A Day in the Life

To all the people who donated to my fundraising prior to coming to Tanzania, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Perhaps you are wondering what your money has contributed to? Well, this post is for you.

The Mwanza T-LED Team celebrating a birthday at the office.

So what am I doing for work here anyway? What exactly did you fund?

Well, the current task I am working on is doing individual environmental site visits with local experts and the business owners. I am bringing together local experts, individuals who have been working on the regulatory side of environmental issues here in Tanzania, with business owners to identify environmental issues and develop a plan to solve the issues. I'm calling them "environmental action plans". Sexy right?

This is the river running through Mwanza. You can smell it from 50 m away on either side. It is fetid with trash, human waste, runoff from industries, etc. One of the businesses we are mentoring is planning to do a river cleanup on the 50 m of river that run beside their property. 

So finding local environmental experts has turned out to be more challenging than first thought. My last post, BureauCRAZY, was just one day of trying to sort something out. I have since been informed by a local that this city council is notoriously challenging to work with. Ick. My first two choices, an amazing guy from the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC) and an energetic and inspiring gal that I previously worked with from the city council were not available for these site visits. Eventually, at 9 pm on Friday night I was informed by the head of the environment department at the city council that I would be given staff to work with this week, starting at 9 am on Monday. Woo hoo!!

These are marabu storks patrolling the garbage heap. These birds are 5' tall and the ugliest bird I've ever seen. However, they have an important role in the ecosystem as scavengers and cleaning up the scraps and detritus.

I also met with our partner, the Small Industries Development Office (SIDO), to discuss taking their technical officer (TO) along on these site visits. The TO often works with business owners to help them set up their business, get proper licences, get the technology they need to run their business, that kind of thing. By including him in these site visits it will teach him more about the environmental considerations of setting up a business, and what environmental issues to look for when helping businesses set up for growth. Part of my job here is to build the capacity of both the businesses and our partners, so ensuring knowledge transfer, building networks, and ensuring someone is around to continue the work I am doing once I leave are priority considerations.

So, today I had arranged to meet with two businesses, one at 10 am and one at 2 pm. Not one but two environmental officers (EOs) from the city council strolled in at 10 am. I called the TO to see when he would come pick us up in the SIDO car as discussed on Friday and he let me know he would come at 11 am. As much as I tried to ask for earlier, there was no budging. At 11 am I called the TO and there was no answer. At 11:15 am myself and the EOs went to wait by the street to see if the SIDO car was there. I again called the TO who finally answered and let me know that actually he wouldn't be able to make the first meeting... ?!?!?!?!?! We are already 1.25 hours late for the first meeting and now we don't even have a vehicle to get there. Thanks for letting me know buddy!

This is a really terrible picture, but hopefully you get a glimpse of what the road looked like.

So one of the EOs offers to use his car. I warn him the road to the first business we are visiting is very bad. We used the business owner's old beat up range rover to get there last time because the road was more like an old river bed than a road. Not that any of the roads in Tanzania are very good, but this one is particularly bad. He talks to the business owner on the phone for a while to get directions and proper warning about the road, and he still agrees to drive us providing we pay for his fuel. Okay, let's go!

We get lost four times on the way to the farm. And there are a lot of awful noises happening to the car on the road. And a cracked bumper. But we make it... at 1 pm. I text the next business to tell them that we won't be making the appointment.

Donors, stick with me here. It may sound like I'm suggesting you've wasted your money because every well-laid plan appears to be futile here, but keep going. We're getting to the good stuff.

Buhongwa Beach. Not everything here is this easy.

The first business is actually my favourite business owner of the whole bunch. I'd been meaning to blog about this business after first meeting them because I was so uplifted and inspired by them. That's also why I planned to have this business as our first environmental site visit; he can train my EOs while my EOs practice their assessment skills.

So let me tell you about this business. The business is run equally by the husband and the wife. They are both retired from successful careers in the civil service sector and have started a farm as their "retirement business". No slowing down for these two!

Owners teaching us about egg production and feed and water needs. 

The husband had spent his career as a land manager and an instructor and consultant for agro-forestry. Agro-forestry is akin to permaculture; it's the practice of incorporating many layers into farming, so having fruit trees and native trees, shrubs and grasses for full ground cover, livestock on the land and farming in areas as well. The trees provide shade and stabilize the soil. The fruit trees provide fruit to eat. A native tree he pointed out has deep roots to bring up nutrients from deep in the soil, it's leaves make excellent fodder and return nutrients to the soil, the wood is good for firewood and it dries within a day of being cut, and it seeds new trees very quickly. An excellent tree for farming!

When I first talked to the husband I found out he actually taught a mountain biodiversity course ages ago at the University of Calgary, my university! I have a career crush on this guy's life. He speaks perfect English as well, and often returns conversations to English when the Tanzanians in the group get excited and switch to Swahili (happens often).

The farm this couple has started is incorporating principles of agro-forestry. and they intend to use it as a model farm for local people to come to learn about good land management practices that incorporate ecological principles and conservation. Be still my heart! Right now they have chickens and pigs, but they plan to do beekeeping and have some fish ponds as well.

Business owner and her chickens.

Husband and wife and the EOs talking about waste management, i.e., of the pig manure.

While touring the farm the husband points to the land on the other side of their fence which is bare in a number of places and has some brown tall grasses here and there.
"That is what this land used to look like" he tells us. "It's overgrazed, poorly managed, and the soil is depleting."
The land on their side of the fence is lush with grasses, no bare ground. There are trees starting to climb up here and there.
"I've planted mangoes and papayas because they are drought tolerant. We have a water problem here."

I haven't heard people in Mwanza talk about water problems because there is the massive lake (Lake Victoria) right beside us. However, this farm is a long way from the lake. It hasn't rained in Mwanza since I got here, so approximately 3.5 months of NO RAIN. Not a single drop. They have two wells on the property, but it's still not enough water. During my initial environmental assessment I had suggested collecting rainwater during the rainy season and storing it.
Yes, the husband agreed, that would provide us with more than enough water. However, my neighbours would see the water tanks and would question why chickens get water when they have none. So I would either be providing water to all the neighbours and villages nearby, or the neighbours would steal it and likely damage the property too.
Well geez, that's not something I've ever considered! He said that many of their chickens are also stolen, despite having a night guard and hiring neighbours to work on the farm during the day. More on that later, I have another blog brewing about the "communal" nature of "property" here.

My EOs talked with the business owners for a couple of hours today, and we were served a really lovely lunch at 3 pm with food collected from their garden at home and from the farm. I only had to yell at the EOs once during lunch when they threw their trash on the ground and intended to leave it there. NO LITTERING! Live your values guys!

A lovely lunch of homegrown food.

"We came with empty baskets today; empty of knowledge and empty of ideas. Now, the basket is not empty. Not full, but it has something in it. For that, I am grateful" the husband sagely declared.

From left to right: me, Raymond (agri-business advisor), wife and husband owners of the business, Zenaida my roommate and business management advisor, and a delegate from the Chamber of Commerce (another of our partners).

Despite all the frustrations and plans going awry, my heart still feels full. So thank you my donors; you are supporting this business and many, many others. And thank you to all my friends and family who are keeping me in touch with your lives and helping me find my sanity on days when I think it's deserted me entirely.

Mwanza is still beautiful, even if it's challenging.