Well, I am really in Africa now.  I arrived in Mwanza on Sunday, and now can't even keep track of the days. It's such a beautiful place. I still can't help but feel like I am on vacation....maybe that will wear off eventually, but it's hard to tell.  The people here are so friendly.  Since I arrived with two other women working on the orange-fleshed sweet potato endline study, we have been staying in a really nice hotel with wonderful staff.  It has been great getting to know Margaret and Sonii, and I'm glad we get to work together for a little while on the design and implementation of this study.  Last night I stayed in a catholic hostel.  Unfortunately this morning I was unaware of morning prayer with the sisters, until it was too late.  Hopefully I'll be able to join them sometime in the future.  Tonight I'll be staying at the hotel with Margaret and Sonii again.

Last night I ate my first real lake fish, which was sure the be the first of many.  It's the staple protein here, being right on Lake Victoria.  I was taken out to dinner by Benjamin Kamala and a friend of his who is a medical student here in Mwanza.  Benjamin is a friend of Johanna Andrews, who is my friend from the Friedman School.  She put us in touch through Facebook.  It is so nice to have contacts.  He was really kind, and was even a consultant recently on another HKI food fortification project.  Everywhere I've gone, nice people have welcomed me to Tanzania. Everyone seems to really make time for others here, which I deeply appreciate.

Today I was picked up by Victor, the coordinator for the primary project I'm helping with, and he has been so helpful with trying to find a place to stay.  We came to the HKI office here in Mwanza for the first time.  We have a bird's eye view of the city.  There is so much to see.  I'll upload pictures later today.  It's nice to start settling in.  Yesterday I started chatting with the hostess of the hotel and she offered to give me a tour of the fruit and vegetable market in town.  How did she know that was exactly what I wanted to do?!  I was dying to get outside the gates of the hotel.  It was great to have company for my first foray into the city, and have a really nice guide.  Everyone seemed to know her at the market, and we walked through a sea of greetings.  I heard a few mzungu (their word for a white person) comments from passersby, but I'll just get used to it.  Once my Swahili improves, hopefully I'll be able to respond.  The market was quite an experience...I'll save that for another post.

Tomorrow I will be heading out to the field with Margaret until Saturday.  We will be hosting the group discussions of villagers so we can determine the impact of the orange-fleshed sweet potato project.  One component of the project, called Morando Bora (quality vines) was to disseminate improved quality sweet potato vines that are resistant to disease and pests.  The second component was to educate people about the new orange-fleshed sweet potatoes that are rich in vitamin A, and much more nutritious than the traditional white-fleshed sweet potatoes commonly grown here.  It will be really interesting to see how the process works in the villages, and my contribution will be to help summarize the findings at the end of the day.  The discussions will all be in Swahili, so I obviously won't understand much of what is happening during the day, but when we summarize for the report we will work in English.  Thankfully this is the case, since my tiny bit of Swahili wouldn't get us too far.  :)  We will be out in the field until Saturday, but I will have my internet connection with me, so I'll probably be able to be connected.  We'll see.  In any case, I'll be in good hands.

Until next time,
Katrina

A Lazy Saturday Morning

I don't know the last time I was able to laze around on a Saturday morning and look out my window at palm trees in the backyard.  Okay, maybe that’s never happened to me before, which may be why it's so unfamiliar.  

Life is already exceedingly slower since I arrived here in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Wednesday morning.  It feels so good to have left the hustle bustle of Boston and finals week far behind.  It seems like it was all so long ago already.  

I was kindly greeted at the airport by my Tanzanian friend in Kansas City's family and their friend, Emmanuel.  It was wonderful to see people holding my name outside of the airport, and ready to take me wherever I needed to go.  Emmanuel went out of his way to help me exchange money and took me to a clinic for the rest of my malaria medication.  Then he dropped me off at the hotel where the Helen Keller International (HKI) retreat was taking place. 

 It was a beautiful hotel, all open to the outside, with a view of the Indian Ocean and a lovely breeze cooling the humid air. The retreat lasted three days, and it was great because I got to meet all of the staff from the Dar office, as well as the people I’ll be working with in Mwanza for the summer.

Everyone has been wonderfully warm and welcoming, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them all better.  We were very well fed during the retreat, and I was introduced to a few Tanzanian dishes.  Palao was one of my favorites, which was rice with what tasted to me like Chinese Five Spice.  My favorite salad was a cabbage, tomato, lemon salad, but I can’t remember what it was called.  There was a delicious fruit salad with every meal.  I’ve never eaten so much mango in my life, and it’s so fresh! 

Thankfully I’ve had a great place to stay for my time in Dar.  I’m temporarily living with the Deputy Country Director of HKI Tanzania, Christina Nyhus Dhillon and her family for the next week.  They’ve been so wonderful to generously put me up for the week.  This morning we made play dough for their two-year old son, but I think we had just as much fun playing with it as he did. 

I have been slowly picking up some Kiswahili.  Karibu is “welcome” as well as “you’re welcome” and asanté is “thank you”…it’s a start.  :) The Tanzanians assure me it’s an easy language to learn, but I’m not convinced, and Christina has told me otherwise.  In either case I’m still up for the challenge. 

With the whole HKI Tanzania team on the last day of the retreat. 

This coming week I’ll continue to work on the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan for the Homestead Food Production (HFP) Program with their M&E specialist.  Next weekend I’ll take a flight with some of the other staff members up to Mwanza to start my assignment there. I can't believe that last Friday I finished my last group assignment for my M&E class at Tufts, and this week I was already working on a real plan that will be used for this program.  It's exciting to know these skills could be used in the real world.

The three people on the right are the Mwanza team.

It’s been nice to spend some time here to get acclimated to Africa.  It’s been a pretty soft landing so far staying with an American family and spending the week at a beachfront hotel.  So far I feel so relaxed it’s like I’m on vacation, but work will start up in force on Monday.  I’ve been told Mwanza will be different; it’s a smaller city with fewer expats, and thankfully has cooler temperatures.  People say it’s even more beautiful there.  I’m looking forward to getting there because it will take me further into the country and into Tanzanian culture, but for now I’m very content to enjoy this time in Dar es Salaam.

Kwa heri until next time,   

~Katrina