The first profession and other stories from Dodoma

Lead farmers in Dodoma

Chrispin Mirambo, MCC Tanzania’s Food and Water Security Coordinator, has been working with small-scale farmers for more than twenty years, with the Lutheran Church, Heifer Project, and now MCC for the past 8 years. And so, when I was finally able to observe a training session for lead farmers last week in Dodoma (my first time as a new MCC Representative), I was expecting to learn a lot about low-tillage agriculture. Instead, I witnessed the process of empowering local farmers with confidence that they could move forward themselves as experts in climate-smart agriculture.

Role playing with lead farmers

The Anglican Diocese of Central Tanganyika started working with MCC about 5 years ago, promoting conservation agriculture in the arid regions around Tanzania’s new capital city, Dodoma. They began by offering some initial technical training in low tillage for soil quality improvement, mulching for water retention, and crop rotation for nitrogen-fixing. Next, local community members selected lead farmers – people who were passionate about trying out a new system of agriculture, with a good reputation in the community and were moderately literate. This current project has been going for two and a half years already, and so we met with six established lead farmers. Three newly appointed lead farmers were joining their ranks in this training, along with two government extension officers and two project field officers (two women and two men in their 20s).

a younger farmer in training!

The typical lead farmer in this community is a married woman with several children (a few with a nursing child along for the training), ready to take notes, think, discuss, and offer opinions. These seven women were joined by a Mzee, a venerable older man with a gorgeous twinkle in his eye whenever he smiled (which was often) and a younger man.

When we finished our introductions, I was expecting a review of agricultural methodology, but instead, Chrispin dove right in, and started to ask them about how the community was doing with conservation agriculture. What successes had they observed? What challenges were they facing? Each lead farmer was given the chance to talk about their experiences. There were definitely some things that were working – harvest yields were up in fields with established CA. People were appreciating the approach. But there were challenges. For example, a lot of community members would come to the trainings, but then go home and never do anything with their new knowledge. Something was wrong with the seeds this year: seeds were planted and replanted this season and sometimes never germinated. There was too much rain last season. People’s fields had been destroyed by fires or ravaged by livestock passing through. It was hard work to dig all those holes, instead of plowing. And generally, people had a tendency towards just showing up in hopes of a travel allowance or free lunch.

Chrispin resisted all temptation to jump right in and address these very real problems. Instead, he split the lead farmers up into groups to analyze these challenges themselves and work on solutions. (The young extension officers had their own group). After lunch, each group had a chance to present their thoughts. This might seem very basic, but in Tanzania, there has been an historical dependence on outside experts to tell farmers what is best for them. Chrispin firmly believes that farmers themselves best know their own context; by stepping back, he is doing his best to ensure that farmers will continue to practice conservation agriculture, even when MCC ends project funding next year and DCT stops active work in these villages.

lead farmers presenting on problems

It is true that at the end of the day, Chrispin did offer some technical advice. For example, he explained that there were certain unscrupulous seed merchants who were buying up sterile hybrid GMO grain and passing it off as viable seed to farmers. He advised them that they were better off using regular seed but practicing some basic genetic selection: close to harvest, they should identify the tallest, most healthy stalks of grain and save biggest grains from the center of each cob. Even the old Mzee had never thought of doing this – like most farmers, he had always just scooped a random kilo of seeds off the top of his harvest for next year’s planting. Chrispin also admitted than in a very rainy year, like 2019, people practicing traditional agriculture would probably get a better harvest than CA farmers (because the rain water would run off of their fields, rather than soaking in and water-logging the improved soil in a CA field). However, he asked them, how often in Dodoma do you have too much rain? Almost never, they admitted.  As for disinterested neighbors, he cautioned the project against ever paying out allowances. People need to have the right motivation to take a risk with something new in farming.

On the second day, Chrispin worked hard to help the lead farmers define and take ownership of their own role. First, he asked them to just describe what they thought they were there to do. Next,  he briefly showed a poster with two images, one of Monday and the other of Tuesday, depicting farmers and fields. Then he hid the poster and played memory: what did you see? Participants named things: a goat, a field, a house, a tree. I realized that along with the game, Chrispin was making sure than everyone could interpret the simple drawing and connect it to the intended story – it’s not a given that people from different communities give lines and colors the same meaning that the artist intended. Next, he showed the images again and then asked: What is going on? Over time, they worked it out. A male lead farmer was viewing his own disorganized and unproductive field on Monday. Tuesday found him at the beautiful, abundant field of a woman farmer, giving her orders about what she needed to do better. The image led good discussions about the need to be living examples of what we are teaching, having the best field or garden possible before we start critiquing or teaching others.

Chrispin teaching from images

Next Chrispin role-played a situation where he was a lead farmer visiting a neighbor. He approached the young man with the briefest of greetings, refused to sit down and visit, and then proceeded directly to the man’s field, and without stopping to hear explanations, offered a running critique of everything the young man was doing. And then he rushed off to visit the next farmer. I have never seen Chrispin behave so harshly in my life! We all had a lot of fun pointing out everything wrong with that scenario. Even a westerner like me could see that the proper approach would be to sit and talk with the neighbor for ten minutes and find out what was happening in his life, before going on to agriculture. Unfortunately, this “bossy expert” style is often seen among extension officers; some lead farmers have been known to abandon their own community’s culture of politeness and relationality, believing that they, too, are expected to boss everyone around. Chrispin helped the participants see clearly how the relational approach (the one that comes naturally in rural Tanzania) is far more appropriate and effective.

Other images, discussions and role-plays led to discussions of gender issues in serving as a lead farmer, and the need for cooperation and consistency between the whole team of lead farmers and extension officers. This also led to a discussion of potential conflicts between different NGO’s teaching different approaches to improved agriculture.

Chrispin ended by preaching the dignity of farming to the gathered group. He mentioned that he has heard people say, “Oh, I don’t have a job, I just farm my shamba (field).” But he countered that farming was the first profession blessed by God when he told Adam to plow the land. “Your field, your kitchen garden, is your office!” And he pressed the lead farmers to recognize that they already know enough to keep implementing the goals of the project, even when the “project” is over. They can use climate-smart methods to increase yields so that people have more food available at home, and they are ready to keep teaching and mentoring their neighbors.

DCT staff Lister and Happy, with Chrispin

This was our final official MCC visit to the Chamwino Conservation Agriculture project. Our office closes at the end of December, and the funding ends in March. But I found myself leaving with a lot of hope that the approach Chrispin promotes goes beyond teaching techniques and tools: he is working to change mindsets and empower people to improve their own lives.

The lead farmer training was our main objective in going to Dodoma, but we managed to fit in several other components to our visit to the capital.

On Tuesday morning, we walked from our guesthouse to the next-door Dodoma School for the Deaf. Again, it was my first time to visit this wonderful organization and finally meet students. Their primary school has progressed to the point where all their Standard 7 students are passing the national exams at the end of primary school. And it is ranked in the top 25% of ALL primary schools nationwide for exam results. 

year 2 students

The students are bright and have nice facilities – especially textbooks for every student (provided by MCC) so that they do not need to rely on teacher lectures for content. Lower primary teachers have learned to use tactile learning aids (like bottle caps for counting) and brightly colored visual aids. A large percentage of the teachers are deaf themselves, giving them extra empathy for their pupils.

We were there first to simply thank the DSD leadership for their partnership with MCC, and to grieve together the fact that this partnership is ending prematurely with the closure of our office next month. The principal, Kennedy, listed at least 20 aspects of MCC support that have helped students succeed and it is sad to see this work ending. Part of our support has included training and technical advice from Chrispin, helping students learn about chicken farming, fish farming, and vegetable gardening as vocational skills.

Chrispin offered them one more training session about the proper feeding of farmed fish. It was quite fascinating to experience a very engaged group of fifty 4^th – 6^th graders, responding and answering questions, begging to be called on, and all in almost complete silence! Chrispin’s training and questions were all translated by one of the staff, but it was not too hard to learn the signs for fish and food! They already knew quite a lot about fish farming and so much of the lesson was review for them, but still helpful, I believe. 

I found myself dreaming about the day when I could dig my own pond and raise fish. It was very inspiring! After learning about raising the tilapia called Sato all morning, Chrispin and I went to a nearby local restaurant and both ordered delicious plates of Sato stewed with vegetables.

Next, we went to give greetings to the Mennonite Bishop who is now serving in Dodoma – he had recently been transferred from Arusha, so we knew him well. It was interesting to visit the mother church in that city and meet a few of the workers in the church. On our way back to the hotel, Chrispin gave me a bit of a guided tour by car around Dodoma, taking me past Parliament and then up to the University. It is a massive campus, built with a much larger future student body in mind, all white buildings, hovering on the edge of an escarpment looking down over the town. There is certainly no land pressure in Dodoma, but I would not want to be a student that had to walk 5 km from my dorm to my classes on the other side of campus!

Our final activity that evening was to meet two younger Mennonite men – one had been sponsored by MCC to attend a month-long peace institute in South Africa. The other had served with MCC in Goshen, Indiana for a year. We shared dinner with them back at the tilapia restaurant (Kisasa Capetown) and I especially enjoyed seeing Deus become more comfortable about remembering his experiences as an IVEP volunteer at an organic farm in a Mennonite college town.

kestrel in church

We spent most of the next two days in the lead farmer training, as I have already said, which was held inside a beautiful and striking Anglican church. Dodoma gets hot, so the architects had built the building with lots of open brick for airflow. In fact, it did sometimes get quite windy indoors! And I quite enjoyed studying a pair of kestrels who had no problem diving through the holes in the bricks and roosting in the high rafters. The second day of training was a Thursday and we realized that we needed to leave by noon that day to get home. There were in fact no open hotel rooms left in Dodoma that evening because Thursday was the day the re-elected president was sworn in, and the capital was swamped with official visitors. So, we could not have stayed any longer, even if we wanted to!

On our drive home, I continued to learn so much from Chrispin – about beekeeping and the best hives to use, more about fish farming, about plants to use as hedges for gardens. And I also learned more about how he had developed his own style of training and printed his own training materials. He had lots of stories to tell about development projects that went badly when the wrong people were chosen as lead farmers (pastors, for example, who just wanted access to a motorbike to do their church ministry).

We made one significant stop on the 8-hour drive back to Arusha. On Monday, Chrispin had pointed out a strange grove of trees along the road. He had mentioned that it was the work of an old man, who had started planting a tree for every major world event, sometime in the late 60s. He had visited the place 15 years ago and had spoken to the man and noted the signs, commemorating the war with Idi Amin, the resignation of Nixon, and many events involving Mwalimu Nyerere. So, we stopped to see if there was anything there now. At first, we just found a few broken and rusty signs, but then some children arrived to tell us that Mzee was coming. We could not believe he was still alive! He must have been 90 or so, very thin, and lean, with an Islamic prayer cap on his head and a long robe. It is inspiring to see a man like him, with the imagination and energy to plant trees and recognize history as it is happening. We left, hoping that perhaps one of his grandchildren might feel inspired to protect and emulate this legacy.

I enjoyed the middle part of the drive home when Chrispin let me take the wheel and experience the sharp corners driving up through the mountains towards the agricultural area in Babati. After that, admittedly, the drive got a little long through the dry plains around Tarangire. We made it home around 8 pm, and just in time for a later dinner and time to catch up with family.

Bonus photos

fish pond at school

Dodoma church architecture

Festivals, Meetings, Field Visits, Elections, and a Birthday

 When one thinks of hazards on a golf course, I would venture to guess that water and sand traps come to mind before puff adders. One of the small indulgences that life here has afforded me is the chance to play an occasional game of golf. I am not good, but I do enjoy playing. The club where Rebecca and I swim has a course. There is also another course in nearby USA River, Kiligolf, a championship course. Both courses are extremely picturesque and offer views of Mt. Meru and Kilimanjaro behind the long glens leading to several of the holes.

I have been playing with a friend from Bible study, Mike T. who has far more experience. Yesterday we were playing at Kiligolf and a ball I hit a just out of bounds on 6^th fairway landed, apparently, next to a basking puff adder. The caddie came bounding out of the woods screaming. Amazingly, he did manage to retrieve the ball (and earned an extra big tip to boot!)

The fact that there has been any time for leisure activities surprises even me in the past 3 weeks since our return from Mt. Meru. We have entered a particularly intense period of activity at home and work, and national and international events have also been claiming both time and mental/emotional space.

I don’t know if I will be able to capture all the events of the past 3 weeks, but I will record some of the highlights here.

Harvest Festival:

Our church celebrated Harvest Festival Last Sunday. This is an annual event that usually happens as a fundraiser for some of our charitable outreach. It was several months late this year, but as we have just reopened the church, we have not been able to have it. While most everyone in TZ has abandoned masks, our church has remained cautious and requires them along with social distancing in the sanctuary. Despite the widespread seats, we did have a reasonable number of people come to buy crafts and food outside, then stay for the auction. Both Oren and David participated in the event. David made cookies to sell, and Oren helped display items that were being auctioned off. Rebecca and I contributed a number of pictures which we know will have to be donated or sold by the time we leave in June. We also bought a beautiful handmade quilt, sewn and donated by our friend Susan S.

Rebecca was also the music leader for the service that day. I continue to go to the kids’ school St. Constantine’s, to offer Sunday School to the boarders who used to come by bus to our service. We have not yet opened Sunday School at the church.

Ultimate Frisbee:

As I have said, in past blogs, we continue to live in a surreal bubble where COVID does not exist in Tanzania. I won’t go into the science behind this again, but we are enjoying the opportunity to continue to have some social events. We still practice some caution by staying outdoors, and ultimate frisbee, a reasonably socially distant game has proved to be quite popular with our friends. We hosted another of our monthly events, the first since our return from the US. We had a good group join us including a couple from our compound here, several families from our small group and Bible study, and friends from school. Some for the first time. We have now set up an ultimate Whatsapp group and hope to continue this on a monthly basis. Oren is playing ultimate as an extracurricular at St. Cons. as well, so he is getting quite good.

David’s Birthday

The biggest social event of the month was without a doubt David’s birthday. Or I should say birthdays. David’s birthday fell on a Thursday this year, so we had a small party with our family and our friends the Taylors whose son Sammy is David’s age. We shared dinner and had cake for that event. On Saturday morning, (Halloween) the day we celebrated David’s birthday with friends, the Taylors were kind enough to take our kids to the Snake Park while Rebecca and I set up for the party.

Actually set up for a birthday begins several days before the party because we have some family traditions, including a homemade piñata, and an elaborate treasure hunt. This year we outdid ourselves I think. David wanted a pokemon, so I was able to fashion a papier-mâché  Pikachu using a balloon, a cardboard box, and a clothes hanger. It came out quite well, thanks to some yellow paint, and construction paper for the eyes and mouth.

The treasure hunt was the most elaborate we have done and included a number of clues involving locked boxes with hidden keys or combinations that had to be deciphered. Rebecca also made several cakes and snacks for the party.

Kids started arriving at about 2 in the afternoon (about 10 in total, all boys). We planned a mask-making contest as they arrived, using paper plates. Halloween is not celebrated here, so this was our only nod to a costume party. All the kids made masks and got a prize in the end.

The treasure hunt took about an hour to complete and led them to the Pikachu piñata, which they demolished after everyone got at least one shot at it.

We ended with candles and cake. All in all, it went very well. Admittedly, some years the energy level of David and friends is so high, it is hard to keep the party under control and they have virtually wrecked the house. This year, most of the activities took place outdoors and seemed more in control.

Annual General Meeting and All Africa Reps Meeting

From all the social activities, one might wonder when we have time for work. The truth is, we have been very busy the past several weeks as we are not deep in the thick of closing the country office and consolidating our program into the Kenya office. One major hurdle was convening an Annual General Meeting of our Advisory Committee members to officially dissolve MCC in Tanzania. We planned this event at an outdoor restaurant so we could sit at a social distance from each other in an open-air setting.

We had about a dozen members who came, these are advisors we have known for many years but have not seen since our departure in March. It was good to get together, although emotionally difficult. Rebecca and I have been processing the decision to close MCC here since April, and although an official letter was sent out several months ago, this was the first time our advisors have had the chance to speak into the decision.

I would say that the emotions were running understandably high, especially for those who have been accompanying MCC here for 20 years or more. Many expressed reservations about the Kenya program making decisions for future programming in Tanzania. All were deeply saddened to see MCC closing its office here and really wished for a less drastic outcome from MCC’s loss of funds. Ultimately we took time to talk this through and did successfully pass a motion to dissolve. (This was essential because we need to submit the minutes of this meeting to the Registrar of NGOs in the Govt. to have a proper dissolution) We also approved the disposal of assets. Our lawyers were there for all of this to make sure that we had completed the meeting with all requirements completed.

After the meeting, we shared a last meal together. The advisory committee decided, among themselves to write a letter of advocacy to MCC HQ to make one final appeal to reverse the decision. I do not anticipate that outcome, but I appreciated the deep bonds this group has built with MCC over the years and their commitment to its well-being in Tanzania.

Daily work at the office in the past 3 weeks has been reading and entering reports as we are in the second-quarter reporting period for the year. It is quite busy and a number of partnerships are ending which requires more extensive final reporting protocols to complete.

We also had an All Africa Reps meeting over 2 days on Zoom, with all the other MCC Representatives and regional leaders in Africa. It was a far cry from the last of these events I participated in, in person, in Lusaka, Zambia when we were Reps for Rwanda/Burundi. COVID is making such an event impossible. However, seeing everyone on Zoom was encouraging, and admittedly more convenient as far as the kids not missing any school and us having to make extensive travel arrangements at this time.

Dodoma Trip:

This past week, I was the stay-at-home parent while Rebecca went on a field visit to Dodoma with Chrispin, our Agriculture Coordinator. This was a bit of a change of roles as I usually do the traveling, but she had never had a chance to visit our partners there, and this was the last chance, so she went instead. For my part, I am happy to say that I was able to get the kids to school on time, every day, and have food on the table every night and homework done. Rebecca will post a special edition of the blog next week with details and photos.

Elections:

We have passed through two countries elections in the past two weeks. Tanzania re-elected their current President John M. The current political environment does not make comments on the Tanzania election possible. I will say that in the past two weeks we have seen all social media shut down, and the internet was slowed down considerably. I think those restrictions will be lifted this week.

To some extent, a blackout of social media might be a good thing in the US. At this time, the election is still undecided, but Biden looks to be the winner of the Presidential race as he leads in 4 of the last 5 key states that are still counting votes.

I try not to be overtly political in this blog, but I can say, I will not miss the mental and emotional baggage I have carried the past 4 years with the current officeholder. I will say, from an international perspective, that most people I meet click their tongues and shake their heads when I say I am an American. They think we are crazy. America is not perfect, but I have come to appreciate more the ‘Idea of America’, especially as I have seen it threatened by the isolationist nationalism of the current administration.

Our cat Tramp 

Some ultimate frisbee participants