I am COMPLETELY crazy

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Hello all,

Oh my GOD things have been so crazy since my last entry. I can barely process things myself! Firstly, the plumber came and replaced our pump, woohoo - Merete and I had a mini party which involved much too much boxed wine and resulted in me having to sit threw a three hour supposedly ‘informal’ interview (more on that later) feeling less than wonderful. However, 4 days later when we tried to pump water it didn’t work. We went downstairs and low and behold someone had stolen our brand new 70 quid pump and replaced it with a stone!!!! We were so so gutted but we couldn’t mope about for long. All we could do was buy another pump. It was definately an inside job though in one way or another - there were very few people who knew about the new pump and we have a guard so...it really was quite disappointing. Alas...enough of that.

So yeah, the 3 hour interview was pretty gruelling - I had to do a one hour written examination and everything. I left feeling less than positive, however found out about 3 days ago that they did in fact want to offer me the job! It was working for an NGO in Dar Es Salaam called Sikika (hear us in Swahili) and was to do with health advocacy. My job role would be editing official documents, creating a few news letters, perhaps some opportunity to write grants etc.

However, in the mean time I got an email from a lady I met in Kigoma called Sara. To cut a long story short, a while back I applied for a job with a social enterprise called Sustainable Harvest but didn’t get the job. However, I decided to pop by at their office in Kigoma when I went to visit the chimps. Sara is project manager for Africa and we had a chat, but i expected nothing more. Then a week ago I got an email from her saying a new position had opened up and that they wanted to interview me for it if i was interested. Basically they have since moved their office to Moshi but they are keeping the office open in Kigoma and want to keep a member of staff there. So by Friday last week I’d gone from having now job prospects to having a job offer and another interview!!

I came up to Moshi on Monday and met with all the staff here - the top boss who founded Sustainable Harvest in Portland in the States was here too. They interviewed me and on Monday night I spent a rather sleepless night (in a beautiful little hotel I’d like to add) stressed about the fact that I had just 7 days to sort out what the hell I wanted to do with myself!! But then yesterday I spent the whole day talking to the staff and my gut instinct told me I wanted this opportunity with Sustainable Harvest. Before I knew it, by last night I’d become a member of the team - it’s so crazy.

So to sum up so far, and before I explain anymore, I have a job! Well actually it is a 3 month initial trail period with a living stipend, but with a real potential to turn into more if I impress (so I’m told!) The only issue is that they want me to start straight away so basically
I’m not coming home on Tuesday after all!! I am feeling a little sad about this, but they’ve promised me that they will fly me home in July to graduate and if they like me they will pay for my flight back again. Furthermore, if I did come home next week I can’t afford to fly myself back out here so would have had to turn the opportunity down, so even though I am feeling sad I feel like at least for now I’ve made the right decision. Plus I will be able to communicate with you guys a lot more as will be revealed.....

So, what is Sustainable Harvest?! Well, to start with if you are interested you should check out the website - www.sustainableharvest.com. But basically it is what they call a for-profit social enterprise - this effectively means it is not an NGO but a substantial part of the work the business does is development orientated. Sustainable Harvest works with coffee growers in East Africa and South America to make their coffee really high quality and get a much better price for it on the global market. Effectively they connect growers with clients, but unlike most other similar businesses they plough a huge percentage of their profit back into development work - this includes training the farmers, providing them with better mills etc, developing other projects such as food security projects - in Kigoma they are supporting women’s groups to grow mushrooms in the waste coffee pulp which provides much needed protein in the area. Also, they support other NGOs with their work - for example they work with the coffee growing communities and health orientated NGOs to provide such things as cervical cancer screening etc in the villages.

If all this stuff didn’t excite me enough, spending the last 2 days with the founder of Sustainable Harvest - David - really did. His passion is pretty infectious! He really cares about the farmers and about their coffee. Furthermore, he is really big on transparency and communication through the help of technology. The whole company is run off Apple Mac and they are constantly making videos of the farmers, writing their stories, arranging meetings between the farmers and the clients.

So, where am I now?! Well, at the moment I am still in the Moshi office doing some training and am the proud owner of a brand new Apple Mac, at least for the next three months. (VERY EXCITED!!!) On Saturday I will head back to Dar, pack my stuff and by the end of next week I will fly to Kigoma (if they had not paid for me to fly I swear I wouldn’t have taken the job!!) to start my new life there. There are only 3 members of staff left at the Kigoma office now - all Tanzanian, so I’m going to support them with everything office based and will be involved with some project management too. Furthermore, I’ll spend a lot of time in the field with the farmers, so my swahili should really get good if I put my mind to it. I really like the guy I’ll be working closely with too - Thangale - he is like a really fun father figure. Naturally I’m nervous - it’s a tiny town miles from anywhere and visiting my friends in Dar is going to be very difficult, but I’m also pretty excited about living somewhere beautiful on a lake! Also, I’ll have a lot of contact with the people in the Dar office, who I really like, and every week we have global staff skype calls so the whole team worldwide really is close knit.

I hope I didn’t make a mistake turning down the other job - but I wasn’t really that excited about it when I found out I’d got it for some reason - I didn’t get great vibes off the staff, the contract was a year long at least and the pay would have been difficult to live off, especially if I wanted to pay for flights home. And even though I’m only on a stipend with Sustainable Harvest to begin with, if I hate it after 3 months I’m not bound and if I don’t they will reconsider my wage etc. Plus if they do like me/i like them David told me he can tell I have a lot of potential (?!) to grow in the company and there is opportunity to travel around East Africa, to the States and South America which would be amazing....anyway, let me not get ahead of myself here!

The other thing I am excited about though is I will get to learn a lot about video production, iphones etc and i’ve always been quite interested in the journalism side of things too - documenting ‘success stories’ etc. And I HAVE A MAC!!! Sorry, did I already mention that?!? So this means a) I will have constant access to skype so can talk to you all a lot more. I also get a small stipend for ringing landlines which is cool. Also, I will be able to send you exciting VIDEOS of me!! One of my greatest fears is that if I stay away from the country too long people will forget me and I really don’t want that to happen... :P so I will bombard you with me me me constantly.

Ok folks - thats all for now. I can’t tell if I’m overexcited or just wired on coffee - probably a bit of both! By the way, I’m going to become a complete coffee snob - the farmers in Kigoma won the award for the best quality coffee in East Africa last week so I fear I’ll never be able to drink instant again!!!


Love to you all. Massively sad I’m not coming home sooner but I just feel like I couldn’t turn this opportunity down, especially since I probably would have ended up jobless in England for at least 3 months anyway. Please send me feedback - in true Carly style I’m still a little worried I’ve made the wrong decision, I’m still truly hopeless at making decisions and even when I’ve made one I still panic over it, deary me!

As soon as I work out this skype malarky I will be talking to you all on my lunch hours, there will be no escaping!! And as soon as I understand how to upload and send photos I will send lots of photos too - this laptop is so so much more efficient than my poor old Acer!

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Comments

[Amanda Duncan]

good on ya
Dear Carly, congratulations-I think you've done th eright thing-its an oportunity of a life time and you sond so excited about it. You will be missed-I'm sure mum and dad and Naomi are sad you aren't going home but hopefully will understand. So proud of you - what a cousin I have !!! love amanda xx