Blog 4 Tanzania

November 19, 2013

Mambo !  (How are things)

Well, here we are almost finished with our assignment here in Tanzania.  Only 10 days left before Hinda heads home and Peter heads to Kenya.

We have been doing good work, especially with the two women’s groups we are working with.  These are poor village woman who got together to support each other and give opportunity to others.  They started several years ago by with a donation from an American woman who came to visit.  She gave them some money to initiate a bank account. They meet each week and each woman give 5000 Tsh ($3.12) to the group account.  There are 32 women in each group. They have been keeping their money in a bank that charges them a monthly fee, charges when you withdraw money and charges when you put money in.  Peter thought that was too much and went looking for a bank that would not charge them, he found one, KCB (Kenya Commercial Bank) so the women are closing their current account and moving the money to KCB.  Just yesterday a woman from the bank came to speak to the two groups helping them understand what the account will be like.  They were very excited and since she was there she invited two representatives from each group to a workshop on entrepreneurship being held today.  They will learn a lot and bring the information back to the group.  One of the nicest things for us is that whenever we meet with the women and enter the room they stand and clap and trill their voices with their tongues.  And they come and hug us!!

Since the small businesses of these women include selling eggs, milk, vegetables, fruit, sewing and many others we have put them in touch with the chef at the hotel where we are living.  He is committed to helping them and has begun to purchase supplies from them, he has recently purchases eggs, milk and vegetables.  This is a small hotel but they have a lovely outdoor garden where they have wedding receptions, parties, etc.  This coming Saturday night they are having a wedding with 200 guests so they are ordering from the women fresh goods they will need.  This is a great opportunity for the women and we hope it will continue even after we leave.

Finally, Peter has performed a feat no one thought was possible.  One of the problems the women have is that they cannot afford to buy mosquito nets, and as you know malaria is a big problem in this part of the world.  The company that manufactures the nets is just outside of Arusha.  It is a large Indian run operation that does not make donations.  Peter, and as many of you know, he never gives up, said he was going to go visit them and ask them to donate nets.  Everyone said, it could not be done, they will not give you any nets.  We went one day last week and tried to get in to see someone. Finally, they let us meet with a secretary, who although was very nice, all she could do was ask her boss for a discount.  They said they would sell them to us wholesale.  Peter asked if he could meet with the boss the next day.  A meeting was scheduled for 10am the following day, when Peter arrived they told him the woman he was to meet with was busy and could not meet.  In his usual way he talked, cajoled, asked and generally made it known he would not leave until someone met with him.  After a while he got to meet with the sales manager who turned out to be a nice guy.  He offered nets at a much reduced price.  When Peter got back home he sent an email to the sales manager thanking him and about 10 minutes later we got a reply saying that the big boss has graciously agreed to give 64 nets to the women at no charge. They asked Peter to let them know where and when to deliver them and to get the press there.  Wow, he did it again!  However, we had no idea how to arrange press coverage.  Luckily a friend referred us to a journalist who is going to take care of the newspapers and radio coverage.  They will be presented next Monday.

Now for some exciting safari news.  As you can see from the photos we have been on safari and have seen some pretty amazing things. This past weekend we went to Tarangire National park.  A lovely place with lots of animals and a really nice lodge, where we staying in a luxury tent complete with bathroom and solar heated hot water.  It is located on a hill overlooking the savannah and has an amazing view.  Each day we went on a game drive in the early morning and late afternoon.  We saw many animals especially a great number of elephants.  This park has the largest number of elephants in Tanzania.  They are lovely and makes you wonder how anyone can kill them just to take their tusks which are worth a great deal on the ivory market.  We saw a pack of wild hunting dogs, which are rare in the world today.  The pack was resting in the afternoon heat and there were 19 of them just lazing around in the shade.  The two other highlights were a gorgeous leopard in a tree which was so close we felt like we could reach out and touch him.  And last but not least a mating couple of lions.  We have never seen this before and it was pretty exciting.  We are told they mate for 5 days, staying in the same location, coupling every 15 to 20 minutes day and night.    We going on one final one day safari to Mt. Kilimanjaro.

We went to Dar es Salaam for a weekend two weeks ago.  Big city!  Very very  hot and humid!  Lots of traffic.  Great fish market, and the Indian Ocean is very beautiful.  Only a 55 minute flight from Arusha.  Dar has a very big mix of people:  Indians, Muslims, Chinese, and is a thoroughly Swahili culture.

We saw some men painting stripes on  the new highway with a rag attached to a stick and dipped in a bucket of white paint.  This highway which is several hundred miles long, is being built with a small cement mixer which any American can rent at their local equipment rental store.  It is a loooooong process.

Kwaheri!  (Goodby)

That’s all for now.  See you all soon. P&H