

Wedding Celebration

In the US many people enjoy the wedding custom of taking the wedding party for a ride around town in a limo.

In TZ the open bed truck is substituted for the limo.  This group was being chased by a bridesmaid riding on a motorcycle and a bus full of wedding guests.  We heard them coming from blocks away because they were blowing their horns and screaming.

Good way to celebrate the wedding.

Bricks, Bricks, Bricks

The soil around Iringa is heavy, red clay.  This is not a heavily forested area so using wood as a primary building material is out of the question.  So, people make bricks.  They have a form, fill it with soil and water and wait for it to dry.  These dried bricks are placed in the sun so they can dry and harden further.  Next, the bricks are arranged in an arced over pattern.  A fire is built in the open arc and the bricks are fired as they would be in an over.  This process is repeated until there are enough bricks to build a wall, house, etc.  To further protect the bricks from rain, the exterior of a building could be painted with a cement/water mixture, creating a stucco-like finish.  The roof is either thatched-grass or metal sheets.

We’ve seen building in every state of repair and dis-repair.  When a person’s house begins to collapse, they simply start building another one a few feet away.  Repair doesn’t seem to be the preferred option.

Church Service

Kids at the Adventist Church

Sitting on our 3^rd floor balcony we can hear the Muslim call to prayer and church bells ringing.  There had been a lot of activity at a church about a block from the apartment.  So, Sunday morning I walked down to see what kind of church it was.   It was a 7^th Day Adventist church.  There as music playing and bells ringing.  The church yard was filled with people.

7^th Day Adventists worship on Saturday so this must have been a special celebration that was taking place.  A man approached me and said one word, “Welcome” and motioned me into the church yard.  I was carrying my camera which was spotted by dozens of children. Immediately I was surrounded by kids pointing and wanting their pictures taken.  I asked for permission of a woman who spoke English.  This was granted.  I dropped to my knees in the dirt and could have touched 25 kids without really stretching out my arms.  I snapped off a few pictures of different groups and then the woman announced, “Enough!”  Picture taking was.

As I was walking out I was approached by another man who asked me, in English, where I lived.  He wanted to practice his English so we had a lengthy conversation.  He explained that there was going to be a wedding in a few minutes and I was invited to stay.  The congregation had just finished a week-long Feast of the Tabernacles event.  People had been camping in the church yard.  I can’t quite imagine what it would take to get most North Americans to spend an entire week at church.

I didn’t attend the wedding but was struck by the genuine warmth and welcome I felt even though we could barely communicate. 

Images From a Game Preserve

We drove through a game preserve on our way to Iringa.  Here are a few images of that drive:

Majestic and Graceful

Momma and Baby

The Big Potato

We have a saying in the West about being the big shot or top dog. That translates somewhat differently in TZ. Mark Jensen was the founder of the Ag Institute at Tumaini University in Iringa. Mark is well known and receives the best treatment by all the locals. In fact, when staying in a remote village Mark will always get the best room. He has been named The Big Potato.

Now that Mark isn’t in TZ as much due to illness, a new Big Potato has emerged. Don has taken on that mantel in Mark’s absence. When we visited the rice broker, we were given 1.2 million TZ Shillings as the first payment for our sold rice. Here Don sits as a millionaire and the Big Potato since he was given the money to safeguard.

We can have some fun with this!

Impressions of Dar Es Salaam

Traditional and Modern Dress

Dar is a city of nearly 4,000,000 people. There are only a few roads through town and sometimes there was only 1 road you could take to get to your destination. When trying to drive to the rice market, we sat in absolute grid lock on the road for nearly 2 hours. In the course of 2 hours we traveled about 3 or 4 miles. There is such a lack of infrastructure in most of the city.

An advantage to sitting dead still in traffic is that you are approached by the “walking Walmart” of street vendors. We saw people selling toothpaste, gum, cell phone charges, water, shoes, shirts, peanuts, fruit, maps, newspapers, etc. It was quite entertaining to see what would be brought to your window next.

We went for walks from the hotel on two nights before dinner. The sidewalks are covered with street vendors selling all varieties of things. Used clothing is a big item. Most of this seems to come from the US based on style and tee shirt messages. Also, there were several “book stores” spread out on blankets on the sidewalks. The books tended to be in the English language. There was a nice selection of Spanish Bibles at one location. I’m not sure how much demand there is in TZ for Spanish Bibles. One of my favorites was a 1960 vintage book explaining to pastors’ wives how they could be a pastor’s wife and still have a fulfilling life.  I’m not sure of the demand for that title in TZ, but someone was trying to sell it.

I’ve been told that much of the used clothing sold in TZ comes from US groups like the Salvation Army and Goodwill. What doesn’t sell in their US stores is sold in bulk to a wholesaler in India. This guy has a network of agents in the countries that rim the Indian Ocean. These agents distribute to the street vendors who try to sell whatever merchandise they get. I wonder if the books sold on the street are the leftovers from what Books for Africa can’t use in school programs.

Dar Es Salaam, and maybe all of TZ, seems to function on human power. This is good in that it provides more employment for more people, even if wages are low. We are so accustomed to seeing big machines moving dirt to get a sewer in place that watching humans with shovels doing the work seems strange and not productive. One of my favorite memories of Dar was watching a furniture delivery man. He had a full size sofa balanced on a bicycle and was pushing it down a busy street to make his delivery. The bicycle and the 2-wheel hand cart provide the vast majority of local deliveries in Dar.

So Where Has Tom Been?

It’s now Saturday, September 11, and I’m in Iringa. Here’s what’s happened so far. I left Minneapolis on Monday, September 6. The flights from MSP to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Dar Es Salaam were lengthy and uneventful. On the second flight we stopped in Arusha, TZ to drop off people going on safari or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and pick up those who had finished those adventures. We landed after dark so there was no chance to see the mountain. That was a disappointment.


We are so accustomed to everything happening with orderly precision according to plan. We are used to leaving Minneapolis on an early flight and having an afternoon meeting in Boston or Denver. Well things don’t always work that smoothly. The original plan was to spend one night in Dar and then drive to Iringa. At the last minute, we got an email that we needed to meet with a rice broker and stay one extra day in Dar to pick up two people who also needed to travel to Iringa. Well, there was some miscommunication about when Roger and Verna were leaving the US and arriving in Dar. So we stayed another day in Dar to see if they arrived on the next day’s flight. Yes! They arrived Thursday night and bright and early Friday morning we started the 8 hour drive to Iringa.

The rice broker visit was most interesting. Business is done somewhat differently in TZ. One of the farms we will visit grows rice. They harvested and delivered about 10 tons of rice to this rice broker. He shook hands with our person and said to come back in a few weeks to pick up the money for any rice he sold. There was no written contract, just a handshake. So, when we met with him, he handed over the first payment for rice sold. He had bags of rice from 100s of producers. I have no idea how he keeps track of how much rice was sold for our farm. There wasn’t a computer, calculator or spreadsheet anywhere to be found.

I took very few pictures in Dar since we were warned about theft and muggings. When you consider that the camera I carry might represent 1 or 2 year’s salary for the average worker, the prudent person might leave the camera back in the hotel.

Map of Iringa Region

Here is a map of the majority of Iringa Region.  Many of the villages we will visit are shown on this map

So, Where is Tanzania?

Habari (Hello):

I am asked two questions when I mention my adventure which begins tomorrow:

    1.  Where is Tanzania?
    2.  Why am I going?

The map should help locate Tanzania.  It is in Central East Africa with Kenya to the north and Mozambique and Zambia to the south.  The Indian Ocean is to the east.  It is a country of about 38 million people.  We will be working out of the city of Iringa.  Iringa is the transportation, education and business hub of the Iringa Region (similar to a state in the US).  The city has a population of about 100,000.

The "Why" question may be more elusive.  Certainly there will be adventure and new sites.  The idea of an animal safari is intriging to any guy who grew up with Tarzan movies and visions of Africa drawn by missionaries supported by churches.  I'd like to get close enough to some animals to get good pictures, but no closer.  The rest of the "Why" question will unfold over the 3 weeks.

Kwa Heri (Goodbye)

The Corn Sheller Man

So, I was all relaxed.  I had packed my bag and discovered I could get everything I needed to bring to Tanzania into one medium sized suitcase, plus my small carry-on bag.  That was good.  Then, I got 2 phone calls.  First, could I bring a laser printer toner cartridge since the current one is out of toner?  Second, could I bring along some corn shellers?  I didn't know what a corn sheller looked like.  I agreed to both requests.

Bring out the second suitcase.  The toner cartridge was larger than I expected, but wasn't really a big problem. Then, I got a box of 50 metal corn shellers (see the picture on the left).  The second suitcase is now ready to go.  It's heavier than my original one which held everything I needed to take to TZ.

I'm not sure how I will explain 50 corn shellers to the security people as I pass through customs in Amsterdam or when I attempt to enter Tanzania.

The adventure begins.