May 31

This past week has absolutely flown by. The fact that our days here in Mwanza are truly numbered hit us quite hard this past week. We began feeling crunched for time despite all the preparations we've been doing before we leave.

Last Tuesday we resumed supervision over yogurt production. We were really impressed with how well everything went in our absence. Mama Joyce took it upon herself to ensure that many of the day-to-day aspects of production were done correctly. The only persistent problem is that some people are not showing up on their assigned day. This problem only pertains to one or two women, but it is one that really puts a wrench in the project. If one person does not show up, it doubles the amount of work that needs to be done by the next person. And although the job can be done by one person, it takes considerably longer and is more difficult. As a result, we have decided to meet with all of the women this coming Wednesday to discuss how they think the problem should be dealt with. We figure that is was the best way to deal with the situation, as it puts the ownership on them, allowing them to set their own rules and in a sense, monitor themselves.

Yogurt production for the remainder of the week went relatively smoothly. The women made yogurt while we prepared lists of what needs to be done before we leave Mwanza.

On the weekend, we went out with our friend Ian to purchase a whole whack of souvenirs for friends and family. It was a lot of fun and we got most of what we had set out to purchase. It's good that we left much of our souvenir buying to the end of our trip. We likely saved a good bit of money since we are now far better bargainers than when we first arrived!

On Monday we received a bit of bad news: we won't be able to take our planned trip to Arusha to trek up Mount Meru and have a safari in the Ngorongoro crater. On Monday we went to the travel agent and discovered that strange, heavy rains have caused many people to cancel their plans. There is no insurance once park fees are paid, so we decided not to risk it. We were both really bummed as this would have been our last trip outside of Mwanza before heading home.

As it stands right now, we only have just over two weeks left here in Mwanza, and had hoped to get in more traveling. We are really disappointed that we didn’t get to see more of this great country, but perhaps having more to see means that we’ll just have to come back again sometime! We are really happy with all that we have accomplished here and wouldn’t trade that for anything. But overall, we are both feeling good and are ready to return home. We are looking forward to seeing our friends and families again. There have been many nights when we’ve sat around (often at dinner time) and talked about all the things we’ll miss about Mwanza, the things that we won’t miss about Mwanza, the things we are looking forward to about returning home to Canada, and even the things in Canada that we are not looking forward to returning to! The list is too long to type out in this journal!

We’ll end here. It is perhaps our shortest journal yet, but there is really little to say. Things are going well. We are wrapping things up and preparing to hand off the project to the next interns, Jonathan and Dallas. Until next week,

Brian & Cynthia :0)