House warming, Christmas celebrations and 5am wake-up calls: another weekend update

 

Last weekend was such a blast we decided to keep up the energy. On Friday evening after a long and tough week at work (we do work, and alot, I swear) we went to visit our fellow Western interns in Mwanza city at their new home. They have rented this amazing apartment in the city with all the western style creature comforts like running water, an oven, and even air conditioning.

 

We had a total blast just hanging and catching up with our friends. Our hosts made hot dogs and smores which obviously gave us some warm-hearted memories of a Canadian BBQ back home.

 

 

Tina (our finnish friend) eating her first smore! (a Tanzanian version)

Thanks for all the dancing, laughs and a wonderful time Duboya friends!

 

On Saturday we caught up on such much needed emails, did some trip planning and homework. That night we held a "Christmas themed gathering" which was inspired by some mint chocolate cookies we found last week at Uturn. These cookies made us realize how much we love the feeling of Christmas so we decided to have a Christmas in June celebration. We had a friend over and made dinner and went all out for our Christmas dessert: crepes (chapati) and nutella, mint cookies, home-made hot chocolate... we all felt like santa afterwards. We watched the Holiday (the best holiday season movie of all time) and hit the sheets.

 

We woke up at 5am to hike to this lookout point up the street from our home. Turns out we overestimated when the sun was waking up so we did a little morning cardio and then made our way to the top of the hill where we watched the huge African sun emerge from the Mwanza hills and rocks. It was absolutely breathtaking.

 

The past two weekends have been so enjoyable, especially in helping to manage the overwhelming feeling that comes with the demanding workload we have here. In combination with our course work, our intern projects require us to work all day, come home and clock a few more hours, as well as work on weekends. Taking some time for these weekend adventures reminded me how important it is have that sense of adventure in the busy of your day-to-day.

 

To your sense of adventure,

 

Tara

 

The Opposite of Loneliness [abroad]

An update from last weekend

Before arriving in Tanzania we were told we'd be sharing a house with the interns on the SAUT university campus; this would be where we'd be living for three months.

5 weeks later we've finally moved into that house! While waiting until this unknown 'house' was ready for us to move in we lived in a guest house with our own rooms, bathrooms and meals served to us..kind of like unversity residence but Tanzanian style (aka no furniture, a lot of bugs and a questionable mattress). 

Now we're finally here, in this house we've been waiting so long for and anticipating for a month! It's great.. a big living room, a kitchen, our own space.  The only real downside is that we have no running water so the sinks, shower and toilet don't work. I would call our living situation upscale camping, especially because we are in the middle of woods.

 

The first night after moving into this new house I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I think it was because it was a new space where everything was unfamiliar and frankly.. a little scary. I felt lonely. I was missing home, and the old guest house, and running water, and chapati in the dining hall.

 

Saturday morning I woke up to the 'opposite of loneliness'. If you're unfamiliar with this reference it's from the most amazing book (The Opposite of Loneliness-Marina Keegan). Here's a synopsis:

 

[The piece below was written by Marina Keegan '12 for a special edition of the Yale Daily News distributed at the class of 2012's commencement exercises last week. Keegan died in a car accident on Saturday. She was 22.

 

[It's not quite love and it's not quite community; it's just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it's four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can't remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.

 

Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers -- partner-less, tired, awake. We won't have those next year. We won't live on the same block as all our friends. We won't have a bunch of group-texts.

This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse -- I'm scared of losing this web we're in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.] (ABC News, Marina Keegan)]

 

I went to bed Friday night in this new, scary place feeling lonely and wanting to go home. I woke up Saturday morning to my two roommates singing Sheryl Crow. We made oatmeal and did karaoke while cleaning the dishes. This is the opposite of loneliness. Shoutout to my cool roomies for helping me make this place feel like home [insert Chantal Krevietz singing interlude].

 

Later that day we went on a sunset boat ride on Lake Victoria with the other interns living in town, as well as some of our local friends. Samosas, the view, jokes, laughs, and my favourite people.

 

We had dinner at Hotel Tilapia, at this table that sat right on the lake. Our table was lit by one candle. We eat, we sang, we laughed.

 

This is my opposite of loneliness. These people, in this place, and in these moments. Thanks 2015 Mwanza interns and friends for giving me the opposite of loneliness, this amazing sense of community and protection, and a wonderful weekend I won't forget.

 

This place wouldn't be anything without your masala chai-sharing, back cracks, double chins, hamster references, and Friends jokes. I love you guys. Cheers to more opposite of loneliness. 

 

 

Dependency and Dead Aid: Am I Limiting Capacity Building?

We all understand that colonial legacies left much of the current developing world economically vulnerable; cities were designed to export a narrow range of exports to ports, leaving internal infrastructure insufficient for urban growth. Colonialism also left many countries designed for export production of raw goods, most of whose prices were determined by global markets, and had small profit margins. 

When de-colonization occurred, many colonies claimed "independence at last!". However, the structure left by the imperial world created immense dependency on the West. This was manifested through massive movement of foreign aid.

This left the developing world with large sums of debt and interest payments they continue to struggle to keep up with. More importantly, what formed was a culture of dependence.

I see that every day here, and plenty during my time at work. Children will see me and say "give me your money" often during commutes to and from the central city.

Even worse though is that this culture of dependence on the West, which was ironically created by the West, continues to limit organic growth of businesses and capacity building of organizations and people.

The Girlgoestoafrica blog brings this issue to light:

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["White people aren’t told that the color of their skin is a problem very often.

After six years of working in and traveling through a number of different countries where white people are in the numerical minority, I’ve come to realize that there is one place being white is not only a hindrance, but negative — most of the developing world.

In high school, I travelled to Tanzania as part of a school trip. Our mission while at the orphanage was to build a library. Turns out that we, a group of highly educated private boarding school students were so bad at the most basic construction work that each night the men had to take down the structurally unsound bricks we had laid and rebuild the structure so that, when we woke up in the morning, we would be unaware of our failure. It is likely that this was a daily ritual.

Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there. It would have been more cost effective, stimulative of the local economy, and efficient for the orphanage to take our money and hire locals to do the work, but there we were trying to build straight walls without a level.

 Before you sign up for a volunteer trip anywhere in the world this summer, consider whether you possess the skill set necessary for that trip to be successful. If yes, awesome. If not, it might be a good idea to reconsider your trip. Sadly, taking part in international aid where you aren’t particularly helpful is not benign. It’s detrimental. It slows down positive growth and perpetuates the “white savior” complex that, for hundreds of years, has haunted both the countries we are trying to ‘save’ and our (more recently) own psyches.  

 It’s only through an understanding of the problems communities are facing, and the continued development of skills within that community, that long-term solutions will be created."]

(Girl Goes to Africa)

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I'm grateful to have had the business education needed to feel skilled and equipped to access the commercial challenges of the yoghurt kitchens. So long as my time here is spent knowledge sharing and collaborating with our local community partners, I imagine local capacity building will emerge.

The more important issue at hand is not my potential to limit capacity building, but the fact that some people here are still resistant to independence, organic growth and loosing 'help' or aid. Some local organizations and individuals do not want to facilitate their own capacity building; they want the West to continue to help them.

 

I witnessed this last week during our visits to the yoghurt kitchens. The mamas would ask us "how are you going to save this kitchen?" and "how will you get us more donor money"? These kitchens are being run by intelligent, capable and hardworking women and some kitchens have more customers than they can keep up with. These kitchens are currently self-sustaining, profitable businesses but the owners continue to believe that they need aid (not educational tools) to keep their kitchen up and running.

GirlGoesto Africa failed to note that our wanting local capacity building and self-sufficiency for the developing world is different from the developing world wanting that for themselves (or understanding that it is imperative to achieving progress (as defined by the West)). 

I'm not saying that I condone local capacity building; I'm just saying that for it to occur it needs to be the builders that want to make it happen.

 

 

 

 

 

Yoghurt out your ears!

Last Thursday Gabriella (my intern in crime) and I visited two community probiotic yoghurt kitchens. 

The community probiotic yoghurt kitchens were a project initiated by Western University based on research done by Western professor Gregor Reid; he showed that certain strains of probiotics (especially lactobilli) at specific strengths improve immunity. This is especially important for HIV patients who are immune-compromised. The yoghurt, when taken with the patients' antiretroviral medication, significantly reduces the medication's nauseous side effects. 

Probiotic yoghurt also has many benefits for healthy individuals as well, including improved digestion and increased energy.

There are 10 community probiotic yoghurt kitchens in our area of Tanzania where women (yoghurt mamas) cook up this nutritious dietary supplement and sell it to locals. Saying they love it would be an understatement.

If this yoghurt was made in North America it would be labeled "made by the batch, fresh, local, organic, all natural".

Fiti yoghurt is unflavored, unsweetened, lumpy yoghurt; this is exactly what appeals to market preferences. It is proof of the importance of understanding consumer preferences!

 

Our Yoghurt Kitchen Project

 Gabriella and I have been tasked with doing a thorough business sustainability analysis of the yoghurt kitchens. That is, which kitchens are doing well and which are not, and why.

The Sayuni kitchen (as pictured) has mediocre sales and feels they need to educate the community about their presence and the benefits of the yoghurt to improve. The Tukawamne kitchen has got yoghurt coming out of their ears! They've got customers lining up and demanding extended hours of the kitchen. Why is one business booming and the other struggling? We're hoping to spend the next three months trying to figure that out!

 

Issues of Complexity

At one time, all 10 Tanzanian yoghurt kitchens received donor grant money that was used to buy yoghurt for HIV+ patients in the kitchen community (beneficiaries). This yoghurt improved the health and quality of life for many HIV+ community members.

 

Unfortunately all good things come to an end.. and so did the donor money. The beneficiaries were angry and some died as a result of lack of yoghurt to sustain their nutritional health. They voiced their anger to the yoghurt mamas with violence. As a result, the sense of community inside the kitchens decreased dramatically.  

 

Gabriella and I have been tasked with assessing the continued effects of the loss of donor funds on yoghurt business.

 

 

 

A birthday adventure in the Serengeti

I turned 23 on Friday and was so fortunate to celebrate my birthday while adventure-ing in the Serengeti! A fellow intern, Sima, is living with her grandparents here and her father is here for a week to help her (and us) settle in. Sima's dad has been so helpful in helping us get our phones set up and driving us to places we hadn't yet learned to navigate.

He picked us up at our house at 6am. While we were waiting for Sima the sleepy head to get ready we had the most amazing cup of coffee! Sima lives right on market street where all the merchants sell their goods; it is usually busting with noise and people most of the day. 

However at 6am it was quiet, calm and peaceful; just the way I like it. We enjoyed this amazing coffee served in these tiny little cups and African donuts which tasted like a butter-y crumpet. This made my morning of course...this girl loves food. 

We started our 3 hour drive to the Serengeti and this is when I first started to understand that there are no rules of the road here. There is a middle buffer lane between the two opposite directions of traffic that is basically a lane where cars play chicken. Its fun and oh so scary at the same time. Also, I thought my regular coasting speed could use some improvement but since being here and realizing the cruising speed in 140km/hr, I'm second guessing myself. Mom if you're reading this, be mindful that I am in a car often, mostly just a daladala (bus) stuffed full of sweaty people (primarily myself) and held back by traffic. 

We made it to the Serengeti entrance gate and began our journey through one of the most treasured national parks in the world. As an environmental steward I was beyond excited. We weren't allowed to exit the car because of safety reasons and often couldn't open the windows because the area was filled with tsetse flies that can give you sleeping sickness. And so we began our crazy fast, bumpy 13 hour drive through the Serengeti with no outside air. The animals we saw were well worth the overheating, nausea, vomiting, and discomfort of fitting 4 bodies into the backseat (and sometimes trunk) of the vehicle. 

This last picture with the lions is a special one. We saw all these amazing animals but could not find a lion. We drove around an extra two hours and finally found these guys. In the 50+ times Sima's dad has been to the Serengeti he has never seen this many lions sleeping in a tree. They were having an awesome group snooze! 

After the lion watching we had limited time to make it out of the park before it closed so the cruising speed increased. We were flying through the park and it was a recipe for car sickness to say the least. We took turns sitting in the trunk to minimize overheating in the backseat. Gab and Rhiannon took turns vomiting and I was on cold drink duty; I swapped cold bottles of water and pop and we used them to cool ourselves down. Gab passed out gravol. We moaned and at one point, we all questioned whether we would make it to the gates with our stomach still inside our bodies. 

It happened. We finally made it back to Hotel Tilapia after 13 hours of a crazy car ride with beautiful animals. This was a paradise resort on Lake Victoria; Sima's dad had a friend who got us a night at this place for free...in the presidential suite no less. We we all starving, sweaty and ready for a good nights sleep. I got to have my first hot shower in 5 days and it was the best birthday present ever! 

The next day, after a much deserved sleep, we chilled by the pool and enjoyed some awesome food. What a birthday adventure. Thanks friends and Sima's fam for your genorsity, kindness and a car ride I will never forget! 

A birthday adventure in the Serengeti

I turned 23 on Friday and was so fortunate to celebrate my birthday while adventure-ing in the Serengeti! A fellow intern, Sima, is living with her grandparents here and her father is here for a week to help her (and us) settle in. Sima's dad has been so helpful in helping us get our phones set up and driving us to places we hadn't yet learned to navigate.

He picked us up at our house at 6am. While we were waiting for Sima the sleepy head to get ready we had the most amazing cup of coffee! Sima lives right on market street where all the merchants sell their goods; it is usually busting with noise and people most of the day. 

However at 6am it was quiet, calm and peaceful; just the way I like it. We enjoyed this amazing coffee served in these tiny little cups and African donuts which tasted like a butter-y crumpet. This made my morning of course...this girl loves food. 

We started our 3 hour drive to the Serengeti and this is when I first started to understand that there are no rules of the road here. There is a middle buffer lane between the two opposite directions of traffic that is basically a lane where cars play chicken. Its fun and oh so scary at the same time. Also, I thought my regular coasting speed could use some improvement but since being here and realizing the cruising speed in 140km/hr, I'm second guessing myself. Mom if you're reading this, be mindful that I am in a car often, mostly just a daladala (bus) stuffed full of sweaty people (primarily myself) and held back by traffic. 

We made it to the Serengeti entrance gate and began our journey through one of the most treasured national parks in the world. As an environmental steward I was beyond excited. We weren't allowed to exit the car because of safety reasons and often couldn't open the windows because the area was filled with tsetse flies that can give you sleeping sickness. And so we began our crazy fast, bumpy 13 hour drive through the Serengeti with no outside air. The animals we saw were well worth the overheating, nausea, vomiting, and discomfort of fitting 4 bodies into the backseat (and sometimes trunk) of the vehicle. 

This last picture with the lions is a special one. We saw all these amazing animals but could not find a lion. We drove around an extra two hours and finally found these guys. In the 50+ times Sima's dad has been to the Serengeti he has never seen this many lions sleeping in a tree. They were having an awesome group snooze! 

After the lion watching we had limited time to make it out of the park before it closed so the cruising speed increased. We were flying through the park and it was a recipe for car sickness to say the least. We took turns sitting in the trunk to minimize overheating in the backseat. Gab and Rhiannon took turns vomiting and I was on cold drink duty; I swapped cold bottles of water and pop and we used them to cool ourselves down. Gab passed out gravol. We moaned and at one point, we all questioned whether we would make it to the gates with our stomach still inside our bodies. 

It happened. We finally made it back to Hotel Tilapia after 13 hours of a crazy car ride with beautiful animals. This was a paradise resort on Lake Victoria; Sima's dad had a friend who got us a night at this place for free...in the presidential suite no less. We we all starving, sweaty and ready for a good nights sleep. I got to have my first hot shower in 5 days and it was the best birthday present ever! 

The next day, after a much deserved sleep, we chilled by the pool and enjoyed some awesome food. What a birthday adventure. Thanks friends and Sima's fam for your genorsity, kindness and a car ride I will never forget! 

Why am I here?

I have a million reasons why Western Heads East (this internship) was the perfect fit for me. I am keen to explore the world of entrepreneurship, especially social enterprise. I am a proud feminist in the traditional terms as an advocate for gender equality. I have only just begun to explore the international politics of environmental degradation, and the workings of climate injustice. Western Heads East presented an opportunity to dive head first into these areas and experience them first hand.

 

Side note: I am writing this blog post in my backyard and am watching some beautiful monkeys prance and play around the yard as I do so. The best distraction ever.

 

In short, I came here to fiercely pursue my educational interests and find some intellectual stimulation outside lecture halls that are often dominated by discussions framed around privilege.

 

I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to pursue a post-secondary education, and I wake up each morning eager to extract every ounce of value from it as I can. In fact, going to school and learning about things that I love IS what gets me out of bed in the morning.

 

However, I think it's important to look at my privileged education and upbringing as both an asset and a liability. A recent article by the Atlantic summarizes this beautifully:

 

"When it comes to building "social competency", one wonders, among whom?

 

These educationally privileged students will become exquisitely adept at invoking privilege to signal moral sophistication and guard their status among similarly acculturated peers. But I fear that they'll emerge from their formal schooling less able to coherently discuss race or privilege with anyone outside of their educational cohort, having been taught to deploy inaccessible buzzwords and abstract theory rather than plain language, discrete examples, and a focus on solutions."

(The Limits of Talking About Privilege to Teenagers-The Atlantic-5/5/2015)

 

This article explains that my education, although beneficial in many ways, has caused me to build up this narrow lens around which I perceive the world. This lens often only allows me to communicate and accomplish actionable items with other privileged individuals. In some circumstances, this can be barrier to the effectiveness of my working here. 

 

Will I be able to turn off my autopilot of business school buzzwords? I was taught to use these in rapid fire to impress recruiters and earn participation grades in class. There are rewards for using privileged terminology in a privileged classroom. What do I do here? Is cash flow also the most important aspect of running a business here?

 

What will it take to break down my lens of privilege so my work here is both beneficial and culturally integrative?

 

Does assuming that I am more privileged than the community partners I'm working with here further deepen the severity of this lens?

 

Before I dig myself a hole I am going simplify my reflections above. I will take the advice in the cited article and instead of deploying my theories I will use plain language.

 

Be modest and humble. Regardless of your definition of business success or the 'right way to do things', everyone offers something of value (in speech or action) and if you're not searching for it, you won't find it. That's your loss.

 More reflection to come. 

 

Tara 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally here!

 

Jambo! This is my first official blog post after beginning my adventure in Mwanza, Tanzania for a 3-month long internship through Western Heads East.

 

My name is Tara and I'm entering my fifth year at Western University in pursuit of a Bachelor of Science, HSP Environmental Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Ivey Business School.

 

I am living at St Augustine University in Tanzania for three months doing an internship with two grassroots organizations: Education for Better Living (EBL) and Community Probiotic Yoghurt. I live with two other interns on campus, about 30 minutes outside the city of Mwanza. Lucky for us we have a quiet backyard with lots of greenery, birds and bugs. In the future this will make for peaceful sleeps but until I get my internal clock on Tanzanian time I will be operating on periodic naps.  

 

After 3 days of flying and almost 20 hours of airtime we arrived safely in Mwanza around noon last Thursday. I began unpacking my bags but as soon as I sat down on my bed I unintentionally began a 5-hour nap. It was much deserved after flying from Toronto to Amsterdam, and then Amsterdam to Nairobi. In Nairobi we had a 12-hour layover, most of which was spent wandering around the airport in frustration of my inability to nap in the airport chairs. After a sleepless night we flew from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro, and then reached our final destination in Mwanza.

 

More interesting updates to come!

 

Tara