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Published: March 26th 2010
Me helping 'train' farmers
Not exactly good at this yet considering my Swahili does not stretch to discussing the agronomy of coffee yet...Dear all,
So, I’m in Kigoma! - a busy town situated on the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika, far west Tanzania - a lake which is also bordered by the Congo to the west and Burundi to the north, both countries of which you can see from Tanzania, and particularly well from my house, on a clear day.
I arrived in Kigoma now just under three weeks ago, laden with everything I brought with me from England plus a bit more! Arrivals consisted of a small room and ‘luggage collection’ of two men wheeling the luggage directly from the plane to a small wooden table, somewhat (refreshingly) different to Heathrow. I was greeted by Thangale, my new ‘boss’ and adopted father-figure who gathered my luggage from me and off we went to the guest house in which I would reside for the coming week - simple and clean but with a beautiful view of the lake.
After having settled in my new office and met my fellow staff on the Friday- 5 more in total including the ‘mama’, the guard and Linda the (rather poor-excuse-for-a) guard dog - I was awoken early Saturday morning by a torrential rainstorm
brewing up outside my window. The nearby palm trees were practically bent double from the force of the wind and the rain was coming down in the bucketfuls. There was some pretty impressive lightening strikes too which lit up the lake and were soon followed by loud cracks of thunder which were a little too close for comfort.
It therefore didn’t take long for water to start to leak into my room, naturally through ‘sealed’ windows. After about an hour my floor was practically a puddle an inch deep. At this point I decided to journey downstairs to reception to ask for some advise. The conversation went something as follows...
Carly: ‘Hello’
Receptionist: ‘Good morning Miss’
Carly: ‘Hi, eh - I just wanted to let you know that a lot of water is getting into my room even though my - (short pause to try and remember the word in Kiswahili) - window is closed.
Receptionist: ‘Ah yes’
Carly: ‘I was just worried it might be a problem - is there anything i can do?’
Receptionist: ‘Not at all, no worries, but thanks for letting me know’
...at which point I turn on my heel and head
back up the stairs slightly baffled, only to take refuge afloat on my bed for the following 4 hours until the storm passed. I was later to discover this was the worse storm Kigoma had seen for at least 3 years and even Dr Anton who has been living here now for over 30 years said it was one of the most impressive he had witnessed. I was quietly relieved to learn that I would not in fact be spending my coming months constantly surrounded by red muddy rivers of rainwater both inside and out.
After a week I was lucky enough to have found a place to live and moved out of my hostel and into my new abode in a complex known as ‘Norad’, embarrassingly equipped with a (somewhat dilapidated) tennis court and picnic area. My house, which I am sharing with an Italian guy called Andrea, is currently undergoing refurbishment and after my first night in residence I was forced to move ‘upstairs’ to sleep on the floor in the kitchen while they painted the downstairs floors. I returned home from work to find beautiful shiny, though somewhat sticky, new, red floors equipped with everything that
got in the way of the brush or so it seemed. Indeed, no gecko or worm was spared and within a couple of days those specimens which were unable to escape had been forced into an early grave and their decaying corpses had started to let off somewhat of a whiff. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever smelt a 2-day-old-dead gecko but truly it isn’t pleasant. And so in came Andrea to the rescue and together we trekked the floors removing with a knife all the creepy crawlies we were able to find. Bar a lizard leg or part of a worm here and there we were successful in our plight.
I feel it necessary to also mention the state of food here. Indeed, there is no western equivalent to a supermarket anywhere within, my estimate would be, 16 hours drive. And it would appear that despite my living here for over 10 months now, I am still a little ignorant to what things can actually be produced locally...
Carly: ‘You don’t sell yoghurt?’
Shop assistant: ‘No’
Carly (thinks): *Don’t they have cows in Kigoma?!* ‘Ok, no worries, how about snickers’ (a very common Dar chocolately snack)
Shop assistant: ‘Afraid not’
Carly (now desperate): ‘Pasta?’
Shop assistant: ‘We have spaghetti’
Carly (thinks): *Thank God for that*
Shop assistant: ‘You know, there is one shop that sells imported goods just round the corner’
...and so off I go clutching to my last hope that I might be able get hold of some kind of fruit that isn’t a banana or a papaya. Unfortunately not, however my eyes feast on the jars of jam, the tomato puree sachets, the box of (horribly overpriced but all the same real) Kellogg cornflakes and low and behold NUTELLA. Now, I’ve always had a thing for nutella, and indeed for anything both nutty and chocolately in the same bite - gullian chocolates being a particular vice - however I always tabbed my consumption under the belief that, whether or not each jar contains 97 hazelnuts and skimmed milk as the advert claims, nutella is nevertheless not what I would describe as nutritional. Well, tab do I no longer. Nutella for breakfast, nutella for super, nutella for that just-returned-from-work snack and on a couple of occasions nutella by the sneaky spoonful when I awake a little peckish in the middle of the night.
Unfortunately it would seem a few other people have discovered the joys of nutella too and since only about 10 jars appear to be imported per month, at times this lifesaving joy-in-a-jar becomes sparse. At which point i arrive at the shop and see only 2 jars remaining on the shelves and wonder if indeed I should buy both of them ‘just in case’ - driven by the fear that I might have to live without if for a week.
When this did indeed happen I realized things had gotten a little out of hand. Ok, so you can’t get yoghurt, or fresh milk, or decent bread, or apples, or cheese, or pesto, or a variety of yummy cereals but truly I’d survived without Nutella for 23 years of my life so I sure as hell wasn’t going to die without it for a week now. And so I returned home 3 pounds (yes, 3 whole pounds) the better to eat instead my fifth banana of the day - debatably more nutritious and approximately 40 times cheaper.
Perhaps I should wrap up with a short account of my work. Well as of so far I’m really enjoying it.
VIllage children
..come to see the excitement - not sure if they were more excited about the car or the presence of the white person inside it! It would appear ‘Tanzania assistant’ incorporates everything from project management and payroll to interviewing farmers in a still somewhat unfamiliar language in the rain. Furthermore if anything goes wrong/needs buying it is essentially my job to deal with it. And so I am becoming jack of all trades. A typical day might involve buying curtains and curtain hooks, fixing the printer, renting a car, finding out yet again why the internet isn’t working, ringing a ‘fundi’ to find out why we have no water, ringing mushroom trainers across Tanzania, greeting visitors from coffee competitors far and wide, giving presentations and writing stories and making videos to give to coffee buyers in America to keep them on their toes and up-to-date about the hard work that is really behind getting the coffee from the plant to the cup. Truly never a dull moment. And I love the people I work with too - they all take joy in mocking me which is the way I like it. And they even seem to understand my sarcasm, a relief I’m sure!
Anyway, perhaps I’ll leave you with a story I wrote for the staff in America regarding the trip we made to
Second 'stop'
Can you believe this is considered work?! So much fun... the villages last week to train the farmers in coffee growing. Needless to say, for those of you that have asked me, yes it is indeed rainy season in Kigoma at present....
“Hola Todos,
So Thangale, Sarafina, Shabani and I all ended up on a ‘mini adventure’ yesterday to say the least and we thought it might be fun to share our story with you.
We had a trip planned to visit a number of primary villages in Manyovu, up in the highlands near Kigoma town. We set off at 8am, the sun shining and everything going to plan. We reached our first stop without any problems, carried out our supervision there and then continued on our way. Next stop was Mkatanga, the village where we have our ‘Pulp to Protein’ project. By the time we arrived the heavens had opened and by the time we left the village the rain was quite heavy.
We reached our next destination without too much trouble and spoke to the primary society members there for some time, however from here the problems began. By this time the road was very muddy and on our way back down towards
Me 'cupping' coffee!
I'm going to be a complete coffee snob, hehe! Kigoma we got completely stuck in the mud at about 2pm. Out the car we all got, and out rushed the villagers to help us. After much digging, spinning, pushing and mud flying later we finally managed to move the car. And so by around 3:30pm we were on our way again....for approximately half an hour after which time the driver realized that the break was no longer working. And so we stopped again. While the driver tried to fix it we (along with about 50 children who had come to see the excitement) sat and watched some other locals attempt to remove a truck from the mud-bath-of-a-road just ahead of us.
Finally on our way again...but not for long! Whilst driving along a particularly treacherous stretch of road our driver was unable to control the car and so we silently slipped down into the ditch. By this time is was very much an ‘If you don’t laugh you’ll cry’ situation so laugh we did. We heaved ourselves out of the car which was now near enough 90 degrees to the ‘road’ and waited while people rushed in with all sorts of equipment ready to help us. Dragging cars
out of ditches and mud is evidently part of life here during the rainy season!
Eventually we were on our way again, albeit slowly slowly. A cry of joy rang out when we finally reached the tarmac and we all arrived home at about 8pm in pretty good spirits despite the day’s events, though admittedly the car (and the driver!) looked like it had been dragged to oblivion and back again...all in a good day’s work!”
Ok, I think that’s all for now. Hope everyone is well, please get in touch - England (or indeed anywhere other than Kigoma) seems a long way away right now!
My skype address is sh.carly and the office address where I’m told I’m allowed to receive post is:
Sustainable Harvest
Kigoma
Tanzania
POBOX 875
Also I have a house phone number which appears to work if that works out cheaper for people...+255282803778. And also I have another new mobile number - +255767515816 (I still have the +255715515816 number too but the signal for that network is not so good here!) And finally for anyone who hasn't already seen them I put some pictures on facebook at long last
Lots to all,
Carly xxxxx
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Amanda Duncan
non-member comment
wonderful
Looks like you're still having fun and that your good sense of humour is helping you through!