the end of poverty

A friend of mine emailed me the other day with some comments about Jeffrey Sachs book, the End of Poverty. So as I was sitting in a cafe on the side of a muddy street in downtown Dar es Salaam, watching poverty come and go, I got to thinking about the end of poverty. Not that I claim to know how to end it, or feel in any way qualified to critique an eminent economist like Sachs, but it seems to me talking about the end of poverty, one might just as well talk about the end of greed, or the end of selfishness, the end of cruelty, or the end of low self-esteem.  Of course there are logistical, policy and economic factors to poverty, by definition, but I believe, at the heart of the matter, poverty is, well, a matter of the heart (my apologies if I have accidently plagerized any country and western lyrics).

A streetside cafe where one might be inclined to reflect on poverty.

As of yesterday, I have officially completed 9 of the 18 flights that make up this trip. So by my estimation I am half way through the trip. At some point in the next week and a half I will cross the international date line backwards which means I will be a day younger on my arrival in Canada. This is the second time I have done this, and I intend to keep flying around the world in the same direction as a contribution to expanding our medical knowledge.

Cultural Paralysis

The other day I had a distinct cultural paralysis moment. To the best of my knowledge, my boss is the one who came up with the concept. 

Cultural paralysis: a condition of complete social helplessness brought on by an inability to distinguish among the taboos and etiquette of multiple societies. CP is most acutely experienced by those who have travelled and lived in 3 or more countries and can no longer remember which rules apply to which location.

In this particular instance, I was sitting in a restaurant at lunch and the plate of chicken and rice had just been set in front of me. Suddenly I realized that I wasn't sure how to eat the chicken. So I started eating the other stuff and (as subtlely as possible) glanced around the table to see how others were eating the chicken. The thing is that in some places you leave the piece of chicken on the plate and pull off small pieces with your right hand. In other places it is perfectly acceptable to pick up the chicken and eat it off the bone. Turns out I saw people doing both.  The one person I saw picking off pieces with the right hand also happens to be from a more Muslim part of the country. So, I think it may be that in some parts of Tanzania, the picking-off-pieces technique may be more acceptable. So my lapse may have helped me learn something that otherwise I would have kept assuming that I didn't need to know.

By the way, I'm not sure what the next 48 hours or so holds in terms of either travel or internet access, so I may be offline for a little while.

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'.

So there's been one concrete outcome at least from our visit here in Mtwara. We met with an organization which has asked our staff here to help them build some rain-water harvesting tanks, a technology which we promote in the area where we are working in northern Tanzania. So our country director here agreed to send a technician who would help build one or two tanks and the organization here in Mtwara has agreed to cover the costs. An un-expected outcome, but a satisfying one nonetheless.

I think the worst kind of road is the kind where it is relatively smooth for moderate distances but then occasionally pocked by axle-cracking potholes, strategically placed like sand traps on a golf course. This allows the driver to approach highway like speeds under non-highway like conditions. One gets fairly adept at anticipating  the bumps and tucking one's head and bracing for impact with the roof. This effect is particularly exaggerated in the far back seat of a 4 x 4 vehicle. Not sure entirely why but it probably has something to do with basic geometry. Anyone sitting between the axle has their motion somewhat moderated, while anyone sitting beyond the axle base is like sitting on a see-saw. This means you get slapped like a pancake if the bounce is hard enough. This particular road yesterday seemed to stretch in a remarkably straight line cutting a swath to the horizon and off somewhere into the interior of southern Tanzania.

It's hot here in Mtwara. I got up just after 6 this morning, when it is dark and should still be cool and it was already hot. Even if you move really slowly, you heat up quickly.

I wish I could show you a photo of the streams of women labourers leaving the cashew processing plant this afternoon. I just didn't have the heart to take the picture. It was literally like a human river flowing out the company gate. Literally thousands of humans flowing down side streets and paths heading home in the rain.

I'm almost out of battery so I better make this quick. Weve spent the whole day visiting cashew factories and talking to cashew processors both large and small scale. It is definitely the lifeblood of this area. Whether we as an organization have a role to play here in helping production, or diversifying production or something else is still hard to say, but we've had alot of interesting discussions and learned a tonne. For example, cashew oil can be used as brake fluid and wood preservative, and cashew husks can be extracted for use in makeup.  The plant we visited this morning is the first in Africa, and the largest in the world. Unfortunately I was not able to take a picture of the 1200 women working on shelling the raw cashews. It was quite a sight.

Mtwara

So here we are in Mtwara, two of my Tanzanian colleagues and myself to meet cashew farmers and others in the cashew industry, learn about what is going on, and to exchange ideas about future collaborations. This 'first contact' in a new region is a critical moment in time, a sort of tipping or balancing point when the new contacts don't know you and you don't know them, and every single minute everyone is assessing how much they might trust or distrust the other party. It is sort of an exciting process but also a bit stressful. I find that one also tends to collect information about the situation and make assessements based on all kinds of inputs tangible and intangible. We've got 5 days here to make our initial call. I'll keep you posted of course.

By the way, I was obliged yet again to check a bag and it did arrive and is here with me safely at the guesthouse. This drops my lost-bag percentage probably to somewhere around 50%.

Coincidental Meetings

My travel schedule requires me to stay in a small town outside Arusha last night and tonight. I booked into a local guesthouse which offers clean but small rooms and breakfast for 5000 Tanzanian shillings (about 4 USD). These kinds of guesthouses are not frequented by tourists or even NGO types, so it was a huge surprise to me when I walked into the lobby and ran into an old colleague Charlie Forst. Some of you may know Charlie since he is somewhat famous in ag development circles and worked for ECHO for many years (www.echonet.org).

I had the privilege of working with Charlie in Haiti in 1996, and it was an opportunity for me to learn and be challenged. Really, Charlie is a genius. One of those people who applies himself and excels at everything they turn their mind to. He has lived through wars, embargoes, and generally extreme situations in some of the poorest parts of the world. I would guess Charlie is now at least in his 70's if not his 80's and is still going strong, working on water and agricultural projects here in Tanzania. Again, all these years later, I have so much to learn from Charlie and it is inspiring to have a chance to pick someone's brain with so much knowledge and experience. Everywhere Charlie has gone, Haiti, Peru, Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, the US, he has made a positive difference for individuals and communities. He even met then Senator Obama on his African tour. There should be more Charlie's in the world. I feel very fortunate to have run into him again, completely by 'accident'.

Today's travel tip

Should you find yourself in a mosquito infested area with no proper window screening or mosquito netting, you can use a sheet tucked in around the sides, and then wrap the top around your head like a mummy sleeping bag so that only your nose and mouth are exposed for breathing. This will not eliminate bites altogether, but will greatly reduce your exposure and at least allow you a semi-decent sleep. Not great in really hot climates, but it's a trade-off between comfort and malaria.

another travel tip

I've tested many different types of travel towels over the years, you know, the ones that dry quickly and pack small? But I would have to say that the one I would recommend the most (don't laugh) is the sham-wow, the one you see the ads for on TV. Seriously. Many of the other travel towels either don't lather soap well, or don't have the required scrubbing action, but the sham-wow does, surprisely. It's my latest discovery.

Well, I can say, that after trekking up and down farms here for the past 2 weeks, that people are definitely planting lots of trees, and the trees are doing well. It is a little harder to separate how much tree planting is just normal tree planting, and how much has been influenced by our program. We do try to collect data to show the the program is having an impact, but based on what I've seen with my own eyes, I would say that farmers have been encouraged to plant more trees. There are new trees (1-5 years old), on almost every farm we visited. In fact, for the carbon program we are hoping to implement, this is ironically a problem, since farmers are filling up every available space, and on some farms there may be no new space for carbon planting. We are trying to work on a design which will not penalize these motivated and forward thinking farmers.

Some of the many new trees that I saw on farms during the past 2 weeks

I've noticed a couple of times now while we are doing tree inventories on farms that collection of wood seems to occur almost without thinking about it. It is probably worth pointing out that taking a tree inventory involves walking all over the farm, around the outside, and back and forth across the middle a bunch of times, so I'm sure that the farmer is thinking, that if these folks are going to be doing all this walking, I might as well make good use of the time and pick up a few pieces of firewood. I would love to know what people are thinking about what we are doing, since it involves so much walking and no visible end product. Just a few sheets of paper with some numbers scralled on them. At least the farmer comes away with enough kindling to start tonight's meal.

Here's a photo of my kilo of organic coffee beans purchased directly from the farmer (could there be any fairer trade?). Just as proof for those of you doubters who think that a purchase made in the market sight unseen would actually result in a successful transaction. The beans were delivered by someone the farmer and I know in common who happened to be passing by Mshiri (the farmer's village) in the morning, and passing by the Floresta office this afternoon.

Today around noon our motorcycle got a flat tire. Convenient, since we could drop it off at the local tire repair, and walk 5 minutes to one of the favourite lunch spots in the market. When lunch was over we returned to the tire repair but since the repair was not quite finished, I ducked into the shop next door for shade. It happened to be a tailor shop, and I had just noticed walking over that my travel briefcase (REI no less)--in which we were carrying all our survey gear, had a design flaw. Hard to explain, but I realized that a few quick stitches would fix the problem, and since I happened to be standing right in a tailor shop at that moment, I asked if they could make the improvement. Which the tailor did immediately and it took him about 5 minutes. I should patent the idea and sell to REI. The tailor didn't even charge me for the work. And while this was going on, I ran into a farmer who is growing organic coffee and had agreed to prepared 1 kg of green coffee beans for me last week. We were able to finish our transaction, and arrange for the beans to be delivered to me within the next day or two. At about that same time the tire repair was done, and we hopped on the bike and headed back to work. I love it when things seem to work together like that. Only in a third world market, I think

How to eat ugali

If you've done a web search and are hoping for advice you are out of luck. I have been trying for some time to figure out how to eat ugali properly and still make a mess of it. Ugali is the thick porridge eaten commonly here, and is usually made out of corn flour, or sometimes cassava, or even wheat. It is eaten with the hands, actually just the right hand, and you take some from your plate, make a ball, and then dip or scoop your sauce, meat, or vegetables. I can eat a meal of ugali, but I always manage to get food all over my hand, whereas my eating companions may have a bit of food on the tip of their fingers, but generally they are much tidier. I've asked several people what the trick is, and tried to watch how others are eating, but there seems to be some subtle thing that I'm missing. If there is anyone out their who knows what the secret is, I would be grateful. As it is I eat like a five year old. Which really, being in another culture is often like being a child over again, talking like a child, eating like a child, having social graces like a child.

Today was Sunday and I did go to church. There's an Anglican church in Moshi called St. Margarets, which I used to attend regularly when I was here in 2003, and have been fortunate enough to get back to semi-regularly over the years. Now sadly, the pastor and his family are leaving for the UK. People come and go in the ex-patriot community, and there is hardly a single ex-pat, here that I know that was here 5 years ago. So to see this pastor and his family, whose friendship I have come to appreciate, go, is, well, sad, and a sign of the transient nature of our culture. Yet another symptom of globalization.

On the down side, I should tell you that there is some tension between the staff here and the first community where we started working. Back 5 years ago, we invested a lot of time in meetings, planning, and general discussions with this one community to get the project going. We did spend time making contacts and meeting organizations and community leaders all over Tanzania, from Babati and Arusha in the north, to Iringa in the south, and from the Vice-President's office to farmers. However, our very first activities on the ground were in this one community, and it seems that some in that community have interpreted that as meaning the project belongs to them. This has resulted in some bad feeling and some uncomfortable meetings in this community. It makes me feel bad personally, because I was involved in that initial stage and surely contributed to the misunderstanding. It also makes me feel badly for the staff since it creates additional anxiety for them, and I feel badly for the community since false expectations may have been created.

Community development is not easy, full of disappointments and set backs, but in a sense, it is kind of a good sign that this particular community wants to claim this project as their own. If we were being ineffective, or worse, having a negative effect, I would expect people to react with indifference, or even to try to distance themselves from the project.

While sitting outside at a restaurant at lunch today with my co-workers, an older gentleman, apparently a Masaii traditional healer/shaman approached our table and with a bag over his shoulder and a wooden staff. He started to explain his profession, and showed us a piece of paper with various medicines and their prices. After some discussion, he claimed that he had identified a couple of health issues that I had, and then offered to prepare the necessary treatments from the bag he was carrying. But before this could happen, he asked that our one co-workers who is a woman, to leave the table, because he could not discuss one of my apparent problems in front of her. After some discussion, Eva graciously left the table, and the healer then pulled out a couple of different powders, which looked a lot like sawdust to me, and mixed them in a small plastic bag. After spitting on the bag, he then handed it to me, and said the dispensing fee would be 3000 Tanzanian shillings (about 2.50 US). I did not actually buy the product, in case you are wondering.

The main purpose of my visit here this time, is to complete a tree inventory from a sample of the communities where we are working here, and to complete a household survey of usage of the improved stoves which we are promoting. As a result, the staff agronomist here, Albert Mwambo and myself are travelling from community to community, meeting with farmers, and taking an inventory of their farms if they give us permission. This also gives Albert and myself a lot of time to talk, and he has shared numerous stories about the work that is going on in general here in the program. The story I would like to share at the moment is about one of the savings and loans groups which has had a group nursery for sometime and with Floresta's help was able to access funds from the Kilimanjaro National Park to start a second nursery. They have also invested their own resources, for example to build the fence that you see in the photo. The group plans to operate the nursery primarily for sale of seedlings and hopefully make a profit. As you can see from the picture, taken today, the nursery only has a few seedlings at the moment, and no one was around to ask, but my guess is that they have to potential to produce between 20-25,000 seedlings at any one time. For those of you "in the know", this is an enterprise of the Kokirie group, Tumaini, of which Bariki Tarimo, the one who bought the truck, is a member.

You have to try to imagine how I was sitting at breakfast this morning looking out onto this spectacular Chagga (the local tribe around Kilimanjaro mountain) ornamental garden full of anthirium, bouganvillea, papaya, mango, grevillea, draceana, and a dozen other beautiful plants. In many ways it is also very traditional for this location and includes stonework, terraces, and an honoured space as a burial plot for the parents and grand-parents, marked on the corners with Draceana. So then you also have to imagine that behind me is a tiny (or is that tinny?) TV blarring American R&B videos while I'm sipping tea and eating fresh mango on the edge of paradise.

"Ungejuwe tuu Mama yangu, ninavyo penda pesa."

This story I heard this morning, and the above phrase has become a sort of humourous mantra around the Floresta Tanzania office recently. One of the savings and loans groups has a member, an older woman of 67 years, quite elderly for these parts. This woman has taken up the organic vegetable production system which we teach with great enthusiasm, and has 15 full raised beds producing vegetables for market. She is even selling to one of the higher end tourist hotels in the area around Kilimanjaro. This system, commonly known as bio-intensive agriculture, or double dug beds, makes heavy use of compost, mulching, and treatments using local plants to control insects. It produces high yields on a small area, with low inputs, and results in quality vegetables with little or no chemical input. Noting her energy and commitment to this activity, our national director during a recent visit asked her, why, while others are cultivating 2 or 3 beds, or perhaps 5, she is working so hard at this system, to which she gave the above reply, which roughly translates as, "I wish you could know, my dear, how much I love money."

In order to make up for my lapse of several days, I think I might be able to make things right somehow by blogging multiple times in one day...

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to meet one of our program participants here in Tanzania, Bariki Tarimo. Tarimo has been involved in the Floresta program since the beginning, even before the beginning, since he and other community leaders were helpful to me when we were just in the early stages, doing research, making contact with the community, getting all our legal requirements in order etc. He also became a member of one of the first savings and loans groups that was formed. Since that time, just two years ago, the number of community savings and loans groups has grown rapidly, til now there are over 40 groups. Each group makes its own savings, and uses those savings to make loans to group members, and as a result the savings grows, yielding interest for each member. Late last year (2008), these savings and loans groups, with Floresta help, formed an umbrella association which allows them to consolidate their savings, make larger loans, and hire one employee to do administration. Now, one of the first recipients of an umbella association loan is the same Bariki Tarimo, who I met in the market with his 'new' truck. He is using this vehicle to buy forage grasses and transport them to his village and neighbouring villages where he re-sells them at a profit.

Bariki Tarimo and his 'new' truck purchased with a loan from the local umbrella association of savings groups.

I have arrived in Tanzania safe and sound after a somewhat shaky start to the trip. I was able to successfully retrieve my lost bag in Nairobi (Curse you SwissAir!), and even was able to talk my way through immigration without paying the transit visa fee. The Kenya immigration desk is conveniently placed before the baggage claim, so that even if you are just transferring flights you have to pay the visa fee. All the more reason for my number one travel mantra: no checked bags...

Bob

Yesterday I had a chance to meet with a farmers association here in Burundi which is working with our new program. I had the chance to hear the story of a woman who fled her country during the crisis and spent 5 years in Tanzania in a refugee camp before returning to Burundi again. It is heartbreaking to hear about how someone can have to escape such extreme violence, only to arrive somewhere else and be mistreated because they are a foreigner while having to survive on the edge, and then when they return to their own country they are not welcome back and often mistreated by their own people. Because of her involvement in this association, she is regaining a feeling of acceptance, and self-esteem, and also rebuilding her economic stability, but still ,one can see a deep sadness in her eyes. A suffering so profound.

So even my attempts to write blog entries off-line and then post them when I get a connection have been thwarted. Thwarted by a series of travel mishaps on my journey to Burundi which left me without luggage and no power cord for my laptop. Beginning in New York I had flight changes and flight delays which resulted in elevated stress levels on my part. I did manage to arrive in Burundi as planned, on time, but my checked bag is currently somewhere between Zurich and Nairobi and I am still not sure if it will ever cross paths with me again. I pleaded with the Swiss Air counter people in New York to let me carry on that bag, but they would not be persuaded. I rarely check bags, and I would estimate that probably 60-75 % of the time, when I do it ends up being a problem.

Still my troubles seem quite trivial in the light of the conditions that people find themselves in here, and even compared to development workers of a generation or two ago, when travel to this part of the world required weeks or months.

This is going to be tougher than I thought. I have not got a single thought in my head worth putting in type, including this one. So is admitting I have nothing to blog a legitimate blog entry?

packing tips

Lots of people travel lots these days, and I suppose everyone has their own packing strategy, but here are a few things I've learned over the years of repeated journeys.

-roll your clothes instead of folding: this allows you to get more in a smaller space, and reduces wrinkles

-always take a toque (woolen cap): even in the warmest climates, cool weather can make things uncomfortable, and the benefit:volume ratio of a toque is high

-no caffeine on a travel day: there's about a half dozen good reasons for this, but just try it and you'll see

-don't wear a belt with a metal buckle on travel day: makes getting through airport security easier

-do wear clothes with lots of pockets that zip or velcro shut: on a long flight things have a way of working their way out of regular pockets, plus you can have one pocket for your passport, one for your pen (which you will inevitably need), etc--such pockets are also great when you're out on the street since it reduces (but does not eliminate) your vulnerability to pickpockets

-take a small roll of good quality duct tape flattened down: we all know how useful duct tape is--one of my favourite uses when travelling is to seal holes in window screens to keep mosquitoes out of my bedroom

-invest in some quick dry clothing: it packs lighter and smaller, and washes easier than cotton--the quick dry feature is just an added bonus

pre-trip rituals

Calling them rituals is a stretch. Many of the things on this list I often, but not always do. Does that qualify them as ritual?

-recharge all batteries (camera, mp3 player, gps, etc)

-clean apartment

-cut hair

-drink tonic water (for the quinines)

-listen to Voice of America webcasts in the language of the destination

-practice walking around in the dark (for non-electricity environments)

-stay up really, really late, so I can sleep on the plane

-fill up gas tank (leaving your gas tank almost empty for a long period allows fuel evaporation which changes the composition of the fuel, and results in harder starting)

-sort through my ziplock bags of world currencies

-buy a couple of used paperbacks (tom clancy, or a near fascimile)

-sit on my balcony late at night and contemplate (if it's warm enough)