I am thankful

November 26, 2010

Yesterday was the American Thanksgiving. My American roommate and friends decided to put on a huge thanksgiving dinner. It was amazing. The food was so good and the atmosphere just ‘homey.’ We went around the table to say what we were thankful for. (I had never done this before; my family doesn’t celebrate thanksgiving – my mind actually went blank for a while) Tears almost started coming up (well, this isn’t a hard feat for me, but still I was touched).

So here’s what I’m thankful for right now.

  1. Friends around me (here and at home) who are always willing to lend an ear, give a hug, or give me five, whether I’m happy or sad. I am a moody person (and I like it) and I’m very thankful for friends who accommodate me. Of course, I’m also thankful for friends who are willing to trust me enough to share with me their feelings.
  2. The internet (I wasn’t joking about this one). Last time I was here, I lived in a village with little electricity and no internet. I missed talking to my parents. I remember when I called my mom for 5 minutes after 4 months for her birthday, I was crying when I put down the phone. This time, I can call them whenever I want. It’s really nice to be able to have normal conversations with them once in a while.
  3. The experiences I’ve had here. Every day is a lesson. Everywhere I look, there’s something interesting to ponder. Every time I go to work, there’s something challenging waiting for me. My time here ranks just as awesome as my time last year (which at that time, I didn’t think anything would top it). Yes, there are times when it’s frustrating and I’m demotivated, but somehow something good always comes along and again I’m running at full speed. I never thought that, at this age and with this education, I would be able to work in such a challenging and exciting job.
  4. Lastly, and most importantly, I’m thankful for my parents. I’m thankful for them being so unconventionally Chinese. To support me in whatever I want to do with my life. And always offering to be the safe habour I can go back to, whenever I wish, with all my faults and mistakes. I know I can depend on them for anything and everything. As they can for me. I love you!

It’s a good tradition, eh? At least once a year, we need to really sit down and think about what we’re grateful for in life. We don’t live life on a deserted island. We are where and who we are, because of everything we can be thankful for around us.


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What do you call it when you get a string of good signs?

November 26, 2010

That a higher up force is on our side?

That’s what’s been happening a lot during the process of legitimizing urban agriculture (part of my job) here in Dar. As I’ve explained before, I work a lot with government officials. Sometimes, it’s frustrating, but sometimes you just feel like everything is happening to help us get our jobs done.

Today was such a day.

First I must explain, though. Currently, we’re asking each municipality (there are three) to write a strategic document to legitimize urban agriculture for submission to the Dar es Salaam Master Plan (in the process). So far, this is what we’ve done:

  • brought farmer representatives and government official representatives together for a day of dialogue.
  • brought the agriculture and livestock department and the town planning department in each municipality together for a meeting to discuss on how this legitimization process can move forward. All agreed that the agriculture departments should write a draft plan on how they think urban agriculture should happen in this city.
  • plead and nagged and asked the agriculture departments to finish their plans (in record time, may I add – never expected it to be so fast)
  • bring agriculture departments and town planning departments together again to discuss this plan and incorporate feedback.

So far, that’s how much we’ve done. Still long process, but in good time. Anyways, today…

So we set up a meeting between the town planning and agriculture departments in one of the municipalities. Town planning departments are generally perceived to be high up and agriculture people never really talk to them. So that’s why I have to set up these meetings (yes yes yes, as a foreigner, people pick up the phone when I call and don’t just brush me off). This was an important meeting, and I had already stressed that the ag. department should be on time and that they should bring enough copies of the document so we can go over it.

The time comes. The town planner is already waiting. No sign of ag people. Shoot.

I had just confirmed 30 minutes ago that they were coming….so I phoned again. “We’re coming. But there’s no electricity so we couldn’t print the document.” My supervisor and I look at each other. Ahhh!!!

We make small talk with the town planner. Then he notifies us that he has to leave for a meeting soon, that’s why he told us we can’t be late. He seems pissed.

So I send a text. “We’re on our way.” No idea when they’ll arrive. That sentence can mean anything from 5 minutes to 2 hours.

No choice. I take out my computer and try to print the previous draft we had (very bad draft). The USB stick doesn’t work with the desktop in the office.

The ag. people walk in. Thank goodness. But the town planner has to leave.

Luck number one. The town planner suggests that we can meet in the afternoon when he comes back (it’s actually very nice of him to say that. Most people would probably just say come back another day).

Fine, it’s going to take up our whole day (and both my supervisor and I have tons on our plate), but at least we’ll get the meeting done. So we try to print the updated document. The print takes 5 minutes to print one page when there are photos.

Luck number two. The town planner walks back in. The meeting he had with the district commissioner was cancelled (!).

So we print the document and start the discussion.

Luck number three. The town planner was quite receptive of the proposal. And gave very good feedback.

Luck number four. The head of the agriculture department is in Scotland. Let me explain. The head of the ag. department in this municipality is an elderly man who is super enthusiastic about urban agriculture but has this view that the town planners are always enemies (they have been in the past, UA hasn’t really been accepted as a legitimate land use – hence my job). So he’s always defensive. But today he’s not here, and the rest of the ag. department actually has a good dialogue with this town planner. hurrah!

Four lucky breaks. Do you still call that lucky? Or is it more than a coincidence? :)

Days like this just make me love my job. The meeting went so well, I’m just ecstatic.

But 2 down, 1 to go. This last one is going to be tricky. I just know it. But maybe luck will be on our side again.


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another blunder

November 9, 2010

Big meeting this morning.

One of the trainers from the urban agriculture training week (goodness, that was more than a month ago) finally came with her report for the training (I’ve been calling and texting for 3 weeks now).

I was so excited to see her at this meeting and to get the report that I completely forgot to think. Oops. I just handed her the money in front of everyone after the meeting.

Shit.

My supervisor calls me aside. “What are you doing!? Now everyone is going to think that we paid her for coming to the meeting.”

agggggggggggggggggg……………………………………..

…sigh….just another day of learning local work customs.


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Visit to Nyandira+Ndugutu

October 31, 2010

I miss “my” village! I wish I could just go back and live there…I love my job and all, but still, so much simpler and nicer.

Last week, I went back to Mgeta for two days on the weekend to visit friends and, of course, the dairy goat project for orphans which I helped with last year. I’m happy and not-so-happy to report that while the project has progressed much since last year, it is still facing problems.

First, the good news. Due to a more coordinated management, the goats have had better care and they gave birth to 22 goat kids (although 4 died because of feeding problems), and they’re quite healthy. In the previous cycle, they also managed to give does to 5 orphans at a ceremony where they invited most of the stakeholders. There were 2 more does than predicted. They have also written very good lesson plans and have trained the 5 orphans that were given goats. Market demand for milk and yoghurt is still very high. The project always sells all the milk at market price. The two most committed project board members know what needs to be done and still thinks the plans we came up with last year can happen.

Then the not-so-good news. Milk production is still less than expected (at only 6-7 L per day, when they need about 10 L to break even; previously it was around 1 L). It’s because the project doesn’t have money to hire good staff and to buy feed. They have not paid the guard for 5 months and have lost one of the two workers because of inability to pay. The major problem is that the project board is not united (as with before). They have been trying to change that, but they can’t without the consent of the village council, which has not had a single meeting since being elected last year (rumours have it that the chairperson has used the money reserved for meetings). The election fever also has gripped the village (as with everywhere else in the country), and the politicians are too busy campaigning to push the project forward. Also, it seems like many in the village have come to view the project as a pet project of the two most committed members, hence not much support.

The happiest part for me is that when I talked with the two most committed board members, they articulated very clearly the political/human reasons why the project wasn’t moving forward faster. Last year, it took a lot of probing for me to understand these reasons because most of the time failure was only blamed on the apolitical reasons of not enough feed etc. I think that because of this new awareness, there is a large chance that they will be able to target the problems.

Also, although the project is in need of cash, I agree with Mahenge that the project shouldn’t need any funding from sources outside the village members. The project has to choose board members that are willing to raise funds (because it is possible). It’s a commitment issue, not really a financial one.

They will be trying to hold a large village meeting after the elections (which was this weekend) to gain more support from the village as a whole. The goals: 1) reiterate the fact that the project really belongs to the orphans and the village, 2) get more committed board members, and 3) decide as a village to how to raise funds for the project. If possible, I’ll try to attend the meeting.

Before I left, I also got a thermometer, a lactometer, and a big pot for them to start making yoghurt from the milk. Mahenge suggested that this was the best way try to increase the project income for now. I hope they will be able to at least break even soon.

(if the writing sounds a bit strange, it’s because it was originally intended for an email :P)


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The Elections are Coming Up

October 28, 2010

The presidential elections are coming up this weekend in Tanzania. Everyone was expecting it to be fairly peaceful, but now there are rumours that there might be some conflicts on Sunday.

The ruling party, called the CCM, has been in power ever since independence. Although no one expects the presidential position to be won by other parties, most people would tell me that there would be a shift towards more MPs from other parties. People are tired of the CCM. People want change and here was a one-in-five year chance for change. Currently about 70% of MPs are from the CCM. The oppositional parties are numerous but weak while divided. Some say that if only the opposition would unite, there would be a chance to kick CCM off the majority, but who knows?

Incidents that I’ve heard about the elections:

The CCM has employed a “security force” of something like 100 horses and 200 dogs (with people of course). And maybe they’ve employed many unemployed youth to make trouble. Hence the prediction that Sunday might result in some conflict.

The University of Dar es Salaam has been closed until the elections are over. Here, you can’t vote outside of the place you registered. So if you registered at the university because you were living there, you can’t vote at your home village. The problem with closing the university is that the students can’t go and live in the dorms. That makes voting difficult, because they would have to travel all the way from their home town/village to vote and then go back. Travelling is expensive for many. Plus, the student loans are dispensed until after the elections, so no money to travel. Oh yes, and it so happens that most of the academic community doesn’t want to vote CCM. Deliberate sabotage? Well maybe. I was talking to a professor on the long distance bus the other day and he said that just as many students have registered in their home villages/towns instead of the university. So if they open the university, just as many people won’t be able to vote. So who knows?

My roommate interviews lots of the urban farmers. One group in particular is really near my office and their leaders are really nice. They were all decked out in CCM gear and handing out CCM pamphlets the other day. So my roommate asked them. “Why do you still support CCM when they’re the party that won’t give you secure land tenure?” The answer surprised me: “If we don’t show our support now (or we show support to an oppositional party), once the CCM wins (and they will, at least for the presidential position), they would marginalize us even more.” I guess, growing up in a very privileged society, I had never thought about repercussions for my stances on politics. So much to consider here. But when my roommate asked Mama Maria who she’ll be voting yesterday, Mama Maria just smiled and said “who I’ll be voting will be in my heart.”

I recently travelled back (for 1.5 days…) to my “home” village, i.e., the village I stayed at last year in the Uluguru Mountains. I was so happy to be back there I almost didn’t want to leave. But that’s a whole other post by itself. Anyways, the whole village was wrapped up in election fever, as with everywhere else I assume. Interestingly, most people I was talking to wanted the opposition party to win, and they were openly supporting the Chadema (there are only two candidates for Ward councillor – one from CCM and one from Chadema). I know the CCM ward councillor, she’s been in power for a long time and she’s not the most pleasant and helpful person. I interviewed her and tried to get her support for the dairy goat project for orphans. It is rumoured that because she didn’t like the project coordinator, she was using her political power to stall the project progress. Anyways, so I was told that even though in reality Chadema is a really small party, most CCM members in the ward would vote for Chadema just because they want to oust the current ward councillor. Everyone is hoping once the other one gets elected, things would at least change. I was very surprised, because last year, when they had their village council elections, it was definitely CCM that had the upper hand. Maybe change is coming. Last week, when I saw the CCM ward councillor again at her shop, she looked really worried. And my translator told me that the other elderly people standing in front of her shop when we arrived were talking about politics, most likely strategies to help her win.

I see many cars with EU Delegation Elections Committee, or something like that, around these days. I guess these are the observers from the EU. It’s my first time seeing anything like this so it’s interesting.

In normal conversation though, people speak very openly about politics, even if they don’t support CCM. The newspapers don’t really criticize the CCM outright, but you can see negative news about them. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a completely “free and fair” election, but it’s not completely set-up either.


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A Typical Meeting at the Office (and there’re many)

October 28, 2010

Agreed on meeting time: 10 am – 12 noon

9:40 am: first meeting participant ambles in. We greet them, show them where the meeting will be. Karibu chai na kahawa (you’re welcome to have some tea or coffee). We go back to work a bit more.

9:55 am: second participant ambles in. Process repeats. We introduce them to the first one so they can have polite conversation.

10:00 am: still only two people, we wait.

10:10 am: two more people show up, process repeats. I’m usually antsy by this time, although everyone else seems ok with it.

10:15 am: my supervisor and I usually look at each other and say “yeah, we should start, can’t be too late.” We both amble over. I would sit down, agenda and notebook ready, hoping to get the meeting started. But, my supervisor, seeing nobody has had any tea or coffee yet, would start making his own (that’s his philosophy, you start making yours and others will feel comfortable making theirs). Add sugar. Add Nido (powdered milk). Add coffee/tea. Add water. Stir. It’s a meditative process; doesn’t exactly help my antsy-ness. Then everyone starts. And we always need more cups and some people want cold water from the dispenser than hot tea. So we run to and fro between the kitchen and meeting place to satisfy all of this.

10:25 am: finally everyone has their tea/coffee/water. We chit-chat a bit more. The rest of the participants (except one) show up. We prepare more tea/coffee/water.

10:30 am: the meeting starts.

10: 40 am: we finish introductions and going over why we are having this meeting. Remaining participant arrives, apologizing (sometimes). We go through the first 10 minutes of the meeting again. Strangely enough, people speak even more this time when asked to introduce themselves.

10:50 am: meeting finally starts and we get down to discussion.

That’s how it is and that’s how you accept it. My teacher in Uganda once told us that “you’re the one losing out if you’re not patient.” If you don’t have the patience to wait for people to come, then you’ll never get anything done. People are like this with time, and you’re not going to change that. If you storm out, angry that people don’t come at a time you said, then you can’t get the result you want. The community or whoever you’re meeting won’t really care, actually. It’s you who is losing out. I tend to agree with her. I’m this foreigner coming into a whole different culture. Who am I to demand change?


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Jane Goodall

October 28, 2010

two weeks ago, the most amazing things happened…

1. I got an interview to work with Roots and Shoots in Tanzania…the interview went quite well too

as if that wasn’t enough….

2.  I had the interview at Dr. Goodall’s house!!!!!

wait there’s more….

3. I met a guy who said he can introduce me to Dr. Jane Goodall when she comes back in January!!!!!!!!! allow me…OMG!!!

holy crap, I think I would faint if I see her.


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Advocacy vs. Neutrality

October 16, 2010

I’m having some trouble deciding what my role is here. I’ve always been on the policy advocacy side of things. Now I’m supposed to be a facilitator, a stakeholder engager, a bridge, a person who is supposedly more neutral. Now some of you would probably roll your eyes by now, since I’m rarely neutral on any issue, especially something as important to me as food/agriculture.

But that’s what I’m supposed to be. I’m supposed to be helping bridge the gap between the farmers and the governmental bureaucrats. I’m not supposed to be advocating for legitimization of urban agriculture. I’m supposed to advocating for what the farmers want.

You see the difference? I used always be advocating what I think is correct or what I want. But now I’m supposed to be the middle person.

So in many ways, I am helping to make the compromises. And if it’s one thing I don’t like when doing political advocacy is compromising. It’s not that I don’t think it’s necessary, it’s just that it’s so unnatural to be actually advocating for a compromise!

What I mean is this – we’re trying to get secure land tenure for urban farmers. Yet, many government planners won’t budge because of a combination of really having no land in urban areas and the outdated (but very entrenched) notion that agriculture only belongs in rural areas. So it’s pretty much impossible for all of the farmers groups that we work with to get their specific areas to be designated as urban agriculture land. If we really do advocate for all the areas, it would probably take forever and we won’t get anything done. But it’s a fine line between that and just giving in without a fight. After all, we are the only ones representing the farmers’ voices.

The problem comes in when my supervisor and I have different ideas about how much we should compromise, at least without a fight.

I, of course, being the “radical” wants to at least try to advocate for the really urban areas to be incorporated, not just the peri-urban areas. Isn’t that our duty as an NGO that is trying to help marginalized populations?

My supervisor, being the ever pragmatic town planner, wants to just make this as non-controversial as possible so that the process can move faster (and of course so we can report that we’ve made progress to our funders).

So, what to do, what to do?


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October 11, 2010

I had such a good work day today. Not that I accomplished a lot (well, I did get two meetings organized, which is quite big since it’s really hard to get anyone from the government to have a meeting), but because I was able to face some of my fears.

  • phoning people I don’t know or haven’t met face to face before. I’m getting much better at this essential skill. I got quite good at it back in Canada, but here it’s doubly hard because people usually don’t understand stand my English accent over the phone. I try to speak really slowly and to say things clearly, but sometimes it’s just hard to get your message across. It’s funny how I really have no trouble standing in front of a lot of people and speaking. But the phone is a whole other animal.
  • going to government offices and actually figuring out where I need to go. My kiswahili is definitely improving. plus, people get so happy when I speak a little bit of kiswahili. Like this person I was told to go meet (I just got their number and I couldn’t even get through to them on the phone. I just showed up.), his whole attitude changed immediately when I started speaking the little bit that I know.
  • convincing people who didn’t want to come to the meeting (it’s election time, super super super busy for government people) to come. will know if it actually worked on the day of.
  • and this one I’m not really sure if it’s a good thing, but hey, it got my job done: I phoned one of the planners this morning to ask if I can drop by today to organize this meeting. She said she’s too busy. I said I’ll drop by to just hand her the letter. So I showed up and actually got the meeting I wanted. If this was in Canada, I probably would have just sent an email and it wouldn’t really be organized.

Yes, I did spend half the day in the car (and goodness gracious, I really don’t want to be taking the taxi that much, but the public bus just takes too much time, plus if I got lost, it would be a disaster). But we all need to celebrate the little successes.

P.S. it constantly amazes me how I can just go talk to the heads of various departments without really too much scheduling. I’ll talk about my thoughts about this in another post.


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Urban Agriculture Farmers Training Week

October 8, 2010

I’ve been super busy lately. The process of legitimizing urban agriculture (which I’ve talked about before) is coming along well – very surprisingly to me.

We recently had a bit of a milestone. We’ve been planning for a training week for urban agriculture farmers because due to their insecure land tenures, we can’t fund what they want the most – a borehole for clean water. So we asked them what are the second best things you want? And it turns out they wanted training in entrepreneurship, marketing, and environmentally good practices (e.g. making “natural” (non-industrial; cheaper) pesticides, making compost, methods of soil conservation etc). So we got together the 6 groups of farmers we mainly work with and funded and organized a training week. In additional to the training in skills, we hoped that the farmers would be able to network (it’s the first time they’ve all been in the same room) and share their challenges and successes.

Most importantly, we wanted this training week to be part of the process for demarcating land for urban agriculture in which we’re pushing for more participation from the farmers. On the last day, we became a bit more political. We invited all the big shots, some supportive of farming in the city and some not.  As far as I know, it’s really been the first time when all these stakeholders (many government officials and farmers) have been together in a forum where they can really have a discussion back and forth.

My PhD roommate set the tone for the day by giving a presentation about urban agriculture around the world (in Swahili! Super impressive). The main goal being to persuade the big wigs that UA isn’t actually backward or (god-forbid) undeveloped. That it has its practical and social uses. (I can’t wait to see the thesis my roommate will write – she does the most interesting research that yields the most interesting answers. And she’ll hate this sentence because she hates the vague word of ‘interesting’). Lots of good feedback on this one.

Then we had a high level representative from the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Human Settlement Development (the MLHHSD). The MLHHSD is actually supportive of UA. There is a national law, mainly a legacy of kilimo kwanza (farming first – national goal by the first president, the highly respected Mr. Nyerere), that legalizes urban agriculture. The municipalities are supposed to implement this law by providing assistance to farmers in the city. There is a reason why they hired agriculture agents for all three municipalities of the biggest city – Dar es Salaam. Question period came and the room lit up with tension. Nobody from either the farmers or the municipalities knew about this law. Farmers were delighted and appalled in equal measure. Municipality representatives didn’t know what to say when questioned why they hadn’t done anything to execute this law? Why were they doing the exact opposite by forcing farmers off their land? My supervisor did a great job in calming everyone down. It was more important at that point than to get answers.

Then the farmers presented their concerns and proposed actions. We had asked the farmers early on to discuss with their groups and then write down a list so they can take full opportunity of the chance. During the training, the farmers self-organized and suggested that it would be better if the six groups worked together as one to present. They willingly stayed behind to talk to each other and summarised what they wanted to say. I was so happy to see that. Political activism isn’t what I’m normally used to here. People just don’t go on protests, punching their fists in the air. The farmers must have really understood how important this chance was. Unfortunately, this period seemed a bit short (although it was scheduled for longer), but since I can’t understand Swahili, I can’t be sure. I think it just somehow melted into the next section. Either way, I think the farmers at least got some responses from these normally unreachable government representatives.

Finally, we were supposed to discuss which parcels of land should be earmarked for urban agriculture. We had asked each municipal Agriculture and Livestock office to bring a map marked with areas that they think should be submitted as UA land. Unfortunately, none of the offices did this (which I 99% expected). So instead, the representatives just presented what their departments are doing. On the positive side, it was good because then the farmers got more time to ask questions.

They day was pretty long and intense at times. Especially when one of the farmers got up and made a 15 minute impassioned speech. He was talking about their hardships as farmers and as the ones that are always blamed and moved around. Of course, I couldn’t really understand any of it, I only got the summarised translated version later. The representatives couldn’t really do much either because they’re working in the government which changes slowly. Even if they personally supported UA, their departments might not.

Either way, this day was definitely a very good milestone. I think we’ve changed a few minds and won a few allies. Now comes the next step!


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