First impressions

A chicken walks into a bar… and that’s as far as that story goes. It really happened yesterday afternoon when I was sitting having lunch (an omelette-chips hybrid thing) with my host/boss here in Maji Ya Chai.

It’s exactly the kind of sight I have become accustomed to seeing in the 11 days or so since I first arrived in Tanzania to embark on a six month volunteering placement.

Whether it is passing women in the street with giant loads perched on their heads or seeing more than 20 people stuffed into minivans roaring down the highway belching black smoke (they’re called daladalas), the very least I can say is that it is a long way from Edinburgh. Which is good, as that is one of the reasons why I was interested in coming here; it makes a change from the militant traffic wardens and other vermin I used to see all too often back home.

I’m also learning that it’s not just money, water and food that are in short supply for the good, decent folks of east Africa. Electricity and the internet can also be hard to come by, hence this blog not getting the kind of attention I would like to give it. But I’m learning to live without the web; Facebook's loss is east African business development's gain.

Today, however, I am in an internet café in Usa River, where I am able to upload this blog. I should declare it was written this morning and whacked onto a USB stick so as to save internet time; if you can think of internet speed at home in Scotland as being Michael Schumacher, Tanzanian speed compares like a Robin Reliant driver with a puncture.

Belatedly, I can introduce the kind of work I am doing here in Tanzania. As many of you know, I am undertaking a business development volunteering project with MondoChallenge, an organisation that specialises in sending volunteers to developing countries around the world.

Now that I have a few days’ work experience under my belt, I am able to put a bit more meat on the bones about what that actually means. For this week, and until this time in October, I am a volunteer project worker with TAN-EDAPS, a small but highly ambitious organisation led by a salt-of-the-earth bloke called Mr Mafie.

Mr Mafie is a community activist; the sort of bloke you would want to sort out problems in your community. No puffed chest, no fanfare, and also – crucially – no income; he runs the organisation, single-handedly, full time on a voluntary basis, with the greater good a bigger concern to him than personal wealth.

Litter collection, women’s empowerment, orphans’ welfare, the correct use of donkeys; Mr Mafie has interests in all. Ten years ago, he set up TAN-EDAPS to tackle these and other issues by encouraging people in the community to take ownership of dealing with them. For the next month, I am assisting him by writing reports and pulling together submissions that will be used to chase funding. I’m also his personal cameraman (not many people have digital cameras in Tanzania, and have been prowling around taking pictures of buildings and projects for use in his presentations.

I’m also living with him and his family, on his farm, which yields lovely scran like avocados, bananas, peas, sugarcane and vanilla, not far from his office in Maji Ya Chai (is that on Google Earth? I’d be interested to find out from anyone who can tell me). The 20 minute or so journey to work every day – on the back of his motorbike, under the shadow of Mount Meru – never gets any less enjoyable.

Over the next six months, I will write more on this appallingly-named blog as I learn about Tanzania, its people and places. And now that I’ve told you about what I’m doing, all future dispatches will be a bit lighter and footloose.

Am I missing anything exiting at home? I don’t know.

Ross

PS The chicken just kinda wandered off afterwards. I’ll probably see it again tomorrow.