The Mtwara trip is almost over. In theory our flight leaves today around noon, or at least that is what is printed on the piece of paper which is ostensibly my ticket. Since this trip has been so far fraught with a number of travel incidents, I am holding my breath.

But it has been a good week. Exhausting and long days, but we've learned so much and I think we have at least a start on getting a good perspective on what role we might play here. My Tanzanian colleagues have been great, and on many occasions took the initiative when I couldn't. This is the first time I've done a new program exploration with others, and so prior to the trip I was a little apprehensive about whether things would go smoothly or not. One of the best things was one evening when the three of us were sitting in a restaurant and a local cashew seller came around our table with his tray of small bags of freshly roasted cashews. He was just trying to sell us maybe 50 cents or 1 dollars worth of his product, but it soon turned into an in depth interview of small scale cashew processing and marketing, and he ended up sitting at the table with us for probably an hour. He seemed quite willing to share info, and even pleased that someone was taking an interest in his vocation. The conversation was entirely in Swahili which means I was following very little. I really appreciated how my colleagues adapted to the chance opportunity, and turned it into a small gold mine of useful 'data'.