Impressions from Tanzania, Part I

Warning:  I am writing about things that I really know very little about.  Anyone who has seen my political blog knows I do that all the time.  Well, believe it or not, I didn't come all the way over here so I could write about the weather, and about what I did all day.  My main objective is to get at least a superficial feel for the culture and the challenges that east Africans face.

One of the shocking things about being here is that you initially don't feel like you can just casually walk among some of the "poverty" that I've seen here.  Some of the dwellings that are here would not be out of place in the set of the movie "District 9".  Not only do we casually walk through these areas, nobody seems to care.  Its not like the music stops, the DJ screeches the record, and everyone stares at us (and this is Colleen and I without Said escorting us).  The people are usually indifferent, sometimes curious, but never shocked/insulted/hostile at our presence.  I wondered before coming here if I would feel unsafe at all, but I really haven't, except for when traveling in crazy packed buses.  By the way, I don't have any pictures from when walking through places like this because I don't want to offend anyone by blatantly taking pictures of them.

The reason I put the word poverty in quotes above is because these people are extremely poor by Western standards but they don't act like we are led to believe that poor people act.  I'm not sure why there is such a gulf between distant perception and reality in this regard.  I can't have been the only American with that impression, because I would confidently say that I am less easily influenced by others, and more skeptical in general, than most Americans. 

The image we have of the third world from American television sets is a bunch of people sitting around with blank looks on their faces.  In contrast, these people in Tanzania move like they are on a schedule.  Everyone has a livelihood.  Brick-making is a big one.  Younger boys are constantly filling wooden wheel barrels full of rocks and then pulling them to the brick makers.  Lots of people are working the fields.  Machine and mechanic work is common.  Carpentry and construction is too.  Maybe the most common are merchants; it seems like every other person has a shop of some sort, or is selling stuff at market.

So there is an extremely intensive economy here, and it is surprising how intensive it is, given my preconceived notions, which I feel foolish for even having at all.  It isn't a productive economy of course, at least not by our standards.  It takes investment in capital to increase productivity.  China only 30 years ago was a hugely unproductive economy, but now look where it is, thanks to investment and good government policies for business.  The real challenge is to figure out a way to get the technical know-how and the capital in so that the people can take off.  Obviously.

Colleen's friend Mary, who runs the school for special needs children, is a perfect example.  She was an entrepreneur who had a vision and a dream of a school, but no money to buy land or build it.  Colleen provided the initial catalytic boost and Mary has ran with the project, taking it beyond the level that any one person, whether it be the richest Westerner or the most motivated Tanzanian, could have on their own.  When it comes down to it, Colleen didn't buy land or build a school.  Anyone with money can do that.  Colleen invested in a Tanzanian, and Mary turned that investment into something great for her people.  This is an incredibly important distinction that must frequently be lost on people, especially western philanthropists.

Anyway, there is lots more to write about, but I'll stop there.  The concluding theme to this post is that the people of Tanzania are far more wealthy than I ever imagined; as an American it is easy to forget that wealth means more than assets and cash on hand minus liabilities.

View from school; lunch below.

Iko wapi Kili!

Day 3: St. Dymphna School (Arusha)

Our third day in Africa we went to the school that Colleen built, which is being ran by a Tanzanian woman named Mary. Colleen has told that story before, so I will just add that the school is doing very well. It has expanded amazing amounts beyond what it was when she started. Mary has volunteers from all over the world regularly coming to help. From America, from the Netherlands, Canada, Australia. It is especially vital that teachers, and particularly teachers trained in special needs education, come to help. There are forty some students at the school now and there is no way that Mary can handle it all alone.

Right now a lot of the volunteers stay at local hostels but there are a couple of rooms with bunks where people can stay at the school. Mary also plans to build an addition on the top of the school with additional rooms so that volunteers can stay there. There is also tons of room for additional infrastructure projects. For example, power is spotty and they have a couple of old computers. To get a steady power supply they have a solar panel on the roof of the school, but the battery is busted and the panel is old anyway. Definitely could use another system. I'll just leave it there and would encourage anyone interested in the school to visit Colleen's website. Be warned - there may be an impostor / fraudulent website that is attempting to solicit donations. It is using a very similar name as Colleen's foundation and claims to have built dozens of schools in Tanzania. Colleen's website is:

http://www.brickbybrickonline.org

Day three was also very exciting, for we won the game of "Iko wapi Kili", which means "where is Kili" in Swahili. On the way home from the school, it was a cloudy day everywhere, but it was clear above Mount Kilimanjaro! The thing was friggin huge. I cannot wait to climb it someday. I am very lucky to have seen it. Pictures forthcoming.

Cheers,
Nick

Pictures at St Dymphna School

Market in Arusha

This here is some amazing produce.

Arusha scenes

Obama birth certificate?

No luck yet, but I may be getting warmer.  This must have been a street he played on as a child.

Day 2: Arusha

I slept well in my net-walled fortress and woke to a breakfast of eggs, bread, and coffee.  By the way, they call their butter "fat spread" in Tanzania.  That makes me laugh, given the lengths we go to assure customers in the states that our butter has little or no fat.  Not me!  I only use the finest fatty goodness - butter.

After breakfast we walked down the road and through a field to a local school and hospital / clinic.  The school was out of session for the Easter holidays.  Pictures should be within one or two posts in either direction.  It goes without saying that the facilities are limited.  Meanwhile in the background behind the school should be Mount Kilimanjaro, which I believe is the highest African peak.  But Kili is almost always covered by clouds, I guess because of the extensive glaciation at the peak.  Colleen said she has gone months without seeing Kili so I may not get to see it while I am here.

Despite being extremely high, Kilimanjaro is apparently not a technically difficult mountain to climb.  There are 5, 6, and 10 day trips that people can take up it.  Colleen did the six day climb several years ago.  I guess the toughest part is not succumbing to altitude sickness, and its really cold the last night.  We have to leave in a few days, but climbing Kilimanjaro is way high on my list of stuff to do at this point.  So anyone who wants to come with...start getting in shape.

Later our first day we drove with Said to Arusha city proper, about 15 km away, to do some errands.  The city has a lot of hotels in the very near vicinity for Westerners on safari trips so it has correspondingly a lot of things I haven't seen other places in Africa since being here.  For example, an internet cafe isn't so unheard of, but one that has an expresso machine is.  We also went to a Kroger-esque grocery store for some bulk items for Said's home, which I hadn't seen.  Some very nice restaurants, and hotels of course.  All in all the city of Arusha is the most well off that I've seen so far. 

After the grocery we went to a city market, which was a pretty crazy place.  Oddly, just outside the market was apparently a local garbage depositing area, and plenty of people sifting through it for valuables.  You walk past that and then there are all these vendors with live chickens, meats, rice, beans, fish, and a lot of really exceptional produce.  Like, hands down better produce that I can get at Marsh at any given day in Indianapolis.  Not surprising since its all locally grown with perfect weather.  But you'd think that if they put their garbage somewhere else people would have stronger appetites and buy more.  The olfactory insults still weren't as bad as some of the fish markets in China, anyway.

After our shopping and internet + expresso we had lunch at an Indian-Italian restaurant.  Sounds like an odd combo, but I ate at an Indian-Italian restaurant in Germany a couple of years ago too.  I guess Indians must have a soft spot for Italian food.  I think its a great combo.  Pizza dipped in curry is awesome.

I took some photos of the local market so check those out.  Later we walked down towards this lake, on which was built a very fancy hotel-cottage type place.  They had a setup where you'd have five cottages that all open up to the same circular area, and had 6 or so groups of these five.  There was a restaurant/bar/meeting building that was gorgeous too, on a lawn that overlooked a lake.  I have pictures of this as well which should be up soon if not already.  Colleen and I agreed it would be awesome to get a ton of friends and family over to rent them out.

At the end of the day, we did my favorite thing, which is to relax under the amazing evening weather and read, have dinner, and have a beer.

A local school in Arusha