Partner's Meeting and Local Birds

Dung beetle near our house, David wanted for a pet.

I was hoping to get this blog online by Sunday evening, but Sunday afternoons have generally been family time beginning with lunch out (usually pizza at George's). We often share our meal with others from church as lunch is a good time to meet up with people who live across town from us. Rebecca and I would probably prefer a bit of variety as far as going out to eat. There is good Indian and Ethiopian here, but David is adamant about his preference-- a sea food pizza featuring generous portions of squid tentacles. I think he has had that almost every week since we have been here.

Tanzanian bishop of some kind.

If you have been keeping up with our news weekly, you know that I was complaining quite a bit about rain last week, but was slightly optimistic that the months of continuous downpours seemed to be coming to an end. That has continued to be the trend, except for last Wednesday (the day after I posted the blog), which was the single heaviest rain in one morning we have ever had. Trying to get to work required a very high clearance vehicle and I was actually concerned our car might be swept off the road in some places in downtown Arusha. (I did see one cyclist get completely knocked off his bike which ended up going down a deep rain gutter nearly 50 meters before he managed to catch it.

Fortunately, with the exception of that morning, the rest of the week and weekend were devoid of rain. So I really do think we are done. Finally! That has not made the weather any warmer though. Temperatures continue to drop, (along with the pool water temp.) Most mornings the air and water temp are around 60 F. I can't say it is unpleasant, but I will say we came to Tanzania woefully unprepared for anything but short-sleeve weather. I should have packed along the lines of clothing for fall in Seattle. We are planning a trip back to the US in July where we need to go through and pick out some sweaters to bring back.

Weaver

Last week was spent first in preparing, then facilitating, our Annual Partners Meeting. This is a meeting of all of MCC Tanzania's local partners whose projects we support. We currently have nine. I am coordinator of all of our health and education programs, and Chrispin M. coordinates our agriculture projects. This is the only time of year that we actually gather all our partners together in one place, which gives us the opportunity to share general information that applies to all of them, as well as giving them a chance to network with each other.

Partners began arriving on Tuesday evening to Arusha. We had booked a conference hall and rooms at the 'Golden Rose' hotel and conference center, which could not have been more aptly named. It is an old building in the middle of town near 'Stendi Kubwa' the central bus station. As its moniker implies, the hotel looks to be a somewhat delapidated shadow of its former glory. Apparently it was an upscale place at one time. While it did have electricity and running water, it looked like it had been many years since its last paint job, and the large entrance hall was now an 'arcade' featuring various and sundry makeshift boutiques, a forex, internet cafe, and office supplie store.

Despite the flood, the MCC team as well as all the partners managed to be on time for our 8:30 start on Wednesday. We were about 25 all told. This included the whole MCC team, Sharon the Rep., Lucia our accountant, Neema our program administrator, me, Rebecca, Chrispin, and Zoe--our SALT volunteer who came with her partner organization. Rebecca led us off with a devotional about building on a foundation of stone rather than sand. This was followed by Chrispin leading us in a series of introductions in which we were asked to say who we were, what we most enjoy cooking, and something we wish for.

I led two longer sessions on the first day, before and after lunch. The first was on a framework for designing and evaluating development projects in a conflict setting called. 'Do No Harm.' It is a valuable tool to try to prevent  project resources from being misused, directly or indirectly, to exacerbate a conflict. It is premised on the experience of many, that aid (monetary, material) is not neutral. It becomes part of the context in which it is given. Secondly, every conflict context has both 'connectors' (things/people that bring different groups together), and 'dividers' (things/people that drive different groups apart). An aid project will interact with both of these in expected and unexpected ways. It is important to understand what the connectors and dividers are and how the resources given enhance or diminish them. Also, we must consider not just the aid, but the 'implicit ethical messages' sent by the way it is disbursed (including conduct of staff, hiring practices, lifestyle, etc.). The 'medium is the message' and can also have an impact on the connectors and dividers.

The whole framework is far more complex than I have time or wish to write down here, but it was well received by the partners. While it is true that none of our current partners in Tanzania are working in areas with active conflict, projects can still interact with communal connectors and dividers that can lead either  to localized conflict and misunderstanding, or improved social cohesion. Partner staff were able to offer numerous examples from their own experience during the course of the discussion. Our own experience of managing programs in post-conflict Rwanda and Burundi were also insightful for partners here.

After lunch I led another presentation more specifically on project management skills, namely, how to do a work breakdown and create a Gantt chart. It was a bit more dry, but I gave them 3 hypothetical projects to breakdown and schedule as 3 teams. The activity was challenging but also kind of fun. At the end of their session they presented their Work Breakdown Structures and Gannt charts which they did on flip chart paper. It was great to see them think through these ideas and many were taking photos of the results with their cell phones for future reference. (Ready-made projects).

At the end of the day we watched a movie about how women acted as 'connectors' in the Liberia conflict, by reaching across faith lines to get the men to stop waging war. They actually forced President Taylor to negotiate and reach a settlement with the rebel groups. The movie was disturbing to the extent that it showed quite graphically just how horrible and chaotic the Liberian civil war was. But it also showed the power of women to reach across ethnic and religious lines to bring peace. It was called Pray the Devil Back to Hell, and is available on Amazon.

Rebecca left early to get the kids from the bus drop off, and went on to choir practice which I had to miss that evening. She picked me and Zoe up from the Golden Rose afterwards and we all went to an outdoor Indian barbeque joint (Khan's) on the street in what I would call a Swahili quarter of Arusha next to the market. The sun had just set and the place had a certain charm under tungsten lights which illuninated a serving table laden with Indian chutneys, assorted naans, and various Zanzibar delicasies.  The spicy aroma of grilled meat filled the air with keema, mutton kebabs, and tandoori chicken, all roasting on half barrel barbeque pits nearby. Indian sweets like jelabis were also on display with the chutney's gathering flies--and looking delicious. We all enjoyed an assortment of meats and sauces sittng around a sidewalk table, people watching, with the call to prayer droning in the background. For some reason Oren felt that this was the best meal we had had in Arusha to date and he asked several times why we had never gone before. A place we will have to return to in the future.

Thursday, the second day of the partner meetings was a bit more complicated as school pick ups at the end of the day were going to conflict with a field visit we had planned to a local agriculture organization. Rebecca was more involved on the second day as we started off in small work groups to make sure all partners understood our financial, and narrative report protocols. Rebecca led a work group on developing child protection policies. This is a high priority for MCC and several of our partners run schools. They are required to have an active child protection policy in place in order to be in compliance with MCC grant requirements. This ended up being quite a large and active group and Rebecca led them through a framework on how to develop a policy with stakeholder involvement and make sure that children are aware of how to report abuse. A big challenge in this regard is the fact that teachers regularly practice corporal punishment at most schools and often do not have good ideas for alternative forms of discipline. Culture can be slow to change, but our partners are committed to leading in this regard.

After lunch we all headed to a kind of model farm called ECHO, which specializes in agricultural innovations to maximize yield and nutrition in the Tanzanian context. We all loaded into a bus and were given a grand tour of their activities when we got there. They showed us innovations in low tillage agriculture and water harvesting, as well as different kinds of plants and explained their nutritional content. People were loaded up with various new and interesting leaves for consumption or transplanting in their home gardens by the time we left and returned to the hotel for the final wrap-up session.

It was a good gathering, but it is always a relief to have it over and done with and we were back in the office after a cold swim on Friday morning. Friday evening our family went to a game night at the church thrown by our Tanzanian young adults. We played various games including spoons, chess, and chinese checkers before we finally went home at 9pm.

We took the weekend easy and spent some time Saturday walking around our compound. We saw quite a variety of birds that seem to be migrating through. I took many pictures that are on display here in the blog.

Sunday was my week to teach Sunday school. I came up with a pretty cool kind of paper doll craft that has a bunch of paper people linking hands when it is cut out. We painted fire on their heads for Pentecost. Our choir also sang two songs at the beginning of the service. Sadly Oren was really really sick on Sunday and spent much of the day vomiting. We were relieved to find that he was well by evening. Hopefully the rest of us won't get the same thing.


Bonus Photo: Group shot of MCC team and partners.