Siku ya Kuzaliwa

During the week we went on a farm visit as part of a field day to visit the USAID TAPP project which stands for Tanzania Agriculture Productivity Plan and is part of a global ‘Feed the Future’ initiative.  We got to see what a successful project looks like. We first visited a passion fruit farmer and saw how his fruits were being farmed using the techniques and training provided by the project. TAPP is currently working with about 380 farms across Zanzibar. Next we went to a pineapple farm where the farmer showed us two different pieces of land – before and after. One farm used the farmer’s original farming techniques with 4,000 pineapples; the land next to it used the farming technology and techniques taught by the development project and had a whopping 17,000 pineapples in it. That’s over four times the output!

Pineapples at the pineapple farm

  

The farmers and us at the pineapple farm

A number of times I have heard of loans and inputs provided to smallholder farmers that are not making the best use of thm. They are not hardworking and do not spend time on their farms, in turn requesting more supplies and assistance. However, farmers that use the technology provided to them and maintain their farms are rewarded with more produce. This project did just that. It didn’t just provide farmers with aid, but educated them on best practices. In addition, they monitored these farmers to ensure they were willing to do the work to improve their land and productivity. Once this had been established, they were given better technology, such as drip irrigation systems for the land and additional resources for supplies.

With the production manager Omar, after the speeches

 The biggest challenge now faced by this particular pineapple farmer was theft. People continued to steal his produce and there was nothing he could do about it. There are no proper measures taken from the government to protect farmers from thieves even if the culprits are caught. Another challenge on the horizon is that once they produce the fruit and vegetables, the farmers need a viable market for the produce. There needs to be enough demand from consumers for the produce being grown by the farmers. So, it is a matter of linking the tourist industry with the farmers in order to sell locally grown produce.

The farmer, explaining his successes and challenges

On the weekend, I celebrated my siku ya kuzaliwa (i.e. birthday) with a few volunteers in Zanzibar.  We started the evening with henna at the old fort. Henna is quite common in Zanzibar, especially for brides, so we thought we would give it a try. We sat on straw mats in the middle of the old fort, giddy with excitement for henna hands. After that we proceeded to lazuli restaurant where we enjoyed some milkshakes alongside our dinner. In Stone town, the power goes out every day from 6:30pm to 7pm – it’s some sort of maintenance thing. Anyway, it turns out that this restaurant didn’t have a generator which is surprising because almost every restaurant (even the local ones) have generators. So, we sat there for about 25 minutes chatting over candles, it was a five star experience. When the power came back, our meals were prepared and we had a feast. After dinner, we proceeded to the Serena Hotel where we listened to live Taarab music which is the local music of Africa after which the waiters threw on a little party of their own which included cake for all of us. It was very entertaining and definitely unexpected, but a treat nonetheless.

  

 

Dinner time!

Surprise! It's a party!

 The next morning we went to a tour called Safari Blue. As the name suggests, this is 'Blue Trip', which means, we were on the Ocean all day! We started off on a dhow (a wooden boat) with the name Lindi with a captain named Simba. We traveled to Kwale Island where we picked up our snorkeling equipment and then proceeded to two gorgeous areas in the ocean where we went snorkeling and saw all kinds of bright colorful fish and coral. After swimming with schools of fish, we decided why not have some for lunch? So we feasted on a buffet of seafood where I ate my weight in lobster, octopus, calamari, and of course fish. Who said I’m not a seafood person?! Tropical fruit tasting was next with a never ending assortment of local Zanzibari fruit – from dates to passion fruit and everything in between.

After that we went swimming in the mangrove lagoons and went sailing in a boat made out of just one trunk of a mango tree – so it was basically an open tree trunk floating in the water. It was amazing how fast we were going solely on wind power, it felt like we were going to tip over, but there were bars at each end keeping the balance. We then climbed an ancient baobab tree that had fallen but was still growing as its roots were still in the ground. On our way back, we spotted some humpback dolphins swimming in the bay (that was the highlight of our day), had coconut juice and headed home. Our ride home was the staff truck with all the supplies in the back and us sitting on top of the supplies. Way better than a taxi, don’t you think? We ended the night with sundowner at the maru maru rooftop overlooking stone town and then dinner at forodhani gardens where I enjoyed some local urojo. Exhausted from a packed and adventurous day, we called it a night. I will always remember by 25^th birthday!

TGII! (Thank God it’s Ijuma)

Ijuma in Swahili means Friday. The week revolves around Friday and each day after is related to Friday. For example: Friday one is Saturday, Friday two is Sunday, Friday three is Monday and so on (i.e. Jumamosa, jumapili, jumatatu…), except Thursday which is alhamisi. During the week, I went to Bambi district for a field visit accompanied by Raya and Mwantatu from UWZ, Abdul and Amina from Mnazi Moja Hospital’s Physiotherapy Unit, Saidi from the Zanzibar Mental hospital, an eye specialist and a volunteer physiotherapist. For the first time, I got to ride in UWZ’s own private dala dala (how fancy!). We got to a village in Bambi and went into a large, unfurnished hall with concrete floors. There were a number of people inside the hall, mostly children with their parents. They had been informed that we were coming, so they were waiting for us in the hall. The goal for the day was to screen disabled children, diagnose their disability, and recommend what action was needed in order to improve their lives. This could be in the form of hospital visits, equipment recommendation, or exercises they could do themselves.

Patient check-up in Bambi



Waiting patiently in line

  Raya introduced herself to the group and explained the purpose of the outreach field visit. UWZ conducts such visits about four times a year, so I was excited to be a part of it.  In turn, we all introduced ourselves to the group after which the children were split up into smaller groups based on type of disability: physical, visual and mental. I joined the physical disability group and throughout the day we saw a number of patients, learned about the history of their disabilities and gave recommendations as to what should be done next. Given I have no medical background; I wasn’t much help when it came to recommendations for the patients. We saw children with one leg shorter than the other, restricted mobility, protruding bones, among others. Most children were given follow up appointments at the hospital in town – this is a positive sign given that the younger the child, the more effective physiotherapy treatment will be, and in some cases, the patient is completely treatable. Some abnormalities are even avoidable given the right child birth methodologies. Needless to say, some of these abnormalities are not even seen in North America because they are immediately identified and treated at birth. 

The local newspaper says that “over 30% of all children under five in sub-Saharan Africa are suffering from stunted growth due to chronic malnutrition.” I was under the impression that my neighbour, Masoud, was seven years old, when in fact he was nine. Children are too short for their age due to long term insufficient nutrient intake and frequent infections. “This impedes physical growth and leads to irreversible cognitive damage, hampering the children’s learning abilities. Stunted girls will then have small and low birth weight babies.” Further, more than one million children under five die every year with malnutrition being the direct or indirect cause. This is the harsh reality of the children of Africa. So the goal shouldn’t only be to reduce child mortality, but to aid in the nutrition of the babies that do survive as this is the future of Africa.

On another note, we spent a relaxing day in Stone town, shopping in the narrow alleys and discovering nooks and crannies we’d never seen before. We even got caught in the rain. This time of year is short rain season in Zanzibar. It will rain like cats and dogs for about 10-15 minutes, and then all of a sudden it will stop and the sun will come out as if nothing ever happened. This happens about two or three times a day. The only problem is that because there is no drainage system the streets get really flooded. When some of the water dries up, the streets get muddy. It doesn’t help that we have a make shift skylight in our living room, in the form of a large hole in our ceiling. I can’t even imagine what it will be like during rainy season when it has known to rain for two or three months, sometimes two days at a time without stopping. Good thing we’ll be gone by then.

Hole in our ceiling, i.e. skylight

Children playing in the flooded street

Early in the morning one day, we went shopping for meat and chicken – for the very first time. We were feeling adventurous and we’d heard the meat is freshest in the morning. So we made a trip to the market. The cows were hanging from hooks in the stands and the butcher was cutting little pieces for customers – it was not a pretty sight. We found the first meat guy we saw and bought ourselves some meat. It was a proud moment. Celine took it a step further and bought some octopus from the fish market which she cooked in our very own kitchen. Way to go!

Picking out the best meat

Octopus...ready to cook!

Donge donge donge...

10 reasons why the Zanzibar dala dala is better than the TTC subway:

1.     You can flag down a dala dala on any main street and it will drop you off anywhere. There is a main dala dala station in each town but no stops along the way, so you can get off and on literally on any main road.

2.    The dala dala charges based on the distance you are traveling. 300 shillings if its within one town, 1500 shillings for the next town over and 2000 shillings to the other side of the island. Not TTC’s fixed fare of $3.00 if you're traveling one stop or to the other side of Toronto.

3.     It is colorful and breezy – not red and white and hot. It’s pretty much a truck transformed into a bus. Sometimes, if you get lucky, some routes even have large buses imported from Hong Kong used as dala dalas.

4.     It shows up. You might wait 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes, but you know its coming.

5.     It is used to transport not just people, but lots of cargo and items that are just thrown on the top of the truck, i.e. rice, flour, juice, a door. How resourceful – no 18 wheelers occupying the roads.

6.     It always waits for you. The dala dala doesn’t budge until it is full, so they are always waiting for more passengers to get on.

7.     There’s always room for 1 (or 3) more to squeeze in and the ticket collector just hangs from the doorway.

8.     During stops, there are people selling snacks outside the windows – sugar canes, peanuts, corn on the cob. Sometimes, the driver might even buy you a treat :)

9.     You can never tell how fast its going because the speedometer pin is always at zero. This one isn’t necessarily an advantage.

10.  You have to share the load – lots of moms and kids on the dala dala; you just might have to carry someone’s baby.

So come on board, yall!

Mume Wangu

Imagine the park near your house, the one where you go for walks or picnics. Now imagine it with plastic bottles, wrappers, containers, and all sorts of litter strewn all over it. That was Mnazi Moja Stadium. It was the result of three days of eid fairs and celebrations. When the vendors took their stalls down, they neglected to clean up the area they were in. When the families came to celebrate and buy food and toys, they threw the trash on the field. And finally, the government failed to have trash cans in public places such as soccer fields and stadiums.

This is a common theme I have noticed in Zanzibar. While shopping one afternoon and drinking a can of Shani, I asked the storekeeper where I could throw it out thinking there was a trash can in his store. He took the can from my hand and tossed it on the ground outside his store while saying: “In Zanzibar, Hakuna Matata.” I was appalled. It is the collective responsibility of the government, the society and the people that live in it to ensure they are doing their part in keeping the places they frequent free from litter. This will prevent an even greater effort required to clean up after the fact. We saw about five or six people picking up the litter for the next couple of days, piece by piece and then putting it all in small piles and burning the trash. It took almost a week for all the trash to be cleared from the field.  Keep in mind; some steps have been taken to mitigate this issue in the form of plastic bags being banned which means everyone uses brown paper bags for shopping. That’s one thing Zanzibar got right before Toronto.

The island of Zanzibar is predominantly Muslim with 99% of the population practicing Islam. About 1400 years ago, when majority of the men in the city were at war and there was no one to look after and protect the women, men in Islam were allowed to have more than one wife – up to four at any given time. This is still in practice in Zanzibar. Gentlemen, don’t even think about moving here. This raises some interesting conversations with the women that are part of these marriages, as first, second, third or even fourth wives. One of our friends interviewed a few young educated girls to ask if they would be willing to be part of multiple marriages and the answers varied for each of the girls. One of the girls commented that she wouldn’t mind being a second wife because it meant that she wouldn’t be attached to her husband who would be splitting his time between multiple wives and she could focus on her education. Smart girl! When all the women are living under one roof and they get along, they live like they are sisters, sharing responsibilities and forming a sense of unity between them. It doesn’t always work out this way though. Nonetheless, there are some interesting things to discover in a culture where it is common to have more than one wife.

During the weekend, we decided to visit the second largest island on the Zanzibar archipelago – PEMBA. Pemba is about 50km north of Unguja (the island we live on) and is accessible by boat or plane. We chose the latter as it was the safer option, but once we got on the plane, I wasn’t so sure. Check-in didn’t open until thirty minutes before the flight was to depart. We got on the plane at 7:56, the pilot said ‘Karibu’ and took off at 8 – at least it was on time. There were 12 passengers on the entire plane and we sat directly behind the pilot. No such thing as flight attendants. It was absolutely amazing to see the pilot flying the plane and we were able to see the many islands below us that make up the Zanzibar archipelago as we flew over the Indian Ocean. When we landed, I stopped praying for safety, and found our tour guide, Ali, who showed us around for the day.

 

He told us that Pemba has five names: Green – for its lush greenery, Magic – for the large number of people that practice witchcraft, Emerald – for the emerald waters and marine life, Sister – for being the second largest island after Unguja, and of course Pemba. Ali took us to the Essential Oil Distillery where they extract oil from the numerous plants that are farmed on the island such as clove bud, clove stem, eucalyptus, and lemongrass. These oils are mainly used for exporting to other countries (as much as one ton is exported each year) but are also sold in Pemba due to the number of health benefits associated with them. We then continued our tour at the flying fox conservation area – these creatures are indigenous to Pemba and are basically really hairy bats, not cute at all. There were hundreds of them and it was fantastic to see them hanging upside down from the trees. It was hard to imagine that before the conservation project, these were hunted and eaten by the locals…barbecued fox?! No, thank you. While the foxes were hanging peacefully having a good day’s sleep, a few local children noticed we had come to see them and began clapping to wake them up. The foxes began flying between the different trees and we quickly snapped pictures.  

We had seen enough hairy bats for the day so we proceeded to Ngezi forest where we went for a hike around the conserved forest area. We saw lots of different trees (both dead and alive), monkeys, and millipedes. We then proceeded on to Vilumbwani beach where we cut open some jackfruit, among other fruit Ali had brought and had a picnic at the beach. On our way home we visited an old lighthouse built by the Germans witnessing some spectacular views of Pemba Island and were able to see both the south end of the island and the north end – not a very large island, might I add. In the distance, we even saw the coast of Mombasa, Kenya.



Flying fox



Driving through the island, I noticed that Pemba’s landscape is very different from that of Unguja, in that it is hillier and greener with lots of trees and forests. Pemba’s economy is worse than that of Unguja along with an even higher population density. The real eye opener was to see the other volunteers’ places - cement floors, no running water, no hot water, no fridge, a crouching toilet, and no sink. There were no real restaurants in any of the major towns (Chake Chake or Wete), besides street food stalls where we had barbecued octopus (yum!). We met Dave and Jack, Peace Corp volunteers that are teaching in Pemba, had some chipsi mayai (local dish with fries and eggs) and called it a night.

Double rainbow off the north tip of Pemba

 The next morning we journeyed on the dala dala to Chake chake town and then to the port of Wesha to catch our boat to Misali Island, a marine conservation island where we went snorkeling for the day. We were lucky we got low tide so we were able to see the beautiful corals and colorful fish quite clearly in the water alongside the sea urchins. We headed back in rough waters, the waves splashing onto us the entire 45 minute ride. Needless to say I was enjoying every second of it, getting soaked and hanging on for dear life. That night, we went over to Dave’s place for dinner where we all cooked a delicious meal straight from the Peace Corps cook book. We spent all of Sunday, hanging out, playing cards, drinking Rwandan coffee, listening to Dave sing to us (and the local kids hanging out on the porch) until it was time for our flight back to Unguja. This time on the plane, I sat next to the pilot – an unforgettable experience and an extraordinary end to the weekend.

Habari za sikuku?

Every time I would see someone wearing a t-shirt that is obviously from North America because it says ‘YMCA,’ or ‘North Idaho College Wrestling,’ or ‘YMCMB,’ or a picture of bugs bunny with ‘Six Flags’ or my favorite: ‘Tim Horton’s’, I would get excited. It was absolutely amazing to see clothes that I donated to charity were actually being worn by people in Zanzibar – I was making a difference every time I cleaned out my closet. Little did I know, the used clothing industry was doing more harm than good.



Pink 'North Idaho College Wresting' tee



Bales of clothing are exported to developing countries where they are sold to second hand dealers with a three to four hundred percent profit. So, people that do not have jobs are starting used clothing businesses. Over the years, this has caused textile manufacturers and retail clothing businesses to go bankrupt because it is cooler to wear used Western clothing. The problem:  The countries are losing what was once one of their biggest exports – clothing. This further feeds into the increasing debt problems faced by many African countries. This documentary focuses on Zambia and is definitely an interesting take on the life of a basic tee. Check it out: Tshirt Travels Documentary. 

This week was Eid ul Adha – the festival of sacrifice. It is the festival celebrated by Muslims where we remember Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son in the name of Allah. In turn, Allah replaces his son with a ram and thus began the tradition of sacrificing a goat during this Eid. I saw the remnants of sacrifice as we were coming back from our morning run with goat blood on the streets as early as 7am.  In the afternoon, there was a young group singing and playing instruments outside our window which was highly entertaining...who needs hip hop anyway? We went to check out the Eid fair at Jamhuri gardens and at Mnazi Moja stadium where families and kids were enjoying the Eid celebrations dressed up in their nicest outfits. Bright colors with lots of sparkles! There were numerous stalls selling toys and cooking food, but they were all serving the same thing. There were swings set up, jungle gyms and trampolines – a great holiday for the kids!  During Eid, adults give children Eidi, i.e. a small sum of money as a present. A few kids come to our door saying ‘sikuku’ which means holiday and greeting us but were really asking for money. This was a common occurrence with kids we had met thus far on the streets coming up to us saying: “Give me money,” but happened even more so because of Eid. Overall, I was glad to have spent Eid in Zanzibar and witness the liveliness of the sikuku.

Make-shift swings at the Eid fair

Selling toys at the Eid fair

I got a guided tour of the Aga Khan Mosque, the oldest one in Africa, over 175 years old and admired the detailed wood carvings and the history of the uses of the mosque. We spent the rest of the weekend as typical tourists staying at a beach resort in Kendwa on the north side of the island where the monthly full moon party is held. We saw Michael Jackson come back to life, local Tanzanian dancers and held a snake. It was a great way of escaping from our escape.

Chilling with a snake at the full moon party

The Real World

The week started off with a BANG. Literally. One afternoon at work, I heard a loud ‘boom’ and was assured that it was nothing. I believed my coworkers.  I later found out what was common for Zanzibaris  was not so common for me. As we walked by the market we saw the roads blocked off and about three or four small enclosed fires in the middle of the road. We quickly avoided that route. The ‘booms’ kept going sporadically for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. We found out that a Muslim cleric had been kidnapped and the party he was leading, Wamsho, was rioting so that he would be released. The police, in an effort to disperse crowds, were releasing tear gas grenades and firing gun shots in the air resulting in the loud ‘booms’ we kept hearing.

I was told everything would be back to normal the next day, so I went to work. Turns out nobody showed up, so I went for coffee with one of the other volunteers – bad idea. As we were walking towards my street, someone yelled ‘DANGER,’ we heard a loud boom and a crowd of people running in our direction trying to get away. We turned back immediately and went to the tourist side of town where there were no riots and took refuge at one of our friend’s hotels with a beautiful rooftop view of the city.  The ‘booms’ got more frequent but at least they were in a distance.  A few hours later, as the ‘booms’ subsided, we made our way back, with two bodyguards, to my apartment and I shut myself in vowing never to leave again as we had heard the rioting was going to get worse. The city was shut down – stores, markets, offices…everything. Thieves were taking advantage of the chaos in the city and ransacking stores.

Debris from the riots

After another day of staying in, I woke up in the middle of the night to some chanting and the nightly mosquito bites, even with mosquito nets. I had never heard the rioters chanting before, so I began to imagine the worst. Anything could happen at 2am. In the morning, however, I woke up to find out that the cleric Farid Sheikh who had disappeared was quietly dropped off on Kokoni Street (same street as my Swahili class) in an unmarked car and the ‘chanting’ I heard was actually them celebrating. What a relief. Life would be back to normal now.

On a more positive note, we went on a trip to Prison Island, which was never actually used as a prison but was later used as a quarantine island to keep diseases off other British territories in East Africa. We also started Swahili classes this week so as to better communicate with our coworkers and have conversations with people we encounter. Our teacher’s name is Mama Aunty, and she fits exactly that description. She is strict but very friendly and has been teaching foreigners for over 12 years. Maybe I’ll write my next post in Swahili …who am I kidding?!

Prison Island Tortoise Conservation Area

 On the weekend, as part of an impact assessment of my organization, UWZ, I went to the village of Kitogani on the south side of Zanzibar to visit Toti. We yelled ‘hodi hodi,’ meaning ‘May I come in?’ and were welcomed inside her hut where she put out a straw mat on the dirt living room floor for us to sit. The entire hut consisted of an undersized living room and two small rooms on either side one of which was used to cook. Toti began telling us about her life and how a number of years ago she had received training on how to make wicker baskets and started her own business. Since then she has been making bags, pouches, wallets, bangles, placemats, laptop bags and my favorite of them all – wicker guitar cases! She said she sold about 10 bags a month, 30 pouches and lots of bangles. The other items are all made to order. Her clients were hotels that sold these products to tourists.



Toti, showing off her guitar case



 She was very energetic and proud in telling us about how she went to Pemba (another Zanzibari island) to train other women to create these wicker bags and how she was able to showcase her work in Rwanda. She started this with the help of UWZ that provided her with the initial training on making these bags, and more recently to provide her with the support system to improve by assisting her to access grants, and providing marketing and bookkeeping workshops. This just goes to show that as much training as you provide someone, it takes a hardworking person to actually apply it and make something of it by using the techniques they have learnt. That was Toti, a woman with a disability that wasn’t going to stop her.

She had a number of new ideas and was constantly looking for ways to improve her products and stay competitive. She has been so successful that she has saved up enough money to buy land for a store of her own which is even bigger than her home! It was amazing and inspiring to see Toti’s success in her business and how she is willing to work hard and achieve a better life for her and her family and how UWZ has helped her with this. Toti is one of the few examples of a true success story stemming from development aid in Tanzania. Unfortunately, these success stories are not so common but they do instill hope for the agents of change.

Toti's store (a work in progress)

Paradise, here I come!

Today was the day we were going to Zanzibar.  Oddly enough, the one thing I was looking forward to most was unpacking; finally I wouldn’t have to live out of a suitcase. We made our way to Zanzibar, which is about a three hour ferry ride from Dar es Salaam – it was refreshing to be by the water and we even saw some dolphins along the way. After going through immigration (yes, we had to go through immigration even though Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam are both in Tanzania, because Zanzibar wants to separate itself from the Tanzanian mainland and become an independent nation), we were dropped off to our apartment. We came in and were pleasantly surprised – the place has four bedrooms for the two of us!  It also has a refrigerator, a stove, cable television, and a washing machine, all of which are considered luxuries in this part of the world. My roommate is Celine, she’s one of my colleagues from Deloitte, and I am delighted to be living with her. From now on, when I say ‘we,’ I am referring to Celine and myself.

The first order of business when we got to our place was finding a place for lunch. We went to a local restaurant across our apartment, Lukmaan, with our landord’s agent, Nasser, where we chatted with him and exhausted his entire English vocabulary. We then took a stroll through the market (more on this later), and then went to our respective offices to see where we would be going on Monday morning. I met my manager Donald, who spoke English well. I later found out he had studied in Germany and spent a considerable amount of time doing professional Swahili to English translation. This meant I wasn’t going to feel isolated in the office because of the language barrier. I was thrilled. During the week, I also met with the Chair of the Board and the other members of the Board which is made up entirely of people with various disabilities to discussion their vision of the organization and plans for the immediate future and where my role fit into that. Overall, the week was successful but I realized everything moves very slowly out here, so I will have to adjust to the ‘pole pole’ (slowly) lifestyle.

After having had our fifth meal at Lukmaan’s in the span of three days, we decided it was time we started cooking. Once at Darajani market we entered a narrow doorway and almost fainted by the strong stench of seafood.  Inside the market, there was a variety of different type of seafood – types of fish, octopus, squid, sting ray, and I think I even saw something that resembled a shark. As we continued the market tour, we also saw a similar area of meat and another area with live chicken. Doesn’t get much fresher than that folks! Next up were the fruits, veggies, and lots of spices (something Zanzibar is famous for).  

We did the spice tour on the weekend and a myriad of spices and fruit on the spice farm, including nutmeg, cinnamon, lemongrass, passion fruit and cocoa used for a variety of different purposes including medicinal, cooking and exporting. We visited the slave caves; Zanzibar has a rich history of slave trade. This particular cave had one hundred slaves living in it at any given time that were transported to the slave market by dhow (wooden boat) based on the demand. We ended the weekend with a trip to the north coast to visit Nungwi beach and watched a Masai football (i.e. soccer) game to get us rejuvenated for another week full of adventure.

Let's get together and feel all right.

Mambo! I have officially survived my first week in Tanzania. Things have been off to a good start, what with meetings tons of volunteers, learning about the Tanzanian development context and trying some Tanzanian food, I can say that it is certainly going to be a fun filled adventure.  I will be volunteering on the island of Zanzibar in Tanzania for three months through CUSO International, also known as VSO in the UK. It is a pretty neat organization that sends skilled volunteers from different parts of the world to developing countries by matching their field of expertise to the needs of organizations it partners with in the respective country.  During my placement in Zanzibar, I will be working as a Management Advisor with Umoja wa  Watu Wenye Ulemavu Zanzibar (UWZ), or the Association of People with Disabilities Zanzibar.

We arrived in Dar es Salaam City, where the VSO office is located, after a long flight from Toronto where we had a day long layover in London, most of which was spent in the Yotel sleeping. The Yotel is a mini hotel at the airport with cabins that look like they are from a cruise, not a nice one! We took the Heathrow express and ventured out into the city where we met Paddington Bear and had crab cakes at a pub near the Marble Arches after the obligatory London phone booth photo shoot.

During the flight, the attended insisted on giving me a special meal, so at meal time I got my food well before anyone else around me. I definitely hadn’t ordered the meal, but I wasn’t complaining. The next morning, after a tiresome flight we made it in to Dar es Salaam where we waited about an hour for our luggage to arrive. We were greeted by two volunteers, Barbra and Margaret, based in Dar and Kagera (a city in Northern Tanzania) respectively. There were 15 volunteers on the flight and one small bus, so it was a tight squeeze with the luggage in the aisles but we managed to make it to our hotel. Let’s just say we got to know each other REAL well along the way.

  

The next morning was our first day of a week of In-Country Training (ICT) which started off as: “Let’s scare these volunteers by telling them everything that can go wrong and see how they react.” That was resilience training. The week went on, slightly tamer as we were overloaded with information about development and details about housing and other logistics.

A member of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) talked to us about the role of Canada in Tanzanian development and how the international development realm has moved from backing government actions plans to increasing project based funding. This means that instead of supporting and then evaluating the government’s programs, funding is now given to specific projects created by the government and civil society organizations based on their impact. Tanzania for many years has been characterized as the ‘darling’ of the international donor community. Close to 40% of its budget is funded by outside donors. Despite increasing aid efforts, Tanzania is still one of the poorest countries in the world. 34% of the population lives off less than $1 a day. 75% of the population relies on agriculture, but this is growing at a much slower pace than any other industry and productivity is extremely low. Only 3% of the arable land in the country is being used for economic purposes. On the other hand, 60% of the population owns a radio and 46% of the population owns a cellphone. Mobile banking has been growing exponentially with people being able to transfer money and pay bills simply by providing a cellphone number.

 We went shopping at the expat mall, Mlimani City, where we bought a couple of essentials and got our internet and phone sorted out. This was the place to go if you missed anything from home – anything BUT a bathing suit. I was going to be living on an island with numerous beaches and alas, I had forgotten to pack an essential. Thus began my quest to find a bathing suit.

On Thursday, we went to the VSO office for training not in our usual private bus but in a very colorful public mini bus, referred to as a daladala. The name originated as the price for riding the bus used to be a dollar, so people went around yelling ‘dolla dolla’ and the name stuck. It is important to note that the price to ride is not a dollar but 300 Tanzanian shillings which is about 20 cents. We walked to Posta station and waited patiently for the daladala. The daladala follows no schedules so you never know how long you have to wait for the next one but they all have names on the front so you know which route its going to go. The daladala showed up after 15 minutes and the entrance was immediately surrounded by a crowd of people pushing and shoving each other to get in. Oh, I forgot to mention, no one lines up. We were told to be aggressive if wanted to get in so I was ready to fight.  After some serious elbowing, I got on the daladala but didn’t get a seat. Atleast, I was on. I held on for dear life as the daladala got so packed that there were people hanging from the door which remained open during the entire ride. Packed like sardines, we made it to our destination and were relived to get some fresh air that didn’t smell like sweat. All in all, we survived unscathed.

At training later that day, we learned about the role of gender in development and gender disparities in Tanzania. 30% of women have no primary school education compared to 17% of males. In rural settings, 1 in every 2 females is abused. The statistics are disheartening. The office of UNwomen is shared with the VSO office so I met a volunteer working on a project to train uneducated women on solar engineering using practical methods and another on educating rural Masai women. After a long week of training we went out to the harbor to enjoy a nice meal and then headed to a party hosted at the CIDA compound. I found it quite ironic that a development agency owns a compound with a tennis court, swimming pool, bar facilities as well as a playground. With a live band, hors d'oeuvres, and lots of Canadian conversation, I ended my week in Dar es Salaam.