All that mumbo jumbo

Mambo! Jambo! Or “Hello!” “Hi!” in Swahili.  Seriously, it’s so simple that it’s astonishing that "mumbo-jumbo" could somehow morph into a term for confusing jargon! 

Going (coco)nuts about Zanzibar.

 Dar es Salaam is an impressive place.  It buzzes with activity.  Yet there is a running joke about “no haraka” (hurry) in the city; when ordering lunch, expect it to take at least an hour to arrive. The beaches are spectacular.  I steal some time to enjoy them—mainly at night when the crowd disperses and the breeze comes in.  But I see the ghost crabs scurrying around, so I am a little wary of wandering too far.

There are so many references in development to the success of Coca Cola in setting up universal supply chains.  “If we can get coke to remote villages in Africa, why can’t we get (fill in the blank—malaria meds, clean water, etc.)??”  I find it irritating and in most cases, a false comparison point.  Plus, there are so many places in Bangladesh where you can’t find coke!  Though perhaps you can find one of the more dubious local beverages, like mojo or thums up (yes, I spelled that correctly).  But in Tanzania, coke was everyone.  I loved the billboards near the Coke factory that said, “One billion reasons to believe in Africa’s future.” (there are roughly a billion people in Africa).  I thawed a bit on my annoyance with the Coca cola references in development.  And will postpone the launch of my #nocokehere campaign.  For now.

The best part of my job -- visiting our programs in
the field.  At a preschool in Dar es Salaam.

 Most of my time in Tanzania I was hard at work, learning about BRAC’s local programs and the “mobile money ecosystem” that East Africa is so famous for.  It’s a simple idea—given that there are so many mobile phones in developing countries, while the bank infrastructure lags behind (or is less than interested in serving informal workers and small farmers), companies have been set up to allow people to send money from phone to phone, and to save money on their phone (which is usually safer than under the mattress).  A lot of countries have something similar to this, but in Tanzania and Kenya, it’s taken off.  Half of all adults in Tanzania use mobile money—with numbers that high, all sorts of additional services can leverage the new financial platform.  While killing time at the airport, a friend and I bought some electricity for the owner of a store.  We learned we could also pay exam fees, buy airtime for a pre-paid phone, donate money to a few charities, and potential even pay off our microfinance loans.  Pretty amazing, if you think about the fact that these are people without a bank account, without computers, and likely without access to the internet and e-banking services that we’re so familiar with.  But smart phones are coming!  There’s a big advertisement for 4G as you walk out of the Dar airport, next to another sign in Mandarin about investments.  Ah, the global world we live in.

Approaching Zanzibar.

I did sneak away one day to ferry over to Zanzibar.  It gets enough hype as an island paradise and it’s just a two hour journey.  On the way over there, I decide that I want to join us with some other folks to take advantage of group pricing and herd safety.  I spend the ride eavesdropping on conversations to figure out who is the most interesting/least annoying.  I find a pretty interesting group that just attended a conference on sustainable cities and seems cool. A mixture of Europeans and Africans twenty somethings. All in development, yet none of them had heard about BRAC!  Luckily while heading out of the city into the interior where we went to take a spice tour, we pass a BRAC office with the typically big sign out front, so they have no choice to believe my claim that we are “huge” and that “brac will blow their mind once they learn more about it.” 

From my two week stint, I have to say, I like the “no haraka” lifestyle.  People are friendly and relatively polite.  Mango is in season, and I probably consume at least two a day (they have them on the dessert buffet at lunch and dinner).  We drink instant coffee mixed directly into hot, whole milk.  I forgot how good that tasted.  It annoys me that I can’t speak Swahili; it’s been a while since I needed a translator.  I’m impressed at the visibility of women, particularly Muslim women, in comparison to Bangladesh.  Our taxi in Zanzibar pulled into a gas station and a woman in a hijab casually handles the pump.  Many of the teenage girls in our groups are managing full fledge enterprises.  It’s inspiring to hear and see them in action.

There are many more pictures!  Take a look!  haraka, haraka!!