eco-tourism, fair trade, ngo involvement

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We've had a busy last few days around here. On Sunday, we went to a Lutheran church in a small town near Mt. Kilimanjaro. The service was 3 hours long in Kiswahili, so needless to say, it was a bit long and hard to follow. An interesting part of that was that men and women sat on different sides of the aisle - something I've never experienced before!

We then played a soccer game against a young men's team - they kicked our butts. I led the bench warmers in some cheers which the Tanzanian kids thought were hilarious. We also made a pyramid. 😊

Monday was an awesome day. We headed out to the base of Kilimanjaro, near the national park, and visited an eco-tourism project that is completely community run. We hiked down a steep trail into a gorge where there was the most beautiful waterfall... we got to hike around the falls and the creek/rapids and go swimming downstream a bit. It was amazing. The community runs the project and does environmental education projects for the local schoolchildren, and tries to do environmentally sustainable work around the land. It was a beautiful place to visit and even cooler to see all the work they were doing.

Our group has been having some pretty intense discussions about issues of trade and US/European intervention in Africa. The fair trade system, at least the parts we've seen so far, is definitely lacking in some areas. It does seem like an improvement, a better alternative, but there are a lot of structural problems, especially with coffee, that make change so difficult. I hope that the next coffee cooperative we visit in Mbale is as interesting and educational as the last one in Tanzania!

We're in Nairobi for the day. We got the chance to visit an NGO working in a slum of Nairobi called Kibera. Kibera has been recently made famous in the US in the movie The Constant Gardner (it is the slum which the camera pans down along the train tracks, if you've seen it, and where the wife works). It is government owned land that the 1 million residents lease from them - and are therefore disallowed from building "permanent structures". An organization there called Carolina for Kibera (out of UNC) is doing a lot of different work. I was skeptical at first, but a lot of their organizing tactics I really liked a lot. They also had some HIV Positive women who were doing a women's empowerment project with crafts, so I got to do some chatting with them so I was happy. Overall it was a really great experience.

Tomorrow we head to Mbale, Uganda. I'm not sure how my internet access will be, but I'll try to update soon! Also, I'll try to add pictures soon as well.

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Comments

[kiran]

jalouse!

[kiran]

jalouse!