Trip to Dar

We spent the last few days back in Dar so Sue could visit the cancer center and I realized it has been a week since I updated the blog. After our time with the Vinton's we relaxed over the weekend and attended a village near the main road to Ilula for church services with our friend, Israel Kaponda, translating for Lamont, who is a visiting pastor teaching at Tumaini. Israel Kaponda, or babu (grandfather) as we call him, is a retired pastor who is a lot of fun and who was our translator on our first trip to Tanzania and again last June. His son also came with us and Imanuel is studying biology at Ruaha College in Iringa and hopes to continue to become a doctor. Babu is not much over 5 feet tall and is full of witty sayings. He grew up when Tanzania was a British colony and is well educated. Whenever he gets the chance to talk to students he grills them about working hard and says "No Pain, No Gain. No Sweat, no Sweet. No Money, No Honey". He also cracked us up in june when he slept in a little bit and came out saying "I was practicing my death". He is deligtful and has lots of stories about earlier times in Tanzania.

I had some meetings last week with Reuben, who works with the well program, and Itiweni, who works with microfinance. This week I will be working with both to start visiting some of the villages with microfinance programs and do an inventory of well drilling supplies with Reuben. It is hard to get reports from the microfinance groups, or SACCO's Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations which are government regulated. They are supposed to file monthly reports with a government officer but have not been so we are going to have to visit each and check their accounting and learn how things are going. These are rural village SACCOS so the loans are three month (beans) or six month (maize) for seed and fertilizer. There is concern because some of these villages are in drought affected areas and crop failures have probably created problems with repayment. Bega Kwa Bega is working with the diocese to bring maize to these villages to help them last until the next harvest comes in May or June.

The bad thing about a trip to Dar is the 8 hour bus ride each way. The good thing is part of that ride goes through Mikumi national park where we saw lots of elephants, giraffes, impala, zebra, cape buffalo, and water buck. We also stopped in Morogorro for lunch and saw one of the few golf courses in Tanzania. It was open, flat, and featureless, just the way I like them. The greens were black sand and the course had a beautiful mountain behind it for a backdrop. We went to Dar with a medical group and while they were visiting the cancer center (see Sue's blog) I and a couple others went to the National Museum which is small but interesting. I had been there before but they are expanding the Tanzania history section in a new building and I enjoyed it. I also learned why there is a WWII memorial plaque in the park in Iringa for the 40 or so Iringa people who lost their lives in the war. Tanzanian troops were brought all over the war fronts by the British. Tanzania was German East Africa until the end of WWI when it was given to the British to administer and called Tanganika. It was a British colony until independence in 1964 when it was combined with Zanzibar to form Tanzania. Tanzania started as a socialist government and its economy was slow to develop compared to neighboring Kenya. However, Julius Nyere, the first leader, did a good job of unifying the different tribes into a national identity which has made it a relatively peaceful place in Africa. They have a democratic constitution now and the current president, Kikwete, is considered one of the best leaders in Africa.

We took Scandinavia bus back to Iringa and I was sitting in the same seat that I was in when I was in a bus crash in Feb 2008 which made me think of that. We had to wait more than 2 hours at the bus station and did not leave Dar until 12:30 which means we would be arriving in Iringa well after dark. The driver was careful about passing which was reassuring but was on the cell phone half the time and would use the hand on the wheel to shift instead of the hand on the phone. These big busses apparently do not need a lot of steering. The ride was uneventful but we had to climb the escarpment in the dark and passed a truck and a bus that were on their side, apparently losing brakes coming down and driving into the hill side to turn over and stop. The highway between Dar and Iringa is narrow two lane and we were lucky neither accident blocked the road or we would not have gotten back to Iringa that night. Because of road construction, we didn't get to Iringa until 9:30 but it felt good to be back. We did the traditional end of trip things with the medical group and when we dropped them off at the airport I was glad we were not going with them. We have been here three weeks now and I like it. I am looking forward to working with students when the term starts but have quite a bit to do in the mean time.