Leaving Dar es Salaam

Tomorrow (monday) I will be leaving for Mwanza, up North towards Lake Victoria.

I am finished here in Dar and will be spending the remainder of my time in that region. In mid-July I hope to be in Nairobi for a Micah Network Conference on Climate Change. For the rest of the time I should be in Sengerema district, west of Mwanza. It is a collection of small villages where I will be living with a family, that doesnt speak English as far as I know, and working with SISA (sengerema infromal sector association). This is one of CRWRCs partners that works with several thousand individuals in a variety of ways. My conversations with the project director, who I will be working under and assisting, tells me that they have many micro-finance groups and several agroforestry projects, literacy groups, agricultural training projects, energy efficient stove teaching, as well as some health and HIV/AIDS projects. I am excited to leave the sometimes fast paced and busy city of Dar and get a feel for what the village looks like. This will also be a great test for my swahili.

I have been here just over a month now it seems. Time is flying so fast. I have had many ups and downs but overall I am learning so much, meeting many facinating people, and having a great time. Yesterday I celebrated my brithday with a few friends and was reminded of what an amazing experience I am able to have out here. I hope I can continue to have good health, learn (about myself, about development, about life, poverty, and my future) and be surrounded with supportive people here and all your prayers from abroad. Thanks for following along so far...

[I am not sure what my access to internet will be out there, but I will do my best to keep in touch.]

Friends...

...and coworkers

World Refugee Day

This past Saturday (June 20) was World Refugee Day.

I was informed of this by a few friends here in Dar and I was able to participate in the Tanzanian event/walk through the downtown core, hear testimonies from some refugees and an adress from the Tanzanian director for the UNHCR.

Tanzania, because of its relatively peaceful history, cooperative political situation and geographical location has been a haven to hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring countries over the years. Conflicts in Burundi, the DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Somalia have caused many to flee their homes, jobs, loved ones, languages, countries to find refuge in Tanzania.

In 2007, Tanzania had about 350 000 refugees hosted in 11 different camps. And over 35 years ago in 1972, 220 000 people fled from Burundi during its civil war, many of which are still living in camps in Tanzania today. Some of the Burundi refugees remaining in Tanzania were born and raised in here, speak swahili and were educated in the Tanzania school system, yet did not have citizenship or a real home. I cannot image what it would be like to spend your entire life in a refugee camp, but there are thousands of them here in Tanzania.

I am told that refugees are only alowed to move within a 4km radius of the camp which many use to find employment on farms or gather firewood. Over a timeline of 35 years, many people begin to make homes and start lives in these camps. These camps are not the tent cities that you might have seen in pictures but real villages, densly populated with homes and narrow streets. Yet, there are little oppurtunities for refugees whether with employment or education. They are not given the oppurtunities to develop ordinary lives, own land, attend university, make real savings, or develop business and agricultural skills. Many struggle to find a purpose or vocation and have little to do remaining wholly dependant upon food rations and aid. Furthermore, about 60% of refugees in these camps are children.

While I walked through the city center and into a TZ ministry building, I took a seat in one of the pews and heard a speach from the Tanzanian home affairs minister and some UN staff. I was told how today there are less than 150 000 refugees in Tanzania as many have returned home and by 2012 Tanzania aims to have none. They also announced that some refugees, many who spent their whole lives in these camps are being offered citizenship is Tanzania.

Yet afterwards there was a presentation from some Burundi and Somalian refugees, first of their traditional drumming and dancing and then their heart-felt testomonies.

I was told how the Somalian refugees, centuries ago, were removed from their homes in Tanzania by the slave trade and taken North into Somalia. Over 300 years later, civil war in Somalia caused them to retrace the footsteps of their ancestors and find refuge in the very land they had left behind, discovering that they share the same language as those in the region.

One Somalian woman shared her story in a passionate adress to the politicians and other listeners in the room. Although it was in swahili (later translated), this woman's voice echoed with strength, frusteration and a rage with the situation in her camp. She spoke of the lack of medical supplies, sanitary living conditions, adequate food, clean water, land, education and much more, reminding us of what they are going through.

Despite the Tanzanian government, the UN, and larger international community doing much to assist these displaced people, there is much that remains unresovled. The Tananian government's goal to remove all refugees is a good one, but not if it is forcing people back into their countries where things may not be completely safe.

It is easy for us to pass judgement on the Tanzanian government, criticising the way they run the camps and how they keep much of the situations private and hidden from the public and media. Yet, we in the developed world are even more strict and demanding when it comes to immigration, refugees, and other matters of this sort.

While the UNHCR deals with just over 8 million refugees, there are an estimated 62 million refugees in the world not given official status or rights. Conflicts in the Congo, Somalia, and in Darfur nearby to Tanzania continue to rage on, often with little attention to the public. Here in Tanzania it is a close reality, they have opened their doors to hundread of thousands and are struggling to manage this overwhelming number of people. In Canada we can often remained separated, intellectually and physically, from these people. Yet it does not reduce the urgency of the issue or the reality of it all.

[this post was supposed to go up last week, but internet and computer problems are limiting... Karibu Tanzani = "welcome to tanzania"

Hunger and the Body of Christ

'World hunger hits one billion'

So says the recent headline of BBC news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8109698.stm

I have been in Tanzania almost a month now and I am still blown away from the abundance I see here. Markets are literally overflowing with food and scarcity seems more like a myth than a reality, thus, the headline today baffles me.

Yet it is true that hunger and malnutrition exist here in Tanzania. The first Millenium Development Goal (the United Nations' targets to defeat poverty by 2015, signed on by 192 member countries) aims to reduce by half those who are malnurished and underfed as well as to reduce by half the number of those living in extreme poverty (under 1$ a day).

Currently more than half (56 %) of Tanzania live under a dollar a day, and roughly one quarter of all children are under nourished.

In the media last year, pleanty of coverage was given to the global rise in food prices since, as the BBC article states, the number of hungry people is directly tied to the rising prices. For those who live under 1$ a day much of their income goes to buying food, so when prices expand their meals get smaller.

For a long time it was said there is little that governments (of North or South) can do. The rising prices has been linked to the inadequate production (suppy) and rising population levels (demand). Economically speaking: rising demand and falling supply is a recipe for disaster.

Here in Tanzania, despite being a food economy where agriculture is the number 1 employer and export, the government often finds themselves having to import certain staple crops (such as rice) because they cannot seem to produce enough themselves.

However, rising prices and world hunger can also be caused by climate change induced drought and famine. A few years ago, East Africa was hit by a large famine due to a shortage of anticipated rainfall causing massive failures in crops, making a dent in the National GDP, and more painfully leaving many hungry.

A few weeks ago, headlines in East Africa reported on the meeting between Tanzanian President Kikwete and US President Obama at the White House. Kikwete's main plea was that the US stop giving Africa food hand outs (which floods the country with free food defeating Tanzanian farmers at the markets) and start investing in the agricultural capacity of the country. As I have seen with my own eyes this week, by empowering the poor in rural areas (as I mentioned in my post HOPE...), where nearly 90% of rural dwellers depend on farming, you can fight hunger and poverty in a very real and tangible way.

Again, as I said, there is so much abundance in Tanzania, but this is not simply from my ignorant observations. It is widely understood here in Tanzania that there is pleanty of perfect land that remains uncultivated. Even talking with individuals here in Tanzania I have learned that attaining a plot of land to farm from the government is not very difficult.

Just now, I read on the TZ government website that "The major constraint facing the agriculture sector is the falling labour..."

But falling labour? Tanzania has a massive unemployment rate and. I have personally heard complaints from many Tanzanians about the lack of jobs. But they are telling the truth as well.

Because people are leaving behind their village life and migrating to the cities (like here in Dar Es Salaam) looking for work allured by the dreams of making it BIG, they are also leaving behind work and land that remains uncultivated. Often, it is young males who are migrating...those who need to learn the valuable skills of raising crops and who have the physcial ability to do it.

This past week I have visited many farms of individuals who are excited to show me around. They guide me along fields that are growing an abundance of rice, potatoes and corn as well as show me their fruit trees, spices, vegetables, pigs, goats, cattle, chickens, mushrooms, and much more. These provide their (often large) families with more than enough to eat and an income to send children to school even university, pay for healthcare, and sometimes buy a nice TV for their home

CRWRC works at linking farmers in similar regions together so that they can learn from eachother new techniques, how to diversify and rotate crops, as well as gain knowledge on how to start co-ops and finance groups from which they can give out loans to assist new farmers with start up costs. This work is truly making a difference in many lives and is the very beginning of disrupting the vicious but not invincible poverty cycle.

-

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul condemns the church in how during communion some members are getting drunk of the wine and bread while others are left hungry (and probably sober). Clearly, Paul condemns this saying that it is sinful and against the God vision for the Church. In the next chapter Paul then describes this vision for the body of Christ as united, just as the human body is one: The capacity of each body part enables the other to function to full capacity.

Perhaps Paul is also speaking to our Church and the body of believers today as well. The body of Christ is not simply constrained to our church buildings, the CRC or the North American continent. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom that transcends borders, peoples, income groups, languages, cultures, and yes, even calorie intakes.

If this is true, than the Church in North America is called to reexamine its place in the global economy, its impacts on climate and the natural environment, in the political world and in the field of missions. We cannot be living lives of 'drunkeness' or overconsumption here in the North while 1/6th of the worlds population is left hungry; Nor can we simply offer our good intentions and donations to the poor without advocating for fair policy (domestically and internationally) and better aid.

For as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13:25-26

The body's (Church's) parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

So let us both suffer together that we may be compelled to work together so that we may also rejoice together.

Heron Wsega's Farm

Today I visited Heron Wsega's farm.

Heron grew up with a Maasai background. The Maasai are a traditional nomadic group from northern Tanzania and Kenya often recognized by their tradition dress and ties to the Serengeti and other parks. For hundreds of years their way of life, culture and religion have centered around cattle raising. Because cattle need lots of land to graze they have adopted nomadic lifestyles.

However, because of globalization and the opening of markets to the international community land has become privatized and their freedom of mobility is restrained. Much land is being subdivided, sold, zoned and given out while others are made into conservation sites (over 10% of Tanzanian land is reserved as national parks). As a result of these modern changes in land policy, Maasai no longer have the same freedom to roam and be mobile threatening their way of life.

Despite these changes, their culture still holds strongly to raising livestock. I have been told that they would rather let their cattle die than kill them, since it is a sign of accumulated wealth and power. With population growth and the continued need to raise cattle on the decreasing availability of land, the bush is being over-grazed and erosion becomes inevitable. This turns previously good soil dry and uncultivatable, forcing Maasai to burn bushland to make room for pastures and further increasing the demand on pastures that have been sustainable for years.

Often what happens is many Maasai (like other Tanzanians) will migrate to the capital centers (such as Dar Es Salaam) to find work. Because of their lack of education and knowledge in swahili, the Maasai people often take small poor paying jobs. For example many Maasai become gatekeepers like the one at my guesthouse, and others become ‘guardians’ of certain lands like the beaches here in Dar. Others who hold onto in the nomadic life find it increasingly difficult to cope with modernization and the needs for cash which can be used for modern medicine and school fees.

One of the partners that CRWRC works with helps the Maasai explore other areas of livelihood. By offering training in financial management linking new famers with experts or other farmers in the area, they are able to acquire new skills and learn farming techniques.

Heron Wsega is the chairman of his financial group and has become a sort of role model for others wanting to adopt farming techniques. On his land Heron has installed sanitary latrines, is raising chickens, growing cassava, sugar cane, oranges, mangos, passionfruit, jackfruit, rice, maize, while at the same time still possessing a few cattle.

Today, he was excited to show me around his farm, introduce me to his family, and show me into his home. Because he is able to raise and sell crops, he is also able to make some money and send his children to school (cover uniform and supply fees), buy medicine and make savings along with the rest of his finance group. Savings can be used to buy more chickens, and make investments in their childrens' futures through schooling and medicine.

Showing me around his farm and how to pound maize

pictures

Visiting a goat farm/project in a surrounding village

Beautiful beach in the Indian Ocean


Mwalimu (Teacher) na Mwanafunzi (Student). Vialet and me.

Watching a sunrise from the terrace of my guesthouse

Hope to have better pictures up soon, maybe with actaul people in them...

an 'avarage' day

Sorry for the gap with no updates, but let me explain, First of all my computer died probably due to all the ants that are crawling into it. Also life here is finally setting into a routine, even though it feels far from ordinary, meaning that I never really know what to write. I hope this post satisfies the complaints how I never update. (Note to reader, this computer does not have spell check).

So what does my day look like?


Well I get up around sunrise and either go to the beach about a 15 minute walk to go for a jog or to catch up on my Swahili hw that I didn’t do the night before (but usually just sleep in). Afterwards I take nice cold shower, and eat a breakfast of fresh bananas, mangos, oranges, papaya and the like. I eat a lot of plain toast too, which is also pleantiful.


At around 830 or so I walk the the bus stop which is anywhere on the road side, and try to wave down a dalla dalla (small bus/van). Because Dar es Salaam is the largest city in TZ attracting people from all over the country (and world) traffic into the city is pretty bad. This also means that dalla dallas are packed solid. And by packed I don’t just mean I have never had a seat but I am usually hanging out the door getting whacked by branches on the way. [Don’t worry mom, im safe]. On the odd day when the dalla dallas wont stop or if the guy whose job it is is to manage people coming in and out looks particularly intimidating, I will take a bajaji which is a small three-wheeled motorbike, but those are about quadrouple the price of a dalla dalla which is still less than a dollar. White people usually have a vehicle or take taxis. I always get lots of strange looks when I ride public transport and sometimes people like to touch my skin and pretend they didnt.


Once I arrive at my Swahili school I greet my teachers and classmates (2 in all) and we go over vocabulary, verbs, and such. Often we are sent to converse with people in the area to practice our language which can lead to very interesting conversations, whether being proposed to by a Tanzanian woman or being invited to meet some people's families. Once class is over I usually try to find a place for a late lunch or go to the CRWRC office and have lunch with the staff there.


Here in dar es salaam every block has a restataunt which pretty much sell the same things no matter where you go. I usually end up buying ugali (maize meal) or rice with beans and a little bit of unidentified meat. The grand total of this meal will cost me between 60 cents to a dollar. Sometimes I like to spoil myself and spend 5 dollars for the world’s greatest buffet (im not kidding) at the local shopping centre but this is not nealy as fun.

After my lunch I will head to the office. Some days I have the opportunity to travel to the outskirts of Dar and visit partners, and sit in on some finance management training or on small micro credit group meetings. These are always great tests for my Swahili skills and to get out of the busyness of the city and allows me to see the actual work at the individual and comuntiy level. I will also have chances to see the very buisnesses and projects that the training allows people to expand. Sometimes this means checking up on the progress of a chicken farm, or another small buisness like growing and processing cashews. Other days at the office I will look through and help update the growth of these financial groups or simply help set up some networking and computer software. CRWRC uses an approach called results based management which has very systematic and efficient ways of tracking progress and savings of these credit groups, this allows CRWRC to know exaclt how many people are involved, what savings they have, challenges they face and what progress they are making. And even other days I will find myself being introduced to partners and people with whom CRWRC works.

I am finding work here is very different from North America. We are very task oriented, focused and don’t make much time for relationships and converstations. Here I am realizing that development work in particular and partnerships are all about fostering and building relationships. So sometimes I find myself getting to know my supervisors or about their families, lives, hopes and work. It can be frusterating at times to not get things done but I am realizing that relationships and learning from these differences are just as important... Im sure I will write more about this later, bare with me.

After work I will head back to my guesthouse. My guesthouse is run by some sort of branch of the catholic church (Passionists) run by a Father and Brother and a few Sisters too. They are much to kind and are trying to fatten me while I am here in Africa. The passionists have a charity organization that opens health clinics, schools, and orphanages for communtieis. They also run this guesthouse to help pay for their work. Thing means that there are always fresh faces and lots of new people to meet. They also have good connections in these villages so that every few days there is a shipment of fresh pineapple, mangos, bananas, papayas, organges and a few crates of wine.

Before dinner and before sundown I try to get out into the surrounding community and get to know people as well as practice Swahili. Sometimes I end up playing a pick up game of soccer with a few kids, go to the beach and read, go to the market and look for some snacks/street food, or chat with an Indian man whose name I never get right and who always sits on the same corner as if he is waiting for me. I have heard it said before but its very true: Tanzanians are very friendly. Even if we don’t speak the same language sometimes they insist that I sit with them and enjoy the view of the ocean or busy road since people-watching is never boring and a popular activity. There are always so many people everywhere that its hard to feel alone. It is a massive change from the distant and secluded suburban life in Edmonton. One of the most fun parts about walking around the neighborhood and area is meeting children who either greet me with Shikamoo (the very respectful greeting reserved for elders, which actally means 'I clasp your feet' as if they were bowing) to which they wait for the reply from me marahaba (I accept your greeting) or they greet me with Mambo Vipi which pretty much means: 'sup. The greeting usually depends on if their parents are near by to overhear.

People are also biking, walking, skipping or driving in every which direction but never really seem to be in a hurry (I realized that either people walk really really slow here or I just walk ridiculously fast). It is refreshing that despite the busyness and crowded places, people seem to be laid back take things as they come.

When dinner comes I am presented with quite a feast of food, drink, and company. Dinners are intimate, shared, loud, and always start with the lords prayer. The nuns here always like to test my Swahili which always ends up with them laughing at me and me not knowing about what. There are always new people at dinner and no one ever has the same accent.

After dinner I try to finish some Swahili homework which is often about writing a story about a dog looking for a ball or a boy late for school which seems slightly juvenile but I do it anyway. Other evenings I find myself forgetting to do my homework and at the local bar/restaurant watching a football, rugby, basketball, or cricket game.


Its not long before I am exahausted and head to bed beneath my misquito net sheltered bed.

Although each day is different, I have gotten myself into a routine of never knowing what to expect.

Soon enough I will be heading to Mwanza district and to Sengerema, where I should be spending the majority of my time over these months. It will be great to get into the village and be a part of the grassroots work there. I will also be travelling to Nairobi, Kenya for a conference with the Micah Network on climate change and East Africa. I am also hoping to get to the Serengeti grasslands to see some animals. More information to come...

I hope to put pictures up very soon, but again with so many strange sights I never know what to take pictures of and usually end up taking none.

hope...

While being here I have found the issue of ‘poverty’ to be quite daunting. While reading ‘The East African’ (a local newspaper) I come across headlines that recite of the problems of food shortages, bordering warfare and rebel groups, failing crops, natural disasters, food price shocks, aid cuts and the problems of aid dependency. Moreover, studying the topic in school and seeing it on TV ads can dethatch you from the reality and humanity of it all. Even  here in Tanzania I am finding the magnitude of the issue and its reality very difficult to wrap my mind around.

Here in Dar es Salaam there is massive urban sprawl as many people are leaving more traditional lives in the villages to a more modern/western life in the city, only to realize it wasn’t all it was supposed to be. I have already personally run into several individuals and had conversations with them about how they came to Dar. All the youth say how “I came to find life”. This isn’t poor English but it is how they truly feel about life and opportunities back home: hopeless as if there is no life back home.

Many youth are leaving their families and farms to ambitiously follow their dreams of becoming rich and successful in the city discarding the humble village farming life. Furthermore, while speaking with some development workers from rural areas I hear that climate change and rainfall shortages are causing huge problems for farmers who are obviously highly dependant on their crop yields. I've learned many people often stick solely to corn as it gets a good price, but if the rains aren’t enough there is absolutely nothing to show at harvest time which is devastating. Furthermore agriculture employs 80% of the work force and accounts for 85% of their exports. When an industry that is so reliant on a variable like climate patterns  there is a lot of uncertainty in the lives of the poor who already live on the brink of livelihood.

When moving to Dar, these youth realize how few jobs there are and how expensive living costs are. So many find themselves homeless or move into slums around the city in small makeshift shelters forced into unstable and insufficient sources of income.  For example: when stopped at a traffic stop or caught in rush-hour traffic cars are swarmed with venders who are trying to sell goods anything from car seat covers and bubble gum to giant wall maps of Tanzania and cashews. What’s even more odd is how they all sell the same random assortment of things so that competition is more about luck than anything else. How can they make a livelihood off this is mindboggling. I am realizing many of them are not.

There are hundreds of thousands of people here in Dar who live like this. As I said, the actuality of poverty is incredibly complex and difficult for me to understand. The dilemma of worrying about where tomorrow’s food will come from is very real. Because of this its all to easy to be discouraged by numbers and headlines, see Africa as a lost cause and be overwhelmed. Many of us do this, not even just with Africa but with many problems the earth faces from homelessness, corporate greed, extreme poverty, broken economic systems, climate change … anything.

I’ve had to ask myself what am I, a white 20 year old from Vancouver Island doing here? What can I possibly do? What can any foreigner/aid/development worker possibly do? What place is there for good intentions in such a mess of a world?  Even with the thousands of experts studying these problems they cant seem to find solutions.

However, I am also realizing that this reality of poverty although highly complex as a massive interconnected cycle has to be addressed in small steps. If you can intervene in someway in the cycle than you can make a difference. Rather than being discouraged by the massive issues that we face we can look at the community level at families and individuals. Change happens in small steps no matter what you are trying to accomplish.

That is why the work that CRWRC and their partners are doing is so important. For example: I visited a project today and sat in on a micro-finance group made up of 7 women and 7 men some about 60 years old, some less that 20, some Christians, some Muslims. Together they are makings savings and pooling money together, out of which they are able to give out loans to each other so that they can purchase capital and get ahead in their business. For example one man took out a loan that allowed him to travel to the nearby city and restock his shop while another was able to purchase a motorbike to use as a taxi. These loans are not donated by the West, it is not even donated by CRWRC, it came from themselves. All they received was some education and guidence on how to manage a group like this and co-operate with eachother. There are many of these groups in many villages across the country, they have the potential, they have the recourses, they just need to realize it. 

If you can assist people from the villages in their work, you can make their life more sustainable, prosperous, and full. As a result you provide hope into a community and for their youth. They wont have to leave families behind and leave land uncultivated. I am not trying to confess that these issues are simple, but trying to show how true progress can and is being made.

There is hope, and its about uncovering the potential and capacity in every ordinary person, empowering them to realize that there is hope and there is room to grow. If we get caught up talking in about it and planning it, and have conferences and discussions and read books on it and pray about it but don’t do anything, then we haven’t accomplished much. Sometimes the solutions to these massive problems can be taken in small steps person by person and community by community. I am seeing this hope and I find it empowering for me, not exactly showing what I can do for people, but what any everyday person can do in their own life and in their own community (including you). I hope this provides hope for all of you reading too. Don’t be overwhelmed by the negative images we are presented with, but realize that beautiful things are happening and are so ordinary that they don't need news coverage.