Tanzania

Press Return

2008-06-06T20:50:00.004+03:00

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

2008-05-19T18:46:00.003+03:00

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

2008-05-11T15:29:00.004+03:00

'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)

2008-05-04T16:37:00.003+03:00

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

2008-04-18T17:31:00.002+03:00

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

2008-04-13T15:55:00.001+03:00

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

2008-04-05T20:37:00.003+03:00

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.

What is 4 times 4

2008-03-07T17:12:00.001+03:00

Answer the number of houses I have lived in, in the past four months, oh yes I am now in my fourth house out of a prospective five (although this figure could still grow). New house is good, I live will someone on the weekend.

Work has been going well of late, which is good, I have been making some good progress on the Loan Tracker and also the research. I now have the making of a training plan for May, which means my Swahili, business and teaching skills seriously need to improve in the next two months. A new area of training which we are looking at including for 3rd/4th cycle loan clients is ‘business plans’ to help us get a better idea of how the clients are planning on using the larger loans and this will also help them should they reach the stage where they are applying for commercial loans.

Yesterday we went out and visited a number of clients and I have another story for you of the impact made in one lady’s life (see pic insert):

Valeliana Pilla has taken two loans from Mama Bahati Foundation and has used the increased capital from these loans to move to a more profitable business. At first she was selling clothes and it was her plan to move to selling ground nuts because there were so many people selling clothes that she could barely make a profit. Through the course of the first loan she began to sell ground nuts alongside her existing business, but now in her second loan cycle she focuses all of her attention the ground nuts. The loan gave her the extra capital she needed to make the transition smoothly.
She says that as a result of the increased profit she can now afford the rent on her house and for her son to go through secondary school; she is a widow and has to cover all these costs herself.

That’s about all from me for now. I am hoping lead the Palm Sunday Service at church (that’s the Sundya after next). It’s a family service and as you probably know I’m scared of kids, but I have a plan, act like a kid and no one will ever know. I’ll let you know.

Happy Birthday Mama Bahati Foundation

2008-02-27T17:30:00.000+03:00

Well this week saw the first birthday of Mama Bahati Foundation; it has been an amazing year for them. They now have nearly 400 clients, working in three districts of Iringa, with both of these number set to grow before the end of the year. By the end of 2008 they expect to have over 1000 clients and be working in 5 districts. We will be holding our Birthday celebration a month late though, as tomorrow night the Arch-Bishop (the guy who started it all) is setting down as Arch-Bishop and there are elections going to be held in Dodoma for the new one. I have been working away on this training plan for the clients and I am really excited to see it working, we are hoping to give training specific to businesses and I have already compiled some materials on agriculture and farming; so that’s a good start.

I myself have not been too good these past few weeks, turns out I wasted £100 on Anti-Malaria tablets, as I still managed to get Malaria, smooth! They really should re-name it the sleeping disease though cos it basically just makes you really tired. I also got some kind of infection too which no one could work out which was interesting. I am ok now though.

I joined a football team this week playing football with some of the guys who work in the local market selling souvenirs. One of them became a Christian a few weeks back and decided to set up a Bible study for his mates, over 20 of them came and only one a Christian, how many times does that happen in England? This week also saw me enter a new culinary height, I baked a carrot cake. So good.

We Can Make Our Plans but the Lord Determines Our Steps

2008-02-11T17:04:00.000+03:00

I’m almost half way through my time here in Iringa would you believe it and in my three months here I have lived in no less than three different houses and it looks like there’s more to come as I am only in this house for a month. I am really getting suck into the work here and I am developing good research and training plans, I hope to be teaching English and some business skills before I leave. We are currently doing some R&D into the kinds of training the clients want but we will be doing some general ones like health, numeracy, literacy and English, and some specific to businesses like cafes, animal keepers and small shops.

Last week I took a trip to Mwanza on the south shore of Lake Victoria, a beautiful place but you can’t swim there; gutted! The main plan of this trip was to see my friend Pip who was there on a short term mission with Red Balloon Theatre Company and I did see her, for all of 4 hours. I discovered part way into my journey she was leaving a day sooner than I thought, that was fine; I would still get a day with her. I hadn’t counted on buses not being allowed to run at night and so had to spend the night in a dodge hotel (which appeared to double as a laundry) in a bed with bed bugs, get in. So I arrived there at 8am the next morning as she was preparing to fly out at 1pm. I spent a day resting after a crazy journey and then made my way back, to move into my new house and get started on all this work.

On my return my phone broke and I lost all my numbers, it was weird like a deleted a chapter of my time here at the half way mark, particularly as my good friend Paul had left the weekend before. Its not all a tail of woe though the house I am staying in now has a blender so we made Pina Colada with fresh fruit and mushrooms are finally in season, so wild mushroom omelettes all round.

Complications Arose, Ensued, were Overcame

2008-01-30T17:28:00.001+03:00

So picture this, around 7am Friday morning you look at your passport and realise your visa has expired 10days ago and you’re a day’s travel from the border with numerous police checks in between. Well that’s what happened to me this weekend… I was an illegal immigrant. Got my visa in the UK therefore it started the day I got it, not the day I arrived as I thought, lesson leaned.

With a $400 fine hanging over my head, the next morning I made a mad dash for the border to Malawi, 12 hours coach ride away. Coach journeys are not nice at the best of times, but in my situation, hell on earth.

I spent a grand total of 24 hours in Malawi much to the delight of the border officials, not! I was in trouble again. I wish I coulda spent more, although it rained most of the time and lake was nowhere near as nice as Matema, the people there more than made up for it. Watched 2 village football games, swam took a canoe trip and made some great friends. My first dinner the restaurant announced they only had beer available, interesting.

The race was on to get back, Simon Lee was due to arrive in Iringa at 5pm and it was my job to meet him. Needless to say based on my luck I was not back in time, I arrived back at 8pm after journeys in 4 different vehicles. Strangely though one mini bus achieved a 3 hour journey in an hour and half.

Simon Lee is here from Five Talents Uganda for the week and we are working on a far superior Loan Tracker, he has much more experience in this area, having developed one before for the Uganda project.

Client Story Time

2008-01-24T16:20:00.000+03:00

It has been a hard month for MBF, as we are in the middle of the rainy season now and many clients are struggling to make repayments because they have had to focus more time on farming activities; which is understandable. So we have been making a lot of short term agreements with clients and also looking at how we can help the clients during the rainy season next year so we don’t have as bigger problems, particular as we expect to have over 1000 clients by this time next year.

I wanna share some success stories that we have collected this week, cos it’s not all doom and gloom here (although it is pretty gloomy with all the rain):

Margeth Nyagawa: She keeps animals and sells their produce, as well as keeping the cow; she also keeps chickens. Now in her second loan cycle she can afford to look after the animals better and improving the quality of their produce and their health, in particular she has been able to afford medicine for her cow. Her cow now produces enough milk for her to survive during the rainy season so she can afford to sell the chickens and focus on a good harvest. Her family no longer need to worry about food and basic needs; they are comfortable.

Jamila Mgana: Jamila keeps chickens to sell their eggs, she can now afford to feed her chickens; even during hard times and as such they produce more and better quality eggs. They are even producing enough eggs that she plans to buy a second group of chickens and when they are mature she will sell the first group of chickens for meat, so she will continue to have a good supply of quality eggs.
The impact on her family has been great, as she has three school aged children and as well as being able to pay for school fees and uniforms, when the children did not do well in school she was even able to afford to pay for them to re-sit the examinations. She has even been able to help out her extended family during hard times and still feed her own family comfortably.

Erika Tupulike: Now in her second loan cycle, Erika has gone from weaving baskets for sale, to grow her product range through diversification. She has taken advantage of business opportunities and thanks to the capital made available by the loans she now makes and sells charcoal and local foods like Maandazi. She is also feels comfortable to meet all of her basic needs including her rent and can afford to pay the school fees for her children too.

I am coming up to may third month out here and I will be renewing visa in around a week through a whistle stop tour of some of East Africa. I will also be moving to my third house, the family who own the house I am in are coming back so time to move again. I have been busy in the kitchen too, adding to my resume, Bread (of many flavours), Lasagne (from scratch), Mexican food and the ever popular Animal Fries. On Monday I am receiving the first Five Talents guest, all the way from Uganda to help us with our loan tracking system, I am currently working on Mk II of loan tracker; I hope to make it more user friendly.

2008 Baby

2008-01-05T12:39:00.000+03:00

Another year, crazy. Definitely a different Christmas, I was out of town so no Church. What do you do on Christmas day when the church doesnt tell you what to do? Well you climb a rock and watch the river flow beneath you, praising God for his awesome power. I found that works pretty good. I spent the rest of the day eating loads and playing a lot of Volleyball. I found a good replacement for Turkey... the Warthog. Its like really good pig.

New Years was good I was down on Matema Beach, on Lake Malawi. No really change on the last two New Years in Portsmouth, beach and it rained. But the rain was warm. Did lots of cool things including more Volleyball, hiking a waterfall and snorkelling. Good time was had by all. Altho my tent did get flooded out.

I ve been back at work this week and catching up as Loan cycles over Christmas so the spread of repayments is even and easier for the clients to repay. The loan tracking system is working well and I hope to have someone come and check it over this month and see what improvements can be made.

Today I m popping out to village outside of town to visit a leading sociologist in Tanzania culture, with a view to me spending a few days there studying the culture for my research.

So this is Christmas

2007-12-20T13:50:00.000+03:00

Theres five days to go and I have to be honest I am looking forward to the holiday. Although it is a random public holiday for some Muslim festival, which is nice. So back for one day and then off till the second.

We had a carol service on Tues that was cool and I played guitar for that so look out Sam and Dave I want your jobs. It was nice to play some of the carols even though they little relevance here. Bleak mid winter? Definitely aint bleak here altho it is raining a quite a bit.

Had a wicked experience yesterday riding up the mountain to Iringa in the windy heat on the back of flatbed truck filled with bricks. It was amazing I had a tree top level view down the mountain and into the valley.

Well Im off now till the New Year on Holiday on Lake Malawi. So have a great Christmas and New Year everyone.

There's a monkey in my garden

2007-12-15T11:50:00.000+03:00

This beats rats hands down, I came back from shopping this morning to find there was a monkey leaping through the trees in my garden. So, no chickens but I have a monkey, close enough for me.

Work is going really well, although I am constantly tried due to working all day and study as well, I am actually doing more homework here than I do at Uni (I hope my lecturer isnt readin this) So I keeping busy anyways, which is good. The work is going well because last week I set up a loan tracking system and identified the people who were behind with payments, by the end of this week, we had halved the number in and the value of that list. It is also helping the staff identify who needs extra support. It is an exciting time also, as the Uk office is making a large transfer next week, so we can increase the portfolio. We are expecting to take on 50 new clients in a growing area of Iringa.

Still no real signs of Christmas, trukeys dont exist here and they dont even have a word in Swahili so I think may be roasting a chicken. Meats' meat I guess.

hitting the month mark

2007-12-07T16:59:00.000+03:00

hey so I have been here for a month now I have got through two houses, sweet. I got an upgrade too, although not sure what I am paying on it yet. They moved me after my house was broken into twice. This time they damaged my bedroom door so badly that I couldn't get through so I had to kick it in, stress relieved.

I have been working hard and studying hard, I have completed a basic loan tracking system now and I am working to check out the accounts that are behind with payments, there arent many but I gotta check, make sure it wasnt me who made a mistake. Studying Kiswahili is hard particularly as I have homework every night. I dont think I did this much when I was it uni.

I have a bike now, but it has more gears than it knows what to do with. The chain falls off constantly but I dont care cos it works and I am getting fit. lol. The weather is changing and the rains are coming. So will be cycling in the rain.

Meeting the Arch-Bishop in my Boxer Shorts

2007-11-27T15:57:00.000+03:00

The title is no entirely true but close enough. I had taken an early night when the Arch-Bishop of Tanzania (Tanzania version of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbruy) came to call. So I through on a pair of very loose jeans and let him in. He didnt seem to mind which was cool.

Back to the important stuff, I have now started ki-swahili lessons and man is it hard to learn another language. I am doing 4hours per day for a month. Hopefully by the end I will be in a better position to do my work and also the research. I have some of my research sorted and I will be piloting a questionnaire this week with a view to full scale useage next week when I can speak the language better. I am looking into the impacts of the loans on the business and lives of the individuals.

Habari za nyumbani? Hows the house? well I now have rats, yes! And on Sunday I had no water right through till late Monday but things are looking up now as I have water again and they will also fix my toilet.

clown college you can't eat that!

2007-11-21T17:26:00.000+03:00

For those who dont watch the Simspons the title is lost but the meaning is important for my week. I have been travelling to work and back on what is called public transport, these are small people movers that seat anywhere from 12 people to 30 altho the driver prefer it if they have 30. Combine this with dirt track roads and we have a lot of fun.

It is my first week here in the office and I have been given an introduction to micro-finance and today I got to do the admin on the loan repayments for half of the group it was interesting and it also challenged my maths everything you want in a days work.

House is coming along, altho it is missing a few windows and has a lot of roaches I am getting on fine there. Quite lonely at the moment as I have not had a chance to make any friends, but my guitar is improving.

Karibu Tanzania

2007-11-16T18:42:00.000+03:00

The first week with the rest of the team is drawing to a close. We have had some amazing experiences; visiting clients, teaching business, seeing the country and lots of animals, but most importantly seeing God at work.

We have been full circle and I am back in Dar Es Salaam where we lsft just one week ago. We travelled to Iringa by road for 6hours and went to church on Sunday. On monday we met some of the clients and got to know Mama Bhati Foundation (MBF) better. It was amazing to visit some of the clients and to see the poverty that they are in and the difference that Five Talents and MBF have made. One woman said that because of the loan her business had grown enough so she could afford to eat three meals a day. The basic things we take for granted these people have to work their way towards.

We visited more clients through the week and did some business training, the women were really interested; took lots of notes and were really engaged. It was such a blessing to be with them, although they had nothing to give you in return they jsut sang in thanks for the small efforts we had made. God really came through on the first day as one of the people who was doing a lot of the teaching, Amy, was ill. We prayed for her and she didnt not feel any more of the illness. Awesome.

We went out to Ruaha National Park for the last day here and saw some of game, but no elephants which was a shame. We then took a light aircraft back to Dar, it was just big enough for the four of us.

All smiles with the Bishop

2007-11-08T20:00:00.000+03:00

I am off to Tanzania tomorrow and I still haven't packed or got travel insurance... sorry Rachel I had to say it just to worry you. There are clothes and random crap absolutely everywhere in my room.

Back to the important stuff I met Bishop David, the bishop of Birmingham, yesterday. He is a good man and I really enjoyed chatting with him about the work that I will be doing with Five Talents. He has done a lot of travelling himself so we had a lot in common. I invited him out to visit me but he has made a pact not to go the Africa for 12months because he has been over there too often. He also gave some insight in to Tanzania as he has also spent sometime there. I will be passing on his greeting in Tanzania to Bishop Donald.

He has invited me to speak at a business breakfast when I return about what Five Talents are doing, so I have 7months to work out what to say.

Last night I hooked up with my good mates, Ollie, Tom and Mike and we did some Smuggling Peanuts recording for old time sake. We haven't played together for at least a year so it was hard work but the best fun I have had in a long time. I really miss playing with them and I look forward to hearing the CD when it is done.

Anyways next time you here from me I'll be in Tanzania. Love you all.

Welcome

2007-11-02T14:08:00.001+03:00

It is my last day here in the Uk office of Five Talents and one week to day that I will be flying to Tanzania. So I would like to welcome you to my blog and I hope you will continue to read, I will be posting similar blogs on myspace and facebook and if I have your email it should be in yours inbox.

Just a little about what I will be doing in Tanzania to get you started.

I am working for the micro-finance charity Five Talents, who give small loans and business training to people in the developing world who have some great ideas to start or grow a business but don't necessarily have the money or the know how to do this. I will be helping in the offices there with their admin and I will also be helping out in the local church over there. I will be leaving regular updated more on the business side of things here on this blog.

I hope you enjoy and will continue to check this blog out.

edd