I have since moved from Bunda to Musoma, where Gervace, the TechnoServe Business Advisor here, has driven me many long hours in a pickup truck across the countryside to visit six different Farmer Business Group (FBG) meetings. These are some of the wakulima wa pamba (cotton farmers) whom I met:

My Swahili is rapidly improving due to necessity, but obviously Gervace still needs to provide translation. My new favorite word is mawasiliano (communication). All in all, everyone I’ve met has been quite receptive of me and mostly receptive of the idea of “PambaNet.” Most of the maswali (questions) I get are whether simu (cell phones) will be distributed and whether sent text messages will be free or subsidized. I have gotten used to smiling and replying, Pole sana, hapana (Very sorry, but no). The cell phone penetration in some of the FBGs is as high as 50%, but for the sake of the pilot, I think we will leverage a train-the-trainer model and teach the system to the leaders of each group.

I have met about 300 cotton farmers in the last week, and at most, 10 of them were women. Despite performing the vast majority of manual labor on the farm, it is the men who assume responsibility for business matters such as negotiating the sale of seed cotton at the village trading posts. TechnoServe is trying to encourage more households to register the women and allow them to participate in FBG meetings. Still, a woman openly voicing her opinion in the presence of so many men appears to be taboo, and at best, quite intimidating.

For the first weekend on my own, I stayed in Musoma but moved to Tembo Beach Hotel, a small motel/campsite right on Lake Victoria. I was able to get one of the two rooms that directly faces the waterfront, so as I type, I am listening to the waves crash on the beach and waiting for what I hope will be a brilliant sunset.

Yesterday, I experienced quite an adventure when I decided to venture off the beaten path (which isn’t saying much since Musoma is not very touristy) and take a day trip to Lukuba Island, on Lake Victoria. In trying to find a public boat to take me there in the chaotic hustle and bustle of this fishing hub, I broke one of the top rules of traveling in Africa, which is to avoid boarding transportation vehicles that are empty, as they will never leave until completely full. What started as a fun opportunity to practice my Swahili with a few kids quickly deteriorated into three hours of getting stared at, talked to, talked about, and laughed at while surrounded by roughly 75 passengers and their associated cargo (not even counting the ones who rode on the tin-roof).

Anyway, we finally arrived on the biggest island and a fellow passenger, a university student who spoke good English, was kind enough to show me around the island since I had no idea where to go. Over the course of the afternoon, we walked along beaches lined with shrimping nets and fishing boats and through villages of straw huts and concrete shacks, greeting dozens of men, women and children. As expected, everyone was surprised to see a mzungo walking around, but I was received warmly for the most part, especially by the little ones:

I unfortunately missed the last daytime boat, so I had to take the 7 pm boat, which was jam-packed with countless giant bags of dried shrimps and others returning to Musoma. I’m not sure what was most frightening - that a crew member continuously bailed water out of the bottom of our boat, or that our boat had nothing but a flashlight to help our driver navigate the 90-minute journey through dim moonlight (we nearly hit a rock formation). In any case, I was thankful when I finally arrived safely back at the hotel, and vowed to be more cautious about night-time transportation.

This past week flew by incredibly quickly, most likely because SMS Media (our Rwanda-based sofware developers) were in town from Monday through Wednesday. After years as a consultant, it is bizarre sitting on the other side of the table as the client (although technically I myself am a volunteer consultant for TechnoServe). Communication has been a little challenging, as English is the weakest of the <gasp> four languages they speak (Kirwanda, French, and Kiswahili being the other three). My once AP-level French has deteriorated back to elementary school level, and my Swahili skills are in their infancy, so unfortunately I'm not much help on my end. It would be one thing if we were making casual conversation, but we're discussing the design of a complicated web- and SMS-based system, using fairly technical terminology.

Beyond work, I have continued my regular regimen of Swahili, salsa, and scuba, and have added in a new, less enjoyable activity, running outside. To stay on the safe side, I have been running without my iPod, so instead I pass by the time by practicing Swahili. For example, I just learned namba (numbers), so on my last run I counted up to 100 and then back down to 1, which sadly took me about 25 minutes, haha. Moja... mbili... tatu... nne... tano... sita... saba... nane... tisa... kumi..

This past weekend, a number of us headed up to Bagamoyo, a fishing town/former German port about an hour north of Dar, for their annual Festival of Arts and Culture. There wasn't a whole lot to the town itself, but highlights included eating "the best burgers in town" (made by an oil-sector retiree from south Texas), the dance performances (which included some Cirque du Soleil-esque acrobatics) and walking along the ocean (all these boats were made by hand!).

 After flying roughly 10,000 miles, with layovers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam, plus a pit stop in Kilimanjaro, I finally arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania late on Sunday night. I was slightly nervous that I wouldn’t make it through immigration with only a copy of my work permit, but luckily an immigration officer handed me the original while I was waiting in line. At first I was surprised that he recognized me from the passport photo, considering how haggard I looked after 24 hours of traveling, but then I remembered that I was quite possibly the only Asian female on my entire jumbo jet flight.

I knew that TechnoServe would send a taxi driver to pick me up, but was nonetheless relieved when I emerged from the baggage claim and spotted a sign with my name printed on it. Rama repeatedly welcomed me to Tanzania in broken English punctuated with Swahili – “Feel at home, feel at home, karibu dada (welcome sister)!” Soon we arrived in a residential neighborhood at the unlabeled gate of the Trinity Motel, which has been my home the last three nights. Tonight, I will be moving to TechnoServe’s VolCon (Volunteer Consultant) house, also on the Masani Peninsula. I will be living alone in a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment until more VolCons arrive. My apt is on the ground floor, left side:

Monday was Eid, the end of Ramadan, which is a public holiday in Tanzania, so I had a full day to relax before starting work on Tuesday. My Haas classmate Roxanne, who is also working in Dar, and I had lunch at my motel and spent the afternoon at the Colosseum, which is the nicest fitness club in town, and therefore unsurprisingly filled with other ex-pats. After having paid $10 per semester to use the gym at UC Berkeley, $115 per month is rather steep, especially considering my lack of income. Perhaps I will train for climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro the old-fashioned, free way, i.e. by running outside. Last night, I went to salsa lessons at the Little Theatre and was amazed to meet an incredibly diverse group of people, not only from Tanzania, but from Botswana, Cuba, the UK, Sicily, and Spain, just to name a few of my fellow salseros, united by the common languages of English and salsa. Love it.