Meaghan and I spent the morning working on our blog, writing up the English lessons for the afternoon and finishing Stephanie’s VISA letter. Stephanie is the next WHE intern that will be coming in January, 2008. I was still not feeling very well and so I went into town to go to a small clinic and get checked for Malaria. Thankfully I do not have Malaria again and am wondering if I had it the first 2 times because I had very similar symptoms as the last times.
I met up with Meg at the Pizzeria and had a quick snack before going to NIMR for our meeting with Mr. Temu and his staff. Mr. Temu is the director of the microbiology lab and is in charge of preparing the probiotics to go into our milk. We had a very productive meeting sorting out the days of the week that all the deliveries, culturing and pick-ups will happen. Unfortunately, one of our mamas was late coming to the meeting but she came in time to speak with Mr. Temu to clarify what day and at what time she is supposed to come to pick up the milk at NIMR.
We then went to Mabatini to give the Mamas their English lesson, to get the Tukwamuane Mama’s constitution and to get Mama Paskwalina to sign Steph’s VISA letter. At the Kitchen, the Mamas invited us to eat ugali with dagaa (small dried fish). It was very good but very filling too. We decided not to go to yoga today and stayed in with a movie.
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Meg and I started our morning getting our meetings for the day in order. We then headed into town to use the internet before our meetings. I was able to post my blog and pictures and read my very full inbox before going to our meeting with the Vice President of the Tanzanian Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Batenga (former Chairman). We had a few questions about distribution of yogurt products in Mwanza to send to Ivan LeMintier from Danone.
We stopped by World Link to inquire about flights for Stephanie afterwards, then headed to City Counsel to meet with Mr. Luanda. Mr. Luanda is the replacement for Mr. Tukay while he is away on business trips. We were informed that the new piece of land in Nyamongoro is allowed to have 4-5 non-grazing cows on site. This was very good news to hear because we will be able to build the cow banda that TASAF will support on our new plot of land. Mr. Luanda told us he would have quotes, sizes and location of the new plots ready for next week and that we would complete the purchase of it within one month. We left his office and went straight to see Mr. Ngowi (TASAF coordinator) to give him the good news. We found out that our TASAF application would have to be pushed back until January because it requires us to own the plot of land first before getting our application approved. This will mean that if it is accepted construction will begin in early March.
We then went to our Swahili class for 2 hours. The evening was spent at our friend’s house, Tini, because it was her birthday. We brought some Champaign and flower for her. She cooked an amazing dinner of pea soup, tomato pasta, zucchini pasta, risotto, and ice cream with a mango puree.
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
I am very excited because my mother is leaving to come visit Africa in 2 weeks today. The morning was spent organizing our expenses and making the English lesson for the day. We made plans to meet with Mr. Kiamba (director for NGO application) for the afternoon.
We went into town and booked Steph’s flight from Dar to Mwanza for January 4th, 2007, which means that I will have about a day to show Steph around Mwanza before I leave to start my journey home. We went to the internet café for a little while to send out update reports home. We had a quick bite to eat then headed to the Regional Commissioner’s office to meet with Mr. Kiamba. We were informed that he no longer was in charge of that department and so we were brought to Mr. Ndassa. He went through our Constitution and it seemed in order and we only had a few things to complete before we could apply for the Tukwamuane Women to become an NGO.
We then went to Mabatini for the English lessons and to pick up yogurt for our friends and us. We then went to Isamilo for a swim because we had missed our normal swim yesterday. We made a very good noodle stir fry at Claire’s before going home.
Half an hour of heavy rain.
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
This morning we made the English test for tomorrow and set up a meeting with a potential translator this morning, Gracie. I spent a while photocopying and binding the Mama’s Constitution for their NGO application and required 5 copies of a 34 page booklet. Meaghan sent some email home at the internet café near our apartment. Gracie came over just as Meg and I were both finishing up and we had an interview with her. She is a very qualified individual and speaks English very well. She has just recently moved to Mwanza because her husband got a job here, actually working with a close friend of ours in the agricultural department, and is currently unemployed. Meg and I will draft a contract up for her and hopefully she will be able to help Stephanie out with translations with the Mamas especially because she is coming by herself.
We had to also refill our gas tank this morning which turned out to be more difficult than we expected because all the stores have now changed the canisters for the gas and our current one is too old. So Meg and I had to run around town trying to find the best price and also having to take out money to pay 110,000 Tsh (~$100) for a new tank and gas. We were finally successful and came home with our new tank. We had lunch at home before heading back to World Link, to pay for Steph’s flight, and for our Swahili Lessons. We went to Tunza afterwards for our Yoga class and stayed for dinner.
Friday, November 30th, 2007
I cannot believe that it is already the end of November and our time in Mwanza is closely coming to an end. I am sad to be leaving but feel proud that Meg and I have put in progress so many big steps to start expanding the Mama’s project.
We made plans for Mama Elizabeth, Paskwalina and Joyce to meet at our apartment for 9:30am this morning, but as usual they were a bit late. We had plans to walk through town and distribute yogurt order packages at various restaurants and hotels, get their photos taken for the NGO application and look for various fridges to purchase for the Kitchen because they are running out of space to hold the yogurt. We accomplished it all before the afternoon and went with the Mamas to the Kitchen in Mabatini afterwards. We picked up 6L of yogurt to bring to the Forever Angels Orphanage. We spent a few hours volunteering at the orphanage and then had to come home to cook a huge dinner for Pendo, her mother and her 8 children. It turned out that she had 11 children come (not all hers) and they had a great time with the coloring books that Meaghan had brought with her from Canada. Meaghan, Pendo and I made cooking bananas in a tomato sauce, rice, and fish. It was a great meal and a great way to thank Pendo for all her hard work and for inviting us to her mother’s place for dinner last month. We were very tired after they all left and stayed in for the night.
Meaghan cutting cooking bananas.
The children having a great time with the coloring books.
Our delicious dinner.
Group 'timer' photo, which I clearly missed.
Saturday, December 1st, 2007
Today is ‘World’s Aids Day’ and our Mamas are joining with Kivulini at the CCM Kyrumba Stadium to sell yogurt and celebrate the festivities there. We will join them later in the day.
We started our morning supporting our friend Jenny for a soccer tournament that she organized for students at various schools. There were 6 teams in total, 4 boys and 2 girls. The spectator stands were full and everyone was having a great time watching and dancing to the music being played.
We had a quick lunch and then headed to the Stadium to visit our Mamas. Unfortunately by the time we got there they were just packing up but it was still great to see all the HIV testing stands and live performances. Meg and I then took a dala-dala to Tunza to relax a bit on the beach. We went to Yun Long Restaurant for dinner and then stayed in to watch a movie.
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
We woke up early again today to go to church in Mabatini with Mama Paskwalina. The church is always very crowded but it is a very lovely service. We went home after dropping by the Kitchen and having chai with the Mamas and packed our things to go to Tunza for the day.
I went for a run at Tunza and then got to work painting the entrance wall for the bulletin board. Meaghan helped paint but it was difficult because they had just put in some plants in front of the wall and we were trampling around them to paint. It turned out very well and we had a nice afternoon there. We decided to go home for dinner and a movie so we would have an early night before our week began. Ruben left this evening to go to Dar to get his residence permit and will be gone until Friday if all goes well.
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