A Final Update in Three Parts

Friday, June 11

11:33am: Imagine you’ve been on the road (in Africa) for three weeks and just spent two and a half days solid on a ferry.  What would your ideal next week look like?

If you were me and your answer was “chilling on the beach with three beautiful Swedish girls,” you’d be very much in luck.

The ferry and subsequent matola (pickup truck) ride to Cape Maclear ultimately took 62 hours, a full day longer than expected.  Once there, however, it only took me 10 minutes to drop my bags in a dorm, hand a pile of laundry into reception, pick up a book from the library (McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, edited by Michael Chabon), and be relaxing in a beach chair, a cold beer in hand and waves lapping at my feet.  Ah, paradise!

I spent the rest of the day reading, replying to email, and walking along the beach, confirming that the accommodations I had selected from the guidebook (Fat Monkeys) did in fact have the best vibe and amenities, despite being the furthest from town center (though it’s hard to complain about a <1Km walk along the beach).

The next day, spotting three beautiful girls at the beach bar, I figured it would be criminal to deny them my company, so I struck up a conversation with one of them.  Her name was Marlene, and she and her friends, Caroline and Elin, were all from Sweden and were on vacation in Malawi for the week after spending a few months volunteering at an orphanage for children with disabilities in Mozambique.  Obviously impressed with my cut physique, sharp wit, and high-roller lifestyle, the trio quickly adopted me into their group.  Accompanied frequently by a couple friendly locals, Jason and Solomon, we spent the next five days laying on the beach, swimming, snorkeling, boating, watching the fish eagles feed, playing with the hostel’s two adorable puppies, watching movies (sadly, it turns out the Princess Bride isn’t nearly as enjoyable if you didn’t grow up watching it countless times), dancing, learning to drum, having dinner at Solomon’s mother’s house, exploring the village market, and feasting on fresh bananas, tangerines, and the largest avocados I have ever seen (seriously, I made a meal out of just sliced avocado and a little salt).

By the time we parted ways, I was about as fully relaxed as imaginable.  Good thing too, because if I weren’t so relaxed, this bus ride I’m now on from Malawi to Johannesburg would be driving me out of my mind.  I’m not going to bother rehashing all the details, but let’s just say that instead of arriving in Johannesburg a couple of hours from now, we are sitting on the side of the road in Zimbabwe, with welders attempting to reattach the door.  As long as we get to Joburg by midday tomorrow so I can get to the USA/England match, it’ll all be ok…

Sunday, June 13

9:10am: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

Between my bus troubles (total transit time: 50 hours) and the fact that my ticket benefactors, Aaron and Arthur, were on a flight scheduled to arrive at 4:30pm the same day as the 8:30pm USA v England match a minimum two hour drive away in Rustenburg, I was convinced that we would end up getting to the game after halftime, if at all.  In order to maximize our chances, Josh (the guy from the train in Tanzania who I convinced to come to Malawi for a couple days, then the World Cup, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend in Zambia… sorry!) and I met Aaron and Arthur at the airport, gave their bags to the owner of the hostel where we are staying to bring back for us, then raced around trying to meet the cab driver I had encountered earlier in the day and arranged to drive us to the stadium and back.  Despite getting slightly lost just before reaching the stadium, we managed to get to our seats just in time to join our countrymen in belting out a deafening rendition of our national anthem.

I have never been at a sporting event with as much intensity as that match.  And maybe it’s because I don’t really follow soccer/football or maybe it’s because us USA fans were pleased with the 1-1 draw, but it seemed like everyone was just excited to be there and be cheering for their team, without the intense anxiety and desperate need to win that I associate with fandom at most tournament matches.  After the game, we joined pretty much every other American in the country in stopping off for the only fitting meal: McDonald’s.  Mmm, tastes like freedom!

Thursday, June 17

3:33am: I’m writing this final dispatch from my flight to DC from Johannesburg (via Dakar).  As the especially astute may notice from the timestamp of this post (if they are somehow also aware of my exact itinerary), I’m both attempting to switch myself over to Eastern Standard Time and failing miserably.  Somehow, knowing I’ll be landing in DC in a couple hours has me even more wired with anticipation than I have been for any destination since my first flight to Thailand.  I guess when you’ve gotten used to always arriving in new, foreign places, the familiar can be the one thing to really shock your system.

But before we get to the overwrought reflective stuff: WORLD CUP!!!

So on Monday, we spent most of the day watching matches on TVs and big screens at various restaurants and public venues.  I’ve never been much of a soccer fan, but traveling through the rest of this soccer-crazed world these past eight months has given me a new appreciation for the game.  Aaron and Arthur, however, are quite the dedicated soccer aficionados and their shared knowledge of the players and teams made the games even more interesting to watch.

Tuesday morning, Aaron and Arthur got up early and managed to secure the three of us tickets to the Netherlands/Denmark match.  We said goodbye to Josh who was headed back to Zambia, then raced over to the Soccer City stadium, pushed through the gates along with some 85,000 other fans, and got to our seats just minutes after the opening kick.  It was an exciting match and the throngs of orange-clad Dutch fans in our section were obviously quite pleased with the 2-0 result.

After the match, we expected some challenges leaving the stadium with our 85,000 fellow attendees, but the task was made slightly more difficult by an unexpected strike by a large group of bus drivers who were supposed to be transporting people to and from the stadium.  We eventually got back to the city center by way of a packed train, some apprehensive wandering through a decidedly non-touristy neighborhood, and a short but greatly appreciated cab ride.

While watching the evening’s Italy/Paraguay match in a bar, we met a very intelligent, seemingly-friendly guy who claimed to be a cameraman for SABC and after many hours of talking, offered to hook us up with tickets to the Brazil/Korea PDR match the next night.  Long story short, he ended up with our passport numbers and $20 from each of us, and we watched the Brazil match from the bar at our hostel.

My final day in Johannesburg, we went to the Apartheid Museum, which was really massive and impressive (yeah, sorry, not feeling very descriptive today), then I bid farewell to Aaron and Arthur, went to the airport and got on this plane.  Ta-da: end of trip!

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You know what?  Now that were at the reflective wrap-up section of the post, I really don’t have much that I feel the need to share.  It’s been an incredible trip and I’ve met some great people and seen some amazing thing.  I’m sure it’s changed me, but I don’t know yet quite how.  Maybe I’ll write one final post when I start to figure that out—or maybe you’ll get a bunch more posts if my job prospects don’t pan out and I decide to high-tail it down to Central and South America at the end of the summer to do some more traveling and work on my Spanish.  Either way, thanks so much for reading this blog over these past months.  Knowing that I had you all following along with my adventures gave me the push I needed to make the effort to really chronicle this journey and I’m sure I’ll treasure the record in the years ahead.   Thanks again, and I hope to see most of you very soon!

On the Road to Jo'burg

I really should be better about posting these updates as soon as I write them...

Wednesday, May 19

12:08pm: Didn't end up doing all that much over my two days in Nairobi.  Spent the first day relaxing and reading at a coffee shop in Westgate Mall, watched Iron Man 2, had sushi for lunch and dinner, and talked with other backpackers at the hostel, picking up some good travel tips for Malawi and learning that it probably won't be possible to go through Mozambique in the time that I have (it's at least 5 days of solid travel).  The next morning, I went to the US embassy and spent 30 minutes standing in line before seeing another American walk up to the guard, flash a US passport, and go right through.  Ended up being very easy to get the extra pages for my passport, involving filling out my address three times on one form and then waiting 20 minutes.

After the embassy, I stopped at Westgate Mall to use the wifi and confirm through travel.state.gov that I can get border visas for all the countries it's possible that I'll be passing through (Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, South Africa).  Next was a visit to the National Museum, which had beautiful gardens and architecture, but I didn't enjoy the museum itself all that much.  The 9,100+ birds on display were pretty cool though and I want to remember to send photos of them to my 4-5th grade teacher, Liz Saplin, who loved birds and took her classes on bird watching expeditions.

I wasn't in the mood for more museums and the idea of going to one of the animal sanctuaries didn't seem appealing in comparison to the safaris I'm planning to go on at Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti, so I just sat and read the Economist and went to see the new Robin Hood with Russell Crowe and Kate Blanchett (should have trusted my instincts and avoided that one).  After the movie, I realized that if I was already resorting to movies, there was absolutely no reason to stay in Nairobi another day, so I called to book a seat on an overnight bus to Mombasa, then went back to the hostel to pack up, have a quick dinner, and check out.

My 9pm bus got me into Mombasa a bit after 6am.  Discovering that there weren't any overnight buses to Lamu and not wanting to deal with trying to check into a hotel or find a place to drop my bag at that early hour, I boarded a 7am bus bound for Makinde.  One painful bus ride and a short ferry ride later, I found myself on Lamu, a small but beautiful Muslim island town, with two new friends: Andre, a recent graduate from outside of Philly, and Jans, a vacationer from Norway.  After visiting a few hotels with a tout, we eventually settled on the first place he had showed us, which had breezy rooms and, we discovered later, a rooftop view of the ocean and a clear, starry sky.  We encountered some persistent salesmen trying to get us to book a dhow ride or come for a traditional Swahili dinner in their homes (at vastly inflated prices), but shook them off and enjoyed some beer at one of the four places you can buy it on Lamu (and one of two where you can buy it cold) and then dinner at a nice seaside restaurant, eventually retiring to our hotel for some stargazing and an early evening.

We spent the morning exploring Lamu's narrow streets and avoiding stepping in the donkey dung produced by the island's ubiquitous inhabitants.  The town is like a labyrinth, with narrow, irregular passages between buildings that served to protect the town from invaders in centuries past.  This afternoon: more chilling and booking a dhow trip for tomorrow to drift through the mangroves and explore the Takwa ruins on nearby Manda Island.

Wednesday, June 2

7:00am: In retrospect, taking the ferry from Nkata Bay to Monkey Bay wasn’t such a hot idea.  It has managed to turn a 10-12 hour bus ride into what now appears to be three cold nights and two scenery-less days as the ferry zig-zags between the Malawian and Mozambiquen shores.  Most of the passengers at the start were just getting off at one of the islands, so there hasn’t even been much chance to make friends.  At least the stars and sunrises have been beautiful.  Anyway, as we’ve been sitting in the same place for the past three hours, loading and unloading passengers and cargo via small wooden boats, and don’t seem likely to move for at least another couple hours, I figured this would be a good time to write a quick catch up.

My three days and nights in Lamu were quite relaxing and totally worth the three days (total) of travel required to get there from Nairobi and then over to Arusha.  Upon arrival in Arusha, I checked my email and saw a note from one of my good friends, Martha, that her sister, Sam, was currently in Arusha and had just recovered from a bout of malaria and could I please check in on her if I happened to pass through.  Text messages were exchanged and I ended up hanging out with Sam and her friends, Kate and Aiofe, the next couple nights.  They’re all fun, down-to-earth people and I really enjoyed their company (and home cooking).

After a day spent tracking down the cheapest, most reliable safari with Alberto, a Spaniard I met at the hostel where I was staying, I departed on Monday morning to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater.  Although frequently frustrated with the quality of the photos taken by my Nikon Coolpix (especially compared to the ones I got out of my comparably priced Panasonic Lumix earlier in my trip), I did manage to get some quality shots of the cheetahs, tree-climbing lions, rhinos, giraffes, zebras, hyenas, wildebeests, ostriches, and other assorted animals we encountered over our three-day safari.  The trip was the perfect length, with quality company and surprisingly delicious meals making the whole experience even more enjoyable.

After the safari, I spent one evening in Dar, playing with Bodie for an hour, having dinner with Alfred, and catching up with Sarah over drinks.  It was so good to see them all again and I was sorry to be departing so quickly, but alas, the twice-weekly train to Mbeya departed the next afternoon, so it was back on the road for me.  Lonely Planet warned that tickets for the train should be booked a few days in advance, but as I discovered at the station, this is just the result of a scam being perpetrated by the booking agents in collusion with touts: asking for a ticket at the window will result in being informed that the train is sold out, but if you go talk to one of the touts outside, they will charge you about $6 more than the ticket price, walk you to the ticket window, and nod at the agent, who will then erase one of the passenger names on her list and issue you a ticket.  This was by far my most blatant encounter with corruption to date and considering the many horror stories I’ve heard, I’m counting myself lucky to have gotten off so easy (knock on wood for my final two weeks!).

Traveling by train is infinitely nicer than traveling by bus.  Instead of being stuck in a single cramped seat, bouncing along Tanzania’s poorly maintained roads, I spent my 24-hour ride either sleeping soundly on a reasonably comfortable bed or having animated conversations in the dining car with other travelers.  I ended up making friends with a boatload (or trainload) of people, including one guy, Josh, another New York Jew, heading to visit his girlfriend in Zambia, where he had just finished his Peace Corps service.  I convinced Josh and Rooney, a Kiwi on his gap year, to take a detour with me and a Japanese traveler, Sugi, to Nkhata Bay, a little backpacker paradise in Malawi.  Despite falling prey to a scammer at our lodging in Mbeya who sold us bus tickets “all the way to Nkhata Bay” which did not pick up again after the Malawian border, we had a nice, relaxing evening and day in Nkhata Bay, after which Josh resumed his journey to Zambia (with plans to come meet me in Jo’burg for the World Cup) and I embarked on this ill-advised ferry ride.  At least Cape Maclear, another renowned backpacker beach hangout, looms in my future and I plan to spend at least three or four days there doing some heavy-duty chillaaaaaxin’.

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The response to my request for help in my last post (and on Facebook and gchat) with World Cup tickets and accommodations was overwhelming.  I received email introductions to multiple friends-of-friends who will be in Jo’burg at the same time, a ticket to the US-England match, and possibly even an apartment to crash in.  Between those connections, the many cool people I’ve encountered along the way (especially on the Dar-Mbeya train), and the heaps of additional people I’m sure I’ll meet when I get to Jo’burg, my five or so days of World Cup madness are shaping up to be a blast.

Despite the good times I’m having on the road and expecting to have at the World Cup, I find myself increasingly daydreaming about my return to the states and seeing all my friends and family.  It feels like I’ve been on hiatus from “real life” and I’m increasingly torn between on one hand the desire to achieve “real” goals like advancing my career, finding a life partner, and deepening relationships with people who I hope will be close life-long friends, and on the other hand a longing to see more of the world and just stay on the road for as long as humanly possible.  I’ve met a number of people on my travels who have been more or less on the road, living and working in developing countries, since finishing “uni” (college).  While they’re generally warm, fun, interesting people, I’m horrified of the prospect of waking up one day and finding myself in my early 30s, single, passing my time with people I’ve known for less than a year, a string of teaching and tourism gigs behind me, no real impact on the world, measuring time by how much longer I can stretch my meager savings while making sure I have enough left over to by a plane ticket home.

I know that’s not a very charitable view of the roving ex-pat life and I suspect the people I’m describing would respond by questioning why I would want to wake up one day in my early 30s, having spent most of my youth in offices and classrooms, climbing an unconquerable career ladder, living in only one or two cities, seeing the same people day-in and day-out, the rough course of the next 30-odd years (marriage, house, kids) already laid out before me, measuring time by how much longer it will take to save enough money to retire and spend the twilight of my life rekindling the carefree spirit whose brief flare inspired this quarter-life crisis.  The truth is, both those characterizations fail to capture the benefits and joy that can accompany either lifestyle, and really, trying to project how I’ll evaluate my life 5-8 years from now is both foolish and short-sighted.  For now, I’m just going to focus on making the most of my final two weeks (of this stint) in Africa…

Back on the road, home in sight

It's been nearly two months since my last update so I'm going to give you both the short version and the long version.  Actually, I don't feel like writing that much right now, but I want to share some sort of update, so here's the short version and the long version (which is still pretty short compared to my other dispatches).

Short Version

Got extended with Grameen Foundation in Kampala for an extra six weeks (making eight total), attended a wedding, went on safari, spent a weekend in Rwanda, just arrived in Nairobi, going overland to Johannesburg for the World Cup, flying back to DC on June 16.

Long Version

The nice folks at Grameen were please with my ability to get things done without requiring too much assistance or oversight, so they asked me to stay an extra five weeks.  I was happy to oblige and even stayed an extra week beyond that to wrap up a couple loose ends.  Along the way, I decided that whether or not I'm going to continue traveling, it was time to make a trip home to visit family and friends.

After some deliberation, I decided that it would be ridiculous for me to leave Africa just before the first World Cup on the continent and even worse to be in Africa and not at least try to get down to South Africa to be a part of it.  So, I went ahead and booked a flight from Johannesburg to DC on June 16, five days after the start of the World Cup, committing myself to  finding a way to get down there and try to nab tickets to a game or two before flying home.  I don't yet have tickets or accommodations, so if you have any connections that might be able to hook me up, please let me know.

I have exactly one month until my flight, which isn't a whole heck of a lot of time considering the distance I have to cover, but the tentative plan is to spend a couple days in Nairobi, bus over to Mombasa, spend a weekend on Lamu (which was recommended to me over Zanzibar as an island destination by a couple people), get down to Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania for a safari, pass through Dar to say hi to a few people, then travel down the coast of Mozambique (possibly via Malawi) en route to Johannesburg.  It's all very up in the air right now, other than knowing that I want to get to Johannesburg by the 12th or 13th to have a chance to catch a game before my flight.

Once I get back to the states, I'm going to be running around between DC, San Diego, the Berkshires, and Texas, visiting friends and family and hopefully squeezing in a few job interviews.  I'm hopeful about prospects of continuing to work for Grameen in DC, but I'm also considering other employers and other cities and am feeling ready to jump into the right full-time job.  It's been a great trip, but I'm feeling ready to resume "real life."  If nothing comes through, I'm thinking of setting up somewhere in South America for a few months to practice Spanish and try to finally take my foreign language skills to somewhere above "pathetic," so I guess the wanderlust hasn't been completely sated.  One thing's for sure: I definitely want to lead a life that allows me to live or take trips abroad lasting longer than a week or two at least a few more times.

Oh, right, I kinda skipped over the fun things I've been doing the past month or so.  In general, I've been doing a far better job of getting out and taking advantage of the weekends in Kampala than I did in Dar.  On the weekends when I was in town, I played American football with some expats and ultimate frisbee with a club made up mostly of locals.  One weekend, I rode out to Jinja with Shayan (another Grameen consultant) and attended the wedding of one of our colleague's sisters.  It was a blast and I think the other guests were at least as amused by us Muzungu trying to do their traditional dance as we were by the fact that dinner was served on plates covered with menorahs and stars of David, reading "Happy Hannukah!".  Here's a video of some of the other guests dancing:

Another weekend, I went on a three-day safari out to Murchison Falls National Park, where I got to see plenty of gazelle, giraffes, buffalo, hippos, baboons, a few elephants, and even the backside of a lion at a great distance (photos HERE).  (Side note: do not ever buy a Nikon Coolpix.  Sure, the form factor is nice, but the autofocus, color balance, and image stabilization were better on the 2.4 mega-pixel Minolta my grandmother gave me when I started college.)

Last weekend, I took off Friday and Monday for 9-hour bus rides to and from Kigali, Rwanda, to meet up with my friend Maggie, who is currently living in Juba, Sudan.  Maggie and I had major travel chemistry and her knowledge of the history and politics of the region made her the perfect companion for a weekend of exploring Kigali.  The small city was impeccably clean and highly walkable, allowing us to do most of our exploring on foot.  Highlights include dining at Hotel des Mille Collines (the setting of Paul Rusesabagina's heroic acts, portrayed in Hotel Rwanda), seeing the Kigali Memorial Centre, and visiting the church at Ntarama, where the bones and clothing scraps of thousands of genocide victims remain on display.  Yes, that's some pretty heavy stuff, but good company, good conversation, and good food made for an enjoyable weekend that belied the gravity of the setting's recent history.

Alright - 10am (would have been earlier, but uploading photos takes forever), breakfast eaten, blog post written and posted!  I am roaring out of the gates!  Nairobi, show me what you got!

New Country, New Organization, New Adventures

There are a handful of people and organizations I admire so much that if I get offered a chance to work with them, I'm there, (pretty much) no questions asked. KickStart, where I volunteered for the past two months in Tanzania, is one of those organizations. Another is the Grameen Foundation, a spin-off of the Nobel Prize-winning microfinance institution, Grameen Bank, which uses a combination of microfinance and technology to "enable the poor, especially the poorest, to create a world without poverty."

I had initially planned to wrap up my work with KickStart in mid-March, travel around Tanzania for a few weeks, then make my way to Kampala overland through Kenya. When I found out from my contact at Grameen Foundation that the Uganda office could really use my help starting March 22nd, I agreed to let them pay for my airfare and decided that I could always do my planned trip in reverse at a later date. The timing worked out so that I was able to wrap up and present the findings for most of my work at KickStart on a Friday and fly to Uganda Friday night to begin work Monday. It was sad to say goodbye to Alfred, Hillary, and Bodie, who had been such wonderful hosts to me and really included me in their family over my time in Tanzania, but the farewell was made slightly easier knowing that I have a return ticket and will be making my way back through Dar sometime in the next three months. Still, Bodie's assurance that he would miss me and that I could come over and play anytime was almost enough to get me to haul my bag back into "my" room and stay until forcibly removed.

My arrival in Kampala was a bit of a story. Although Grameen was supposed to arrange accommodations and transport from the airport, I hadn't received any confirmation, so a friend in Kampala scheduled a cab to pick me up and bring me to her place to crash for the night. When I got off the plane, I saw a driver holding a sign with my name and went with him, not discovering until after picking up two other Grameen employees at a restaurant and getting dropped off at an apartment with them that he was in fact not the driver my friend had sent.

It all turned out fine though, as I've been staying in a VERY nice apartment with Josh, a former Sony-Ericsson Product Manager from Sweden who is here as a consultant for four months, and Vlad, Grameen Foundation's IT Manager from DC who is here for a couple weeks. They're both great people to work and live with and I've been enjoying the fact that they're both even more tech-savvy than I am. Vlad was supposed to head to Ghana at the end of last week, but ended up extending his stay because the IT setup has taken longer than expected and he also wanted to be able to go into the field with the group (including Josh and myself) that is heading out tomorrow. Vlad is an experienced IT professional has been working for Grameen for five years and believes strongly in its mission, but never expected to go to Africa until he was told last month that he would be taking this trip. His wide-eyed wonder and enthusiasm has helped Josh and me appreciate each new experience that much more.

Kampala is incredibly lush and beautiful, but still manages to feel more like a city to me than the parts of Dar es Salaam that I saw. Every morning, Chris, Grameen's driver, picks Josh, Vlad and me up from our posh apartment overlooking the city (don't worry about wasted donations: it used to be an executive's apartment and we'll be moving to more modest digs at the end of the month when the lease runs out) and drives us 10-20 minutes (depending on traffic, which is terrible) down the hill to Grameen's office, where we fight for chairs packed two to a desk in a room in a building owned by MTN, the large telecom company who, along with Google, is a founding partner in Grameen's AppLab initiative. The three of us are contributing in our own ways to building the capacity of AppLab and its two dozen staff as they move towards launching their Community Knowledge Worker program, which will involve training 4,000 rural Ugandans to use mobile phone applications to provide information services in the areas such as agriculture, weather, and health to people in their communities and to collect survey data on behalf of NGOs and businesses.

My initial agreement with Grameen was to come here for two weeks to assist the finance and legal teams with making sure the accounting software is working, meeting with local accountants and lawyers to understand tax and compliance requirements, ensuring necessary paperwork is filed to complete registration and open a bank account, and training staff on basic accounting procedures. Those tasks are all going well and I've been enjoying working with the fantastic team here, so I'm hoping that we'll be able to find a way for me to stay on longer.

My social life has also been going well in Kampala, even beyond the great people I've been working and living with. Since arriving, I've spent quite a bit of time with Dave, a friend and former CWV intern who is in Kampala working for a small NGO and launching a Uganda/Ethiopia investment fund, and Eleanor, a Clinton Foundation staffer who I'd only met previously over email via StartingBloc. Eleanor had four friends from the US and Israel here over the weekend, and we spent Saturday night gorging ourselves on Ethiopian food, going on a massive run at the blackjack table at a casino, and then dancing at bar until 3am. The next morning, we all got up before 7, and along with a better-rested Josh and Vlad, took a 1.5 hour bus ride to Jinja, where we spent the whole day on a whitewater rafting trip down the Nile. It was an exhausting but unforgettable weekend. (For the record, I've now traveled along the Nile, the Ganges, and the Mekong in the past six months!)

In summary: things are going very well at the moment, and while I'd like to find a way to extend my stay in Kampala, I'm also feeling very comfortable just going with the flow and seeing what opportunities open up for me. I miss my friends and family back home and will be quite happy to move back to DC, San Fransisco, or somewhere else in the states when the right opportunity comes along. Until then, I wanna have an adventure!

Stepping Out "Into the Field"

I recently returned to Dar after ten amazing days in Dodoma and Morogoro.  The purpose of the trip was for me to get a feel for what the reality is in the field for KickStart's sales team, for the distributors and dealers that sell KickStart's MoneyMaker irrigation pumps, and for the farmers who use (or want to use) the pumps.  Now, understand that I was not going into this experience blind: I've read about KickStart for years, talked to Alfred and other members of the KickStart team about the challenges they face, and have many friends who've related their experiences serving in the Peace Corps in developing countries.  Still, nothing compares to getting out there seeing things for yourself and there's a certain level of understanding I've realized you just can't have without that firsthand experience.

I was fortunate to have Tino (KickStart's driver) drop me off at the station in Dar to make sure I got on the right bus and nobody tried to scam me.  Even so, as soon as he was gone, a man came up outside the bus window with a clipboard and tried to convince me that I needed to pay him a $4 "foreigner fee" in addition to the ticket I had already bought (I refused).  The 5-hour drive turned out to be longer and more cramped than I expected, but I was fortunate to sit next to a student returning to university in Dodoma who spoke good English and told me about his dreams to someday move to the United States and work in Nashville or Michigan as a radio host.  No, he didn't like country music and yes, he understood how cold Michigan gets; he read about them on the internet and decided that they looked like nice places and wouldn't be as expensive as big cities.

I was met in Dodoma by Deus, KickStart's Regional Sales Officer (RSO) for that territory.  Deus is a tall, charming man with a big smile and easy nature — quite the natural salesperson.  At first, Deus didn't seem to believe me that my accommodations were more than satisfactory, that I was happy to eat wherever and whatever he preferred, and that I didn't expect him to alter his schedule on my behalf.  Over my four days in Dodoma, I accompanied Deus and the local sales rep, James, to meetings with four dealers in the city (including Innocencia, who was KickStart's first dealer in Tanzania), drove out to some villages to build awareness, and handed out hundreds of fliers at a market day.

The market day was easily the most memorable experience of that section of the trip.  To get there, we had to drive about two hours out of the city (and "city" is already stretching it: Dodoma's population is less than 325,000), down very-bumpy-verging-on-nonexistent dirt roads, until we reached an open area where a couple thousand people had congregated, some with tents or makeshift structures to hawk their goods, many with a bundle or nothing at all.  When we rolled up in our shiny, 4-door Toyota pickup truck with MoneyMaker logos on the side, we easily had the nicest vehicle in the market.  Deus and James set up demonstration pumps, and half a dozen children rushed over with buckets of water on their heads to fill our larger demonstration buckets.  Unfortunately, the PA system was in the shop for repairs, so Deus and James weren't able to attract quite as big a crowd as they normally would, but having the only muzungu in the market passing out flyers certainly helped draw some extra attention.  It was a strange sensation to have dozens of eyes following my every move.  What struck me most was that despite the obvious affluence of myself and my colleagues relative to almost everybody else at the market, nobody asked us for food or money, just information on the MoneyMaker pumps (and, in a few cases, our shirts and hats with the MoneyMaker logo).  Not quite the "walking ATM" treatment I'd come to expect from my experiences as a tourist in Southeast Asia and India, and it was a pleasant surprise.

The day after the market, Deus drove me halfway to Morogoro, a beautiful region surrounded by luscious green mountains, and transferred me to Frank, another one of KickStart's Regional Sales Officers.  Although Frank was perfectly polite, he didn't immediately exude the same warmth as Deus, and I sensed that he was not entirely pleased to have me with him.  Over the next day, as we got to know each other and Frank, like Deus, realized that I was eager to learn and didn't require special accommodations, he became much more welcoming and talkative.  After a meeting with the executive officers in Mlali (a village an hour from Morogoro), Frank told me how please he was with the reception they gave us and that he was sure that my presence caused them to pay more attention than they would have if he had been alone.  "When they see a muzungu, they expect that good things will happen," he said.  Although I found the attitudes behind his observation problematic, I was glad my presence had helped in some way.

As we drove back to Morogoro, Frank commented that now I had seen what real poverty is like, and that it was far worse than the poverty I may have seen in the cities.  I told him he was right, but that the poverty I had just seen wasn't the image most Americans have of African poverty.  For us, the image of African poverty is a shirtless child with a distended belly or a woman in front of a refugee tent, begging for a handout.  This image of African poverty has been hammered home by disaster-fueled media coverage and heart-string-pulling television commercials urging us to commit some small daily amount to feed a child in Africa.  The African poverty I saw was hard-working farmers who were exposed to a tool that they knew could help them create a better life for themselves and their families, but had neither the $73-$123 they needed to purchase that tool, nor any way to access a loan which they would surely be able to repay in full within a matter of months.  These farmers were poor, but not looking for handouts.  They lacked the resources to improve their situation, but not knowledge of what they needed or the will to apply it.  Conversations about foreign aid and development work would be very different if this were the image of African poverty that more people carried in their minds.

I knew before my trip that lack of access to credit was possibly the largest barrier to many more farmers purchasing and using MoneyMaker pumps.  Frank knew this too, and we heard requests for loans from every group of farmers and village leaders we encountered.  Arriving back in Morogoro, we passed an office for FINCA, one of the world's oldest and largest microfinance institutions with over $300 million in assets.  I suggested to Frank that we stop in and see what products they might have for the farmers in Mlali and other nearby villages.  An hour later, we knew that FINCA was not the answer to the farmers' needs for the following reasons:

1) FINCA only makes loans to business owners, not farmers

2) FINCA only makes loans to women, not men

3) FINCA requires that borrowers make payments every two weeks, beginning immediately after receiving their loans (based on a 2-3 month planting cycles, farmers would have to make payments almost equal to the principal before they could would be able to earn any income from their harvest)

The FINCA manager was sympathetic to what we were trying to do, but said her hands were tied and gave us the contact information for the country director in Dar es Salaam in case we wanted to follow up with him.  By that evening, I was so fired up about the poverty reduction potential of microfinance coupled with MoneyMaker pumps, that I was contemplating finding a way to stay in Morogoro and launch a pilot program after I finished up my volunteer projects with KickStart.  How could the solution be so clear, yet none of the existing actors be willing to step into that role?

The next day, in another village meeting, someone mentioned PRIDE, another microfinance institution that they thought might have potential.  One of the women in the room, who we'd also talked to the previous day, knew the location of their Morogoro office and gave us directions.  Soon after arriving at PRIDE's office, Frank and I found ourselves in a meeting with the branch's general manager, financial officer, and operations manager.  They informed us that PRIDE targets small-scale farmers and offers loan terms based on crop cycles, with the initial payment only due after two or three months.  There was a little miscommunication where they thought we were asking them to loan money directly to KickStart or alter their applicant screening criteria, but once we established that our idea of "collaboration" was to simply start by having KickStart's RSOs inform PRIDE's loan officers when they went to villages and generated demand for loans and then the loan officers could go there and form lending groups according to PRIDE's standard criteria, they became very excited about the potential of such a partnership.  This being Tanzania, however, their debilitating deference to authority prevented them from agreeing to take any immediate action, and instead they gave us the contact information for PRIDE's executive director in Arusha and told us to get in contact with him.  Nevertheless, Frank and I left the office elated, and when we shared the good news with Alfred, he told us that he had reached out to someone at PRIDE via email earlier in the week and was glad that we had been able to make a positive connection for him to build on.  [Note: On Monday, I received an email from Frank telling me that at the market day on Sunday, he learned that the PRIDE folks we had spoken with ended up reaching out to some of the village leaders in Mlali, so it appears that they ended up taking initiative after all!]

That night over dinner, talk eventually turned to politics, with Frank expressing his admiration for Obama and pleasure that Americans elected him as our president.  For my part, I explained that I also thought very highly of Obama, but that he only won the election with a relatively small majority of the vote, and so cautioned against assuming that Americans as a group had changed that much since electing Bush.  Frank's next question caused me to cringe: "Why are the black people in America so violent?"  Despite two and a half years in college leading discussions on race-related issues, I struggled to come up with an acceptable response.  I tried explaining first that most black people in the US aren't violent, but that the higher level of violence can be explained in party by the lack of economic opportunities in many black communities, coupled with lingering institutional racism and the unconscious racism that still lingers (despite Obama's election), and made worse by certain self-perpetuating cycles of destruction related to the drug trade.  It was clear that neither Frank nor I were really satisfied with my answer, but I was relieved when he nodded and let it go.

On my final day in the field, Frank and I drove out to Kilosa and Kisanga with Yusuf, KickStart's new distributor in the region, to introduce him to the dealers in those towns.  On the return trip, Frank took us on a route through Mikumi National Park.  It started to pour by the time we got about halfway through the park, but before then I was able to snap a few photos of deer, zebras, elephants, buffalo, and even one giraffe off in the distance.  You can find those photos and others I took during my trip at http://www.flickr.com/photos/delitzer/sets/72157623360055327/ (I think there's something stuck on an inner lens of my camera, hence the dark blur on some of the images).  My favorite shot is included at right.

After that taste of Tanzania beyond Dar es Salaam, I'm eager to get out of the city and go exploring as much as possible on my remaining weekends.  Tanzania is an absolutely gorgeous country and I look forward to experiencing as much of it as possible!

One final note: for those of you who haven't already heard through Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, or Gchat, I'm now blogging on the nonprofit sector and issues relating to poverty and social change at Full Contact Philanthropy.  I'll be writing new posts about once per week and the first one about the shortcomings of traditional philanthropy is already up, so go check it out!

A Brief Update (Really!)

Over the past week, when I spoke to family and friends back in the US, they each asked me something to the effect of "So, how's life in Tanzania?"  Shocking, I know.  But for some reason, it's a question I've had trouble answering with more than a simple "good."

You see, being in Tanzania hasn't been like being in any of the other places I've visited on this trip, for the simple reason that I am living here, not simply being a tourist.  As such, I haven't been having the types of single, stand-out experiences that I had in other countries, because even the things that are new to me, like driving in a major city on mostly on unpaved roads or having men from the Masai tribe in their traditional colorful but shirtless garb directing traffic outside every restaurant, have quickly become the norm.  Pulling out a camera and taking photos has definitely felt unacceptable.

As of today, I finally have the official documentation I need to do my volunteer work (not that that's prevented me from already starting).  All it took was five hours at the immigration office today on my eighth trip there, plus re-completing one of the six forms I had filled out previously because they had lost my entire file (why they needed the other five forms before, I don't know), in order to get a visa allowing me to volunteer for an organization that helps small scale farmers lift themselves out of poverty.  Oh, and by the way: since June, the Tanzania government has supposedly been operating under the policy of "Kilimo Kwanza," "Agriculture First."  Sadly, my volunteer visa challenge is one of the lesser ways the government has failed to facilitate the efforts of those genuinely committed to assisting with this goal, but I won't dwell on that here.

Overall, I've been having a wonderful and relaxing time in Tanzania.  Tomorrow morning, I'm catching a bus to Morogoro, a region about two to three hours from Dar Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania, to accompany one of KickStart's regional sales officers on some meetings with dealers and distributors that sell their irrigation pumps, and hopefully get to interact with some of the farmers who are actually using them.  I'll be out in the field for 10 days and I promise that when I get back, you'll all get a much more significant update.

Settling into Tanzania

I am taking a break from writing my final India post to capture the excitement I've been feeling since my arrival in Tanzania two days ago.  It is currently 6pm on Saturday and I am sitting on the veranda of Alfred, Hillary, and Bodie's large and beautiful new home (which they only moved into last week), overlooking the pool which will hopefully soon be clear enough of both algae and chemicals for us to swim in it.  To the side is an impressive variety of vegetation - cacti and short palms and an assortment of other trees, flowering blossoms of white, orange, red and pink.  Below them, Dexter and Cleo, the family's two enormous but friendly dogs, are playing.  The sky is overcast, and though the breeze threatens rain, together they keep me cool enough that I am able to sit outside without sweating, a feat I do not expect to repeat frequently over the next two months, which are typically Tanzania's hottest.

As I finished that last sentence, I was interrupted by Bodie, Alfred and Hillary's four-year-old son, an event I expect will be a very frequent occurrence over the next two months.  Bodie is energetic, inquisitive, and quick to befriend people of all ages.  Upon returning home with his nanny the afternoon of my arrival and finding me on the couch, he came right over to introduce himself and show off the BenTen watch his friend had loaned him.  Although I'm sure he can be a handful at times, right now I'm really enjoying spending time with him and feel all warm and fuzzy when he plops himself down in my lap to practice reading his analog watch, or asks to ride on my shoulders or have me read him a bedtime story.  Similarly, I love being in a home with dogs again, even though Cleo is clearly still a puppy (albeit an 80-odd-pound one) and creates puppy-headaches like chewing on all manner of inappropriate items, or, this morning, chasing and catching a chicken that had gotten outside the neighbor's fence.

As for Alfred and Hillary, they have done an incredible job of welcoming me into their home and helping me settle into life here in Tanzania.  I have my own room with a large bed and bathroom on the first floor, and Alfred has already begun surveying their friends--mostly married couples with NGO or government jobs and young children--for other 20-somethings in their organizations to introduce me to.  On an errand run today, we stopped briefly in KickStart's new office so Alfred could check on the progress the weekend workers were making on getting computers and desks set up, then did some shopping for necessities at Tanzania's only (and ridiculously expensive) mall.  I still need to visit one of the immigration offices on Monday to obtain the visa I need to legally volunteer at KickStart, but I'm looking forward to jumping into some projects and am feeling quite optimistic about my stay here.

Massive India Update: The Sequel

Ok, let's pick up where we left off, shall we?

Varanasi - Dec 26-28

To understand my experience of Varanasi, we have to begin at the Delhi airport.  Having arrived via an overnight train from Udaipur and having not eaten for a good 16 hours, I was quite enthusiastic when Erica and Nancy pointed out the KFC in the departure area.  After sating my appetite with a Big Box Meal, my spirits continued to improve as I took advantage of the free wifi access to upload photos, post a blog entry, and make some Skype calls home.  My good mood was brought to a screeching halt a few hours later, when sitting on the plane waiting for takeoff, I was hit by a powerful wave of nausea and began sweating profusely.  Yes, folks, it's true: after nearly three months in Southeast Asia and India, sampling street food with abandon, my first bout of food poisoning was the result of an American fast food chain.  Go figure.

As luck would have it, Erica also came down with food poisoning later that night, presumably from a majorly unclean glass at our hotel's rooftop restaurant.  Her condition ended up being far more severe than mine, but we both were out of commission the next day, leaving Nancy to explore the city by herself.  We managed to pull ourselves together by the evening though, allowing us to take an evening boat ride along the Ganges (with the river's slowest oarsman) to witness the cremations along its shores.  The hour spent on the Ganges that evening and another two the next morning to watch the sunrise and see the religious rituals, bathing, and laundering that happen there daily, together accounted for practically the entirety of my experience of Varanasi.  Those three hours on the Ganges were entirely unlike anything else I have ever witnessed, and the chance to experience the river's mystical beauty made the whole ordeal more than worth it.  The pictures I took didn't turn out well in the low light, but even if they did, there's no way they could have captured the peace and awe I felt as we floated along and took everything in.

Goa - Dec 29-Jan 1

Getting to Goa from Varanasi was a bit of an ordeal.  As I had waited until the last minute to book transport to Goa due to changes in my New Years plans, flights were quite expensive, so I ended up flying to Mumbai and then taking an uncomfortable 12-hour night bus the rest of the way.  When I got off the bus in Margao and started negotiating prices with motorbike drivers to the hotel Nancy had booked for us in Colva, I was annoyed that they all insisted the price was more than double what it should have been due to a "road closure."  I was sure that this was just a lie to justify charging the higher price and normally I would have continued arguing for a few minutes, but I was exhausted and the exorbitant fare being demanded was still less than $2, so I sucked it up and agreed to pay.

When I got to Colva, I was surprised that almost every shop and restaurant was closed at midday on a Tuesday.  While waiting for our room to be prepared, I picked up the local paper and learned that a member of the community had recently released a music CD which included lyrics defaming a local priest with whom he had a feud.  Many people got up in arms, forming a mob of over 200 and rioting, burning tires and blocking the main road, massing outside the "artist's" house and smashing his car.  Inquiring with the hotel manager, I found out that all the businesses in Colva were closed that day as part of a boycott demanding the arrest of the artist and his producers, but that they would be open again the next day.  Craziness.

The next two days were wonderfully relaxing.  I had been expecting Goa to be party central, but it turns out that all the young people mass in northern Goa, while we had decided to stay in southern Goa--a resort area popular with older couples and families--to meet up with a couple of Nancy's friends.  While not what I had originally envisioned, five of us ended up spending a quiet but pleasant New Year's Eve on the beach enjoying a fresh seafood dinner and aged bottle of scotch.  The next morning, I packed Erica and Nancy off in an auto-rickshaw to the airport and found myself alone for one final week in India.

Mangalore and Mysore - Jan 2-3

I arrived in Mangalore around 7am via an overnight bus from Goa.  By noon, I had already visited all the sights I planned to visit, none of which were particularly impressive or memorable.  I arrived at the train station that night a few hours early, only to discover that I had advanced 23 places on the Wait List from #24, leaving me as the #1 person to not have a seat reserved in the air conditioned cars.  As a result, I had to buy a general boarding ticket and cram myself as the 5th person on bench designed to seat three people.  I soon realized I was one of the lucky ones, as more and more people packed in, sitting on the luggage racks and floors and standing when no more seating of any kind could be found.  So passed my overnight journey to Mysore, by far the least pleasant and least restful transportation experience I've ever been through.

I arrived in Mysore at 5am, checked into a hostel, set my alarm for 2 hours later, and promptly passed out.  Waking 3 hours later, having slept through my alarm, I threw some clothes on and rushed downtown just in time to catch a 12-hour bus tour of Mysore and the surrounding area.  We visited temples, museums, a zoo, and a palace (the Mysore Place?), the latter being the most impressive palace I've seen yet, but unfortunately photography was not permitted inside, so I don't have any pictures to share.  The day was capped by a visit with one of the other members of the tour to a famous sweet shop, Bombay Tiffany's--you know it's famous, because there were at least three imitators with the name "New Bombay Tiffany's" on the same street--where we tried Mysore pak, a local delicacy made from chickpea flour, sugar and ghee, which had the consistency of an extremely soft fudge and a taste reminiscent of baklava.  The Mysore pak was so good, I went back five minutes later for some more and also picked up a box of assorted sweets to bring with me to Tanzania.

While I missed having Erica and Nancy with me in Mangalore and Mysore, I found myself enjoying my newfound solitude far more than I had anticipated.  Erica, Nancy, and the Brits I traveled with in SE Asia were all good travel companions, but I discovered that being alone again meant not only complete freedom to go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, but also relieved me of any nagging concern that anybody might be less than fully satisfied with a group decision or that I might be judged for haggling too hard or not hard enough.  Admittedly, those are fairly minor concerns in the grand scheme of things and don't come close to outweighing the benefits of good travel buddies, but I guess two months of near constant contact with a small group of other people helped me gain a greater appreciation for having time to myself.

Bangalore (Bengaluru) - Jan 4-6

Hypothetical scenario: say you arrive at a hotel you've booked, get shown up to the room, and discover that the private bathroom does not have a shower.  Let's also say you haven't showered for four days (yeah, gross, I know), so getting clean using a bar of soap and the sink just isn't going to cut it.  Do you: 

a) Remember that although you've had shower fixtures in all your other rooms thus far, this is a budget hotel in India, so you're supposed to bathe by filling the provided bucket with water and pouring it over yourself;

b) Figure you've only got a few days in the city and plenty you'd like to see, so just fork over an extra $5.50 per night to get a double room which includes a bathroom with a shower fixture; or 

c) Stand on principle (how dare they quote you one price and then try to up-sell you by not providing a "standard" amenity?!), throw back on your 30-pound pack, storm out in a huff, and set off without a map in the general direction you think will lead you towards the central area where you think you can find other hotels, few if any of which are likely to have single rooms for less than the price of the double you just turned down?

C sounds about right, doesn't it?  :/

The first place I come across quotes me a room price 2.5x that of the double at the original hotel and I start to question the wisdom of my decision, but rather than go back 100 meters and sheepishly request the room I've just turned down, I press ahead.  A few blocks later, I spot a Cafe Coffee Day, India's version of Starbucks, and decide to stop in and grab a sandwich and cool drink and try to collect myself, as it's after 2pm and I haven't eaten yet and it's clearly affecting my ability to think rationally.  (Side note: while I describe Cafe Coffee Day as being like Starbucks, unlike its Western counterpart, the odds of being able to order any particular item off their limited menu on any given day is in the ballpark of 50%, frequently leaving you with the feeling that you were not able to get whatever it was that you were craving.)

Refreshed and mildly sated, I set out again.  A few blocks later, I set off down a side street that looks to have a promising number of non-retail business signs.  There are no hotels, but spotting a business center and a couple restaurants/cafes grouped together, I pull out my iPhone and check for open wifi network, miraculously hitting on the first try!  I proceed to spend 45 minutes trying without success to find a suitable hotel online before giving up and resuming my search on foot.  At the next corner, I spot Ullas Refreshments, a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet for its delicious snack food, so I decide to stop in and am rewarded with probably the best samosas I have ever had... ok, and to satisfy my sweet tooth, a cool lassi and some gulab jamun.

Back on the road 30 minutes later, just half a block from Ullas, I find a hotel with a room available that is slightly nicer than the one at the original hotel, at a price between the single and the double.  When I learn that it also does not have a shower, a light bulb clicks on in my head and this time I go with option A.  As a further reward for my earlier stubbornness, I later discovered an open wifi network within range of my room with by far the fastest speed of any internet connection I have found anywhere in my travels, allowing me to replenish my supply of movies and TV shows before I head to Africa.  Sometimes things just work out, huh?

My remaining two days in Bangalore turned out to be relatively uneventful.  I accomplished the one goal I set for my stay there, which was to see Avatar in 3D, and otherwise spent most of my time getting ready to head to Tanzania by catching up on some correspondence, getting a haircut, doing some shopping, and getting a final fill of Indian food, including ordering and finishing (without any trouble) a plate of roast chicken ghee, a Mangalore specialty which was marked "spicy" on the menu (yes, I'm very proud of myself for being able to eat that).

The highlight of my time in Bangalore was meeting up with Sameer Segal, a friend I'd made at the StartingBloc Institute in Boston last spring.  Sameer is a recent graduate and dedicated social entrepreneur, currently working at HSBC but also continuing to grow Engineers for Social Innovation (a leadership incubator he started in college) and launch MySlate, a microfinance and education-focused tablet computing venture.  I'd previously given Sameer some feedback on a business plan and marketing materials for MySlate, so I was very excited to get an in-person update and some hands-on time with the prototype he and his partners had developed.  We spent the morning catching up on each other's lives over coffee and wandering around a mall discussing our shared passions of consumer electronics, social innovation, and the intersection between the two.

Wrap-Up

Well, that's it for the India adventure.  While my photos from India are unfortunately still unsorted and unlabeled, Erica has a fantastic collection of photos from our trip, many with detailed descriptions.

Next up: Tanzania!  Man, am I looking forward to staying in one place for longer than a week!