Press Return

One week ago today I left the place that I have called home for the past 7months to return to England. There is a lot that will be missed and people who will be missed too, I am happy to be home but I am sad to leave, I guess this would happen regardless. So as I left Mama Bahati Foundation I said goodbye to some very good friends and I am so thankful for their work and time that they took out of their schedules to make me feel welcome. I received an awesome gift from them, they go one of the clients to make me a a wall hanging so I wouldnt forget them.




I travelled to Dar es Salaam for a day trip to Bongoyo Island and the beach one last time, I enjoyed an awesome crab and chips lunch. It was kinda surreal being on the beach knowing that the next day I would be in London. Things worked out really well, as Joe, Jen and Sasha were all leaving around the same time as me, so I had some friends to hang out with. I also got a chance to say goodbye to some friends from Dodoma too and we had a meal at an Ethiopian Restaurant.



I went back to Brum for a day, cooked my family dinner then had to go back to London for a board meeting... explain myself. It turns out they have been reading my blog and enjoyed the once about meeting the bishop in my boxers (if you aint read this, I think its in December sometime). Bonus, I got to see The Zutons for freee again, once again curtacy of my friends at Capital Radio. This was possibly one of the best gigs I have ever been to, it was in Shorditch Town Hall, beautiful venue.


Thus ends the journey. Tomorrow I will being doing a fun run for Edward's Trust, 8miles... not good. I will leave a blog on this and I will be changing the name of the Blog as I am not longer in Tz but I wanna keep writing and I think I will be compiling some of the stories and the like on that. Peace.

I lean Against the Wind and Pretend that I am Weightless

It all got a bit really last week, its very easy out here to get swept up with the romance of where you are and all the things you can do or see here; I must admit I am guilty even in my line of work of forgetting the very real poverty and real danger so many people here are in just living their daily lives. I say this as the first client in the history of Mama Bahati Foundation passed away from illness, so please pray for her family and for us, for wisdom of how to continue from here. Then the next day a client whom I have seen the day before full of life and had just taken a new loan was on the floor of our office crying out in pain and I could do nothing; I did the only thiing that i knew how and I offered to pray for her and only God knows the impact this had. It was encouraging to me to know that MBF is a place our clients can come for help and support; this adds credence to the argument that we need a counsellor available in the office. So all this made me very angry as I read a lot of essays this week for my course calling for more empirical evidence on microfinance as so far microfinance has not be proved a positive influence, but these people who write these things sit in their western utopia and have no idea the battles that each one of these women face every day, theres no health care here, no workers rights, these people have nothing for their them to have the strength and confidence to continue in their businesses is a miracle itself. People are not numbers, they are people and each one a story of the battles they face every day that we couldnt even consider. I feel so guilty about the times I have complained, I have no right.

So back to some good news, today I trained the staff on the first part of the loan tracker and I hope to have one session next week to tie up the lose ends, but I am really pleased with this and it is really helping with the loan tracking the information that we can send to supporters. I have also been encouraged with the ideas I have been having on training, which scares me cos I said I would teach in Swahili; I have less than a week to do this. We were let down a little last week as we had collected permission to begin work in a new area to find that the letter wasnt valid for where we wanted to work so back to square one.

I'll close today with a very British weather report, it is crazy windy here now (this is winter for them) we hiked up a mountain over looking Iringa and you could actually lean in to the wind up there and have it support you. And for all of those you who did not agree with my rant against quantitative data I will have some statistics and maybe even a pretty graph for you to enjoy next week.

Millionaires Mission

'a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.'

Today's quote comes from Pirates of the Carribean and is reference to some of the trouble I have got myself into in the past 2weeks. As the title probably portrays I have been preparing for a visit from 6 very prestigious guests. Which went very well actually, but there was more than a fair share of problems before hand. I would like to publicly shame Mission Avation Foundation (MAF) I am not normally one to do this but these poeple are terrible and this is the second time they have done this to us. They did not reply to any emails even though the address was right. Long of the short they kept delaying and it resulted that we still did not have confirmation of a plane the day before so I called and of course the person I had been speaking to was not in and had not left any note of this plane at all. Back to step one, the guy said it should be fine and he would call me later and well you guessed it, he didnt, I got an email at 7am the day after saying no; after he had practically given me his assurance.

The list of problems continues, at the hotel we had booked we called to make sure the rooms we had booked hadnt changed, they said 'no', thats good. So I go along to check anyways, of course they had changed. All credit to them they did pull out all the stops to make it an awesome time for our guests. British Airways did what only they are best at and their plane over to Tanzania was 2hours late and this put a lot of pressure on the meetings we lined up in the morning. Then meeting their plane arriving in Iringa our driver disappeared only to arrive at the time their plane was due in, that was the scarest journey I have been on in a few months.

These things aside we had an awesome weekend and I think the guests experienced something really special here in Iringa. The first night we cooked them a meal and my workmates experiences just how much fun cooking with me is, I made ginger cake which tasted wicked but had no shape. The next day we visited 10clients at their businesses and took a tour around Neema Crafts workshop. We demonstrated a good range of clients, those who are doing well and those who arent. One of the main things that the guests were struck by was just how much the clients go through outside of just taking a loan, they have family pressures and almost always there is another problem that does not make it easy to continue running a business and regardless of the papers you can read negative against Microfinance you will find it hard not hail these women as modern day hereos.

Sunday moring was my first experience of a rural church in Tanzania (interesting I had been to one in Malawi but not here). We drove out in to a region called Kilolo (this is where we will be commencing the village banking model of Microfinance as of this week) and the church was so small but so full. Their voices where amazing, it was such a freeing environment to be in and it really felt like every action in thiss church was taken with God in mind and often I feel like we can lose focus on that. Afterwards there was a big dance party and the pastor invited us back for tea. I said goodbye to the team just after lunch as they left for Ruaha National Park. Their trip was short but intense and I am knackered now. (Pics to follow as currenlty I cant load them up)

The May Day celebrations caused a great deal of change in Iringa with news that the President was coming, they fixed the streetlights. This may sound really odd but all around Iringa are streetlights and until a week or so ago I had never seen them working. This really stuck a chord for me because at the moment there is a song in the charts here called Mr Politician and this song features the lyrics 7million walk down roads you never fix, which isn’t exactly true he’ll fix them if he has to use them.

It has been a crazy week in the MBF office with the news that we will be receiving millionaire guests in less than 2weeks, which is exciting as there is just so much happening at MBF that we can show them. Right now we are preparing to move into a new distinct within Iringa and the number of clients we have grow that we now need to have 4 collections meetings; we nearly have 600 clients.

For the May Day bank holiday I took a hike up one of the many mountains which Iringa is set in. There was four of us who hiked up to a cross that over looks the TanZam Highway, this hike doesn’t look to hard but this does not take into account the fact there isn’t actually a trail. There are many different trails that are going all over the place and others that just disappear after a few mins, its not like England where there is a sign post at every junction, so we full bushwacked like half of it battling the danger of snakes all the time.

Playing the Maasi at football

Don’t be fooled by the title this is a fully serious blog… with the usual crazy stories on the side (it wouldn’t be right/me without them). It is so amazing to a part of something as exciting as Microfinance, this week we had a client take out the largest loan we have given, admittedly this is only £150 but this is a significant step both for the client and MBF. I have two stories from clients that I wanna share with you:

Zawadi runs a fruit and vegetable stall in Iringa, she uses the income generated from her business to support nine people in total, including her parents and her parents in law. She said she would find it much harder to provide for all these people without the support she has received from MBF that has helped her business to grow. She no longer needs to rely on credit terms for her stock but can negotiate a better price with cash in hand, this also means that she can afford to stock a wider range of products. The extra income has given her the ability to provide for her sick husband with all his medical needs as he has been off work for over a year; her income is the only one in the family.

Hamida has big dreams for her future and says that the loan from MBF has given her a hope of achieving this; she is thinking bigger than her small shop, even a new shop in another location. The business is growing so fast that she thinks she will need to take on new members of staff soon. The profits from her business have been so big that she can afford to make large savings and also send her children to a better school away from home. She says she can really see the difference that the training and support from MBF make in her life.

These are just two of the many stories that MBF has, in some cases we have clients not only being able to afford to send their children to school but then on to university as well, which is an amazing achievement.

The work that I have been doing with the Loan Tracker is coming on well, I have now managed to complete one month fully functioning and I intend to start training the staff here on how to use it next week. There are still a few bugs that I need to work through though. MBF has taken on an accountant for a few weeks to get us set up on ‘QuickBooks’, he has recently completed a masters in Microfinance and it looks like he may become the new loan officer in June as by then we expect to have over 600 clients.

Another week gone by and my sporting prowess increases daily, as well playing football and basketball I have now become the limbo champion of Iringa (like anyone could possible know that). Narrowly defeating local hero Andrew Wingfield in a to the death limbo battle. In some serious pain after, limbo is not just a bit of fun. This week for the first time I played football against a Maasi (for those of you who don’t know who the Maasi are, watch more BBC cos they have them on their adverts or just google it). He turned up in traditional dress, Kikoy, Knife, Stick and Sandals, not good things for a game of football so he stripped down into a Liverpool kit. What is going on with the world? The world needs to be educated on the way of West Brom.

I strikes me that I never told you how the talk went that I did, me and family services do not mix it is official. It didn’t really help that I was talking to a congregation for whom English was a second language at best, so a lot of the satirical humour was lost. I did however manage to compare Jesus to Margaret Thatcher (if your interested message me to find out). The aim of the talk was to look at different types of praise and lets just say audience participation was lacking and as such I ended up dancing like a nutter demonstrating a Rave to a bunch of missionaries. Crazy Party!

That's Interesting

It has been a very busy week and also a reality check for me. I spent the week entertaining a Five Talents guest, meeting her in Dar and travelling with her to Iringa. She is currently researching Microfinance here in East Africa and MBF was her first stop; it was my job to make it the best. I also passed the 5month mark, moved into my fifth house and said goodbye some good friends. I now only have a month and half here in Tanzania, so look out England.

The visit went really well and I had lots of fun (I hope Helen did too and she wasn’t just being polite). We broke her in gently with an introduction to MBF’s favour of Microfinance and some of the systems that we use for tracking the loans. Unfortunately I became very ill with a 24hour bug that day, but still managed to brief her on all the loan tracker developments and research plan; just about recovering in time to make the most amazing Mexican food. Thursday we visited a lot of clients and Helen got to experience some of the amazing things that are happening in clients lives as a result of the loans and training that they receive (Next blog will include some of these), in the evening I introduced her to the sensation that is Animal Fries. On Friday we investigated Pride Tanzania, which seems to operate in a similar way to Five Talents Uganda and then we attended a Centre Meeting where over 180 clients came to make repayments. This was particularly interesting cos the first 20mins were conducted in a building with no roof, as the key to our usual room had gone missing; thankfully it was a beautiful day. We arranged a farewell meal on Friday night; it was a sad week with Adam and Nico also leaving on Friday morning. During the week we climbed Gangilonga Rock, so that Pop ‘a’ Corn (the latest pop sensation to hit Tanzania) could get photos for their new album.

I have made good progress with the Loan Tracker I hope that at the beginning of next week I can start to train the staff at MBF so that they begin to use it themselves and I can support them in this. When we visited the clients this week we piloted the latest version of the research questionnaire and we seem to have good questions which help us get the information we need and challenge the clients to think big. Although we may make it in to a shorter questionnaire and do some more informal interviews as this will help some of the clients to develop their businesses.

Its been a While

So for that, I dunno what has come over me... a whole month and I havent bugged you. Well have been busy so this my be long but also very interesting. In this last month we have finally managed to get together a loan tracker that is working (feel free to celebrate with joyous delight by punching your fist into the air, I kno I did). Yes so now I am on the task of attempting to fill this with all the records and now there are more than at Christmas around 450 and increasin all the time. Also this week we receive the first of a string of guests, this one is from the conservative party persuing an interest in development. So will we be visiting clients and giving her a flavour of the MBF microfinance program, the same can be said for some other guests from other dioceses in Tanzania in the coming weeks, as they would like to start similar microfinance projects in their diocese.

As of Easter I have been on an epic journey, made even more epic by some zany schemes (why does it always have to be a zany scheme?). My original plan on the Wed morning before Easter was to board a bus to Dar and meet my family for a few weeks. By Wed lunch I had decided to take a trip back to Matema Beach with a number of friends the next day. Crazy... well I started it. The next day we went to get the bus, paid, waited, then were told we had to get off or we would be taken to the police as someone else had hired the whole bus. Not good, changed bus, journey started. We made it to the last leg just before night fall, thru a myriad of problems and we get in the back of a pickup to Matema. Things were going well time it all good dark, we were singing and happy, the Tanzanians loved it, we loved it. But the lights didnt work on the pick up and we ended up hitting a cow... not good! So we had to drive using the light from our phones, ever tried that, its interesting, it keep in mind there are no street lights on dirt tracks. We made it in about 9pm and couldnt put tent up in dark so shared 3 rooms between 7. We had an amazing few days on the beach getting sun burned and then I took my leave a day early to go to Dar, I travelled with an extrenic German girl who was volunteering there for 5weeks, nice girl, totally crazy.

My Family: Well they came for 2weeks and I showed them where I lived, the work I do and lots more. We took a trip to Ruaha National Park (low season my ass) I saw way more in the time we were than I did last time, 13 lions in one go and this includes 2cubs. One the way back to Iringa I screwed up... big time. I got the time wrong for the bus and we missed it, so we had to take a later, cheaper and generally a lot worse bus, much to my parents delight. We did see water buffalo on the way (which had eluded us in Ruaha). Then to Zanzibar, the stress behind us.. Not! We were having real problems with Tanzania's cash economy, no where takes cards, only cash. Try paying for 4 people for 4nights in cash, not easy. The place we stayed was pretty basic if over priced, which was to be expected. Mostle spent on the beach, one day me and my bro went snorkelling, abosultely amazing (full recommend this over any reef ive been on, try peak season tho, stay out of the rain). On the way back the motor wouldnt start, so we put up the sail, problem solved we were making good time, it ripped in half, nice. We ended up at one point headed very fast away from land with no means of getting back, but they finally managed to fix the motor. We ended the time on a spice tour, this is good fun and we got to try allsorts of spices and fruits.

So that is the marathon, sorry. I will let you know how the visits go.