Kilimo Hifathi in Igunga

Once a fortnight we get together for dinner with our neighbors on the Joshua Foundation base. The conversation is always interesting as we update each other on local happenings in the town and country. Last Thursday I was told an incredible story of 2 elephants that wandered off the Tangire reserve about 2 weeks ago and walked down the road past our compound around 6am. The guard outside our gate reported that some piki-piki (taxi motorcycle) drivers parked outside our gate saw them and one of them who claimed to be 'an expert on elephants' went up to them and snapped a selfie in front of them. Egged on by the other impressed drivers he went back for a second as the elephants departed. He reportedly went up and pulled the tail of one them to get it to turn around. It apparently did and killed him on the spot. Later that day one of the elephants was found lingering at a small river near our neighborhood and shot. The other is still at large. 

On the same evening and went home and learned, upon opening my phone that the President and First Lady of the United States had tested positive for the coronavirus. I confess that my reaction to both of these reports provoked a similar reaction: sadness and horror, mingled with rage at the reckless stupidity of someone whose behavior inflicted such self harm and leaves the rest of us reeling. (The President has since 'recovered' the taxi moto driver was not so lucky).

In truth, the daily drama from the American political sphere seems to dominate life here at the moment. It is strange because Tanzania is also in the middle of an election campaign, but it is far less fraught as the current President is virtually unchallenged in his re-election bid. If anyone wants to know, it is hard to take pride in being an American living overseas under the regime of the current officeholder. When I mention my nationality to the casual inquirer, an embarrassed sigh and clicking of the tongue is not an uncommon reaction from the one who asks.

Despite the drama of the elephants, life around the compound has been quite normal. The kids have been in school, and Rebecca and I have been sharing office duties. We each get to take off one day per week since this is a shared position. I have been using my day-off mornings to play golf at our club. Being a latecomer to the game, improvement has been uneven at best. But it is a relaxing pastime away from the office. Work has been a bit stressful as we continue to carry on novel tasks such as car sales. (I am happy to say I was able to sell one car, the Rav 4, last week after a not uncomplicated negotiation, run-around, and a trip to a lawyer to complete the transaction.) All in all, I consider it a success but was still aware of being manipulated by the buyer at the last minute when the negotiation was completed and we were at the bank depositing the money. (As I said in my last entry, this was to be expected.)

This past week, however, Rebecca took on the parenting role full time while I went on a four-day field visit with Chrispin our Food Security Coordinator to see the work of one of our partners in Igunga, a town in Central West Tanzania (Tabora region). The drive to Igunga can, fortunately, be done in one 8 hour day on decent roads. Chrispin and I left on Monday morning after Rebecca and I got the kids off to school and arrived at the office. 

The drive went off without incident although we made one big stop to visit a site where our partner OWSL was planning a new food security project in a Datoga community. The Datoga people are one of the remaining very traditional tribes in Tanzania, not unlike the Maasai. They have resisted change and development and maintain a very traditional lifestyle. Most of them do not go to school or even speak Kiswahili in the more remote communities. 

Upon arrival to meet a woman's savings group about 4 hours into our trip, I was struck by how sparse the population was in this area. For the most part, the land is very dry savannah and one can travel many kilometers without seeing a single person, or domicile. I believe the women that came to meet us had traveled many kilometers to get together to meet us. The meeting was organized by a young Datoga man who had been sponsored to go to school and spoke good Kiswahili and English. His name was Gidufana. He was an essential bridge for Chrispin and I to be able to speak to the women, who greeted us warmly with applause and a welcome song on our arrival.  I was amused when Gidufanan introduced us by explaining to the women: "I know a lot of you were doubtful about me going to school and learning Kiswahili and leaving the community. You asked 'Will he ever be able to bring us a bull?' Well now you see that I was able to bring a bull." (I realize that when we go out for a field visit, we have our own idea of what we are doing-- checking out the work of the partner, but project beneficiaries and the partner may see it quite differently and with a more 'patrimonial' lens--looking forward to meet and petition the patron.

Chrispin and I spent about an hour with them sitting together listening to them explain the challenges they face, as well as the successes their savings group had achieved. The main problem, lack of water, is plainly evident. The area where they live gets one rainy season per year and spends 7 months dry. The nearest water source, a borehole is 6 kilometers away. Women travel 12 kilometers daily carrying 25 liters of water from the source back to their homes. Girls usually help their mothers when they are old enough which leaves little time for school. I was also told that the nearest primary school was also over 6 kilometers away and even 6-year-olds need to make the daily trek on foot if they want to attend. 

The project our partner wants to do with the women is teaching conservation agriculture (CA), a low-tillage farming technique that reduces the need for water in farming by reducing water loss. They also want to help them with water harvesting techniques on the ground and off or rooves, although from what I could see, most of the houses around there had thatched rooves. Making water readily available in the community, however, may be beyond the scope of MCC's resources. 

While we were meeting, 4 cars drove by on the way to a neighboring village. An unusual site off-road, but it was a group of campaigners from CCM, the ruling party, getting the vote out, and introducing community members to their local leaders. When they saw our gathering of a dozen people, they stopped and did a brief rally right there. They were polite and it was good to hear the women advocate with the party, who are championing a development agenda, for a better water source in the area (as well as electricity). The local leaders said that this will come in the next 2 years. (I don't know whether that is true, but they are more likely to mobilize resources better than MCC to achieve some of these goals.)

We left after about an hour and a half meeting and continued on our way to the town of Igunga. We were still a ways away and arrived after dark. Somehow I was expecting that the highway through the middle of 'nowhere' would not be frequently traveled, especially after dark. I was alarmed to see that in fact, we had to negotiate over 100 tractor-trailers along the way as the road is a major thoroughfare between the harbor at Dar Es Salaam and inland countries such as Rwanda and Uganda. Chrispin drove skillfully but the highway is not very wide and many truck drivers took liberties with their side of the road. We passed a number of truck skeletons that told a tale of bad accidents in the past. 

Nonetheless, we made it to Igunga in one piece. It is a small town where our partner OWSL has a regional office from which they manage projects in 6 villages. It was late and we checked into our hotel. I was actually quite happy find they did have airconditioning in some of the rooms as Tabora region is not on the high plateau like Arusha and it gets quite hot in the day. I was tired and went to bed without dinner.

The next morning we went over to the regional office and met the local OWSL project manager as staff. From there we proceeded to the local govt. office to meet the agriculture extension officers there. I am always vaguely guarded against closed tight room settings here as no one seems to practice any coronavirus precautions. And in fairness, they probably do not have any reported COVID cases at this time. But I was happy that despite the bustling crowd at the District office, we were greeted by one other person in a large open room. 

From there we proceeded to visit several village sites where OWSL has its conservation agriculture projects. We had a plan to visit 3 villages and a number of farms near each village and meet the lead farmers to encourage them, and for Chrispin to provide some technical advice. We traveled with 4 to 5 in our double cab Ford Ranger pick-up. Chrispin and I have been driving with every single window wide open to minimize the risk of transmitting coronavirus. We cannot ask every single person we meet to wear a mask, and the risk here is really minute. But that does mean no AC and driving through some very hot dusty country, especially off-road. 

To get to the villages we had to drive about 20 kilometers off-road and continued for 20km to reach each successive one. In retrospect, I would have suggested they start with the furthest one and work back because when we finished we were deep in the middle of the savannah away from the highway with a very long trip back at the end of the day. 

At each village, we met several lead farmers and their groups. 

Leader:  "Kilimo hifathi!"

Group: "Jibu la njaa!"

Leader: "Jibu la njaa!"

Group: "Kilimo hifathi!"

The call and response (Conservation Agriculture!, The answer to hunger!, / The answer to hunger!, Conservation Agriculture!) was a common introductory proclamation when the group and leader met us. The adoption model that OWSL uses is training a lead farmer who sets up a model field to show his neighbors and then trains them in how to do it if they are interested. Because the soil is so dry in this area and rain so scarce most of the year, this technique can yield up to 4 times the harvest even in the first year. 

We heard at every place we went, group members singing the praises of CA. Because of the time of year we were visiting, we were not able to see the results of the harvest because this is the planting season for corn. We saw many dry fields with withered ground cover full of holes carefully prepared and filled with manure, ready for seeds, but they are not going to be seeing corn for several more months. Tabora region, as I said above has one rainy season per year, and the problem of water is very apparent. 

As I said earlier, I realize that a field visit has a patrimonial character no matter how much we try to feel a part of the context, speak the language, etc. This was apparent by the number of places we were asked to share food. This has always posed a dilemma for me when very food insecure people lavish huge amounts of food on us when we visit. The situation is complicated by COVID, and Chrispin and I had agreed that we could not put ourselves in a situation where we are invited into a small closed hut to sit around and share food with 15-20 others cramped in with us. 

Sure enough, this happened at the third farm we stopped at. We gratefully accepted the offer of chapatis, rice, pigeon pea stew, and beans, but had to decline when they asked us to sit together with them indoors. It was definitely awkward when they set 2 chairs for Chrispin and I out under a tree nearby. But MCC has protocols that we need to observe to be sure we don't put others in our office at risk. 

This was not the last gigantic meal we were asked to share. At the 5th farm, we were served another huge meal of rice, chapatis, mandazi, beans, and chicken stew. I was very full already and was bearing gifts of sugar cane and watermelon from 2 other farms. It was another awkward situation where I politely took as little as possible and had to ask them to remove some rice from my plate. (Fortunately, Chrispin had already done the same thing, so I did not feel like too much of a cad.)

The last farm was so far away! We crossed 2 dry seasonal river beds and it felt like we were lost in a game park with no road. But we finally came to the farm and saw some nice key-hole kitchen gardens, and talked to a potential lead farmer about the training Chrispin would be doing the next day for new lead farmers. 

 We got back to our hotel at about 6pm after a very long day. But it was a very good day and I took some very nice photos of farmers and groups which I have placed throughout this blog. 

The next day Chrispin started a two-day training seminar to train new lead farmers (just for clarification to readers, these are farmers who are leaders, not farmers who cultivate metal!) We drove out to a secondary school located close to the first village we visited. We met a number of the farmers we had met the day before in a large classroom. (Again, I was happy to see it was large, open-windowed and allowed good social distance, masks, of course, were not worn by anyone.) 

Chrispin is a very good trainer and I had a good workout for my Kiswahili as I listened to the training the whole day. It seemed to go very well and the group was very engaged. I always learn something myself about the topic he is training on when I pay attention. 

The next day, Chrispin planned to continue the training, but I returned to Arusha myself in the Ranger. It was an eight-hour drive and not altogether unpleasant, although I was stopped by nearly every policeman on the road. (Fortunately no tickets!). I got back home in the afternoon. It was good to see Rebecca and the kids again and got caught up on their week. (I worry that it will be extra hard for them because I am the morning person who gets everything ready for school in the morning.) But Rebecca reported that it generally went well and no one was late for school. 

Friday I took a day off and played golf with my friend Mike T. It is good to be back for a weekend. Next week the kids are off school and we have plans to climb Mt. Meru... more details next time.