Mom, I have some good news to tell you...I went to Zanzibar and married a Masai!
Meet my husband Lkitenga!
Monday, March 3, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
More Mikumi in pictures
Tanzania's Parks are amazing. Did you know the famous Serengeti was in this country? Cuz I didn't until I got here...
The view
He's wondering what I want from him...
Horses in pyjamas
I don't really know what animal this is....it looked like a dark pig with a horn on its nose...
Can't go in the Jungle without getting stuck in a ditch somewhere....Thank goodness for my boots
Mikumi National Park in pictures and in facts
No long work blog this time, as some people seem to find them hard to understand...or boring...or a little of both!
Some facts:
Size: 3,230 sq km (1,250 sq miles), the fourth-largest park in Tanzania, and part of a much larger ecosystem centred on the uniquely vast Selous Game Reserve. Location: 283 km (175 miles) west of Dar es Salaam
What to do:
Go on a picture safari and try to photograph as many animals as possible. Then actually try to find the animals on the picture. Big bonus if you spot a lion. Big fine if you get off the track to go near the lion you spotted miles away with your binoculars.
Some facts:
Size: 3,230 sq km (1,250 sq miles), the fourth-largest park in Tanzania, and part of a much larger ecosystem centred on the uniquely vast Selous Game Reserve. Location: 283 km (175 miles) west of Dar es Salaam
What to do:
Go on a picture safari and try to photograph as many animals as possible. Then actually try to find the animals on the picture. Big bonus if you spot a lion. Big fine if you get off the track to go near the lion you spotted miles away with your binoculars.
Camp in luxury tents in the middle of the Mikumi Park
My very own luxyry tent on a little hill overlooking the Savannah
Proof that I was not kidding about the "luxury" part.
Elephant poop found beside my luxury tent the next morning...
Elephant that pooped beside my tent chilling nearby.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Putting learned skills into practice at WAT SACCO
For a microfinance cooperative, members’ savings is the best source of funds because it is free. When a SACCO can finance its lending operations without having to borrow from banks or having to be subsidized by any one of the thousands of NGOs out there, it is much more autonomous. Not to mention it is much better for development purposes since the money stays in the local community.
While we get offers everyday from NGOs wanting to give us money, in many SACCOs we actually have excess liquidity. One of my mandates here is to help Dunduliza network better manage its excess liquidity (extra cash). About 6 months ago, a study was done by a DID consultant, which pointed out that our network had a lot of excess cash lying in bank accounts earning little return. It also proposed a plan to optimize liquidity management. My job, for the short while that I am here, is to help move this plan along by putting words into action.
Today, my specific challenge was to convince the board members of WAT SACCO, to pilot test internet banking. WAT SACCO is an urban cooperative in Dar Es Salaam and is probably one of the best managed SACCOs in our network. Internet banking could be very beneficial for them. For instance, it would enable the manager to monitor the balance daily for increased control, transfer funds between accounts from her desk, print statements for free and decrease transaction costs. Now although everybody living in modern societies use internet banking for both personal and business purposes, here internet banking is very new, only available in certain banks and people are unconvinced of its advantages. Not to mention that the SACCO doesn’t even have internet.
My boss Claude and I arrived at the meeting specially convened for us and met the board members. This felt like a case competition I did at school, except that this one was no game. We had to convince the board to switch banks, get internet and register to internet banking and all this had to be agreed before my departure in March. The head of the board was Mama Siwale and she is one tough lady! The 6 people around the table were to be the judging panel. The first thing I did was go around and shake everybody’s hand and present myself. The board members also introduced themselves, but their names were so long and complicated that I could not even pronounce or memorize them.
I had prepared two power point presentations, an informative one on internet banking and another one to convince them of the benefits of liquidity centralization (our long term objective). The second presentation was structured true case class style, with an opportunity Statement, current situation, decision matrix and implementation plan. Prof. Donovan would have been proud, although I personally thought I could have done much better.
The presentations with questions lasted 2 hours. In those 2 hours I tried to be as clear and persuasive as possible, but a lot of questions were raised. Some of them I could answer easily, but there were some unexpected ones. Mama Siwale was really no BS and always went straight to the point. In the end, Claude thought it went well, but I am more critical and still have some doubts. Hopefully before I leave, I will know whether I would have succeeded or whether there will still be some convincing work to do.
I realized that convincing people to invest time and money into a new, unknown technology is no easy feet! One thing is certain, although in school we would convince multinationals to buy out other companies, to develop revolutionizing new products or to expand their operations into China, this experience, as tiny as it was, was a good way to put those skills into practice in the real business world.
While we get offers everyday from NGOs wanting to give us money, in many SACCOs we actually have excess liquidity. One of my mandates here is to help Dunduliza network better manage its excess liquidity (extra cash). About 6 months ago, a study was done by a DID consultant, which pointed out that our network had a lot of excess cash lying in bank accounts earning little return. It also proposed a plan to optimize liquidity management. My job, for the short while that I am here, is to help move this plan along by putting words into action.
Today, my specific challenge was to convince the board members of WAT SACCO, to pilot test internet banking. WAT SACCO is an urban cooperative in Dar Es Salaam and is probably one of the best managed SACCOs in our network. Internet banking could be very beneficial for them. For instance, it would enable the manager to monitor the balance daily for increased control, transfer funds between accounts from her desk, print statements for free and decrease transaction costs. Now although everybody living in modern societies use internet banking for both personal and business purposes, here internet banking is very new, only available in certain banks and people are unconvinced of its advantages. Not to mention that the SACCO doesn’t even have internet.
My boss Claude and I arrived at the meeting specially convened for us and met the board members. This felt like a case competition I did at school, except that this one was no game. We had to convince the board to switch banks, get internet and register to internet banking and all this had to be agreed before my departure in March. The head of the board was Mama Siwale and she is one tough lady! The 6 people around the table were to be the judging panel. The first thing I did was go around and shake everybody’s hand and present myself. The board members also introduced themselves, but their names were so long and complicated that I could not even pronounce or memorize them.
I had prepared two power point presentations, an informative one on internet banking and another one to convince them of the benefits of liquidity centralization (our long term objective). The second presentation was structured true case class style, with an opportunity Statement, current situation, decision matrix and implementation plan. Prof. Donovan would have been proud, although I personally thought I could have done much better.
The presentations with questions lasted 2 hours. In those 2 hours I tried to be as clear and persuasive as possible, but a lot of questions were raised. Some of them I could answer easily, but there were some unexpected ones. Mama Siwale was really no BS and always went straight to the point. In the end, Claude thought it went well, but I am more critical and still have some doubts. Hopefully before I leave, I will know whether I would have succeeded or whether there will still be some convincing work to do.
I realized that convincing people to invest time and money into a new, unknown technology is no easy feet! One thing is certain, although in school we would convince multinationals to buy out other companies, to develop revolutionizing new products or to expand their operations into China, this experience, as tiny as it was, was a good way to put those skills into practice in the real business world.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
When Pat goes to Tanzania, President Bush follows
A Presidential Seal of Approval
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)NEWS6 February 2008 Posted to the web 7 February 2008 By Sarah McgregorDar es Salaam
U.S. President George W. Bush will spend most of his time during a five-nation tour of Africa later this month in Tanzania, to spotlight development gains in the East African nation.
"This is a success story," said U.S. embassy public affairs officer Jeffery Salaiz of Tanzania, during a press conference held in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam Tuesday.
In what will be his second presidential visit to Africa, Bush is to travel to Tanzania, Rwanda, Benin, Ghana and Liberia from Feb. 15-21 for talks with their heads of state and to visit projects funded by the U.S. government. Most of the trip -- Feb. 16-19 -- is to be spent in and around Dar es Salaam and Arusha, a town in northern Tanzania. "It will be an opportunity to see Tanzania's natural beauty and strong leadership," said Salaiz.
During the tour, Bush intends to highlight his administration's efforts to improve health in Africa, in part through the President's Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), added Salaiz.
PEPFAR, unveiled during Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, is a 15 billion dollar, five-year programme to fight the AIDS pandemic by providing anti-retroviral treatment to HIV-positive people and improving access to health services for AIDS patients.
PEPFAR also aims to reduce HIV infection rates through the "ABC" approach: abstain, be faithful and use condoms. However, critics of the initiative claim it places undue emphasis on abstinence and being faithful.
PMI focuses on strategies to combat mosquito-borne malaria such as spraying homes with insecticide, distributing bed nets and providing life-saving anti-malarial drugs. The 1.2 billion dollar plan aims to cut the number of malaria-related deaths in 15 African nations by half between 2005 and 2010.
Tanzania alone will receive 334 million dollars in this year's U.S. budget under PEPFAR and PMI, said Salaiz.
This comes in the wake of the five-year, 698 million dollar grant given to the country last September by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to upgrade electricity and roads infrastructure. Arrangements for this grant, the largest awarded by the corporation, will probably be finalised this month, noted Salaiz.
The MCC was formed by Bush in 2004, and gives aid to poor countries to help increase economic growth and ease poverty. Recipients are required to demonstrate good governance.
Business on the back burner
Bush is not expected to focus on bilateral trade or other business matters during his time in Tanzania, said Salaiz. Instead, these issues will be raised at the eighth Leon H. Sullivan summit, to be held in Tanzania in June.
A Baptist minister and activist, Sullivan promoted racial equality in the workplace in the United States and abroad before his death in 2001, notably through the 'Sullivan Principles': guidelines for firms that operated in apartheid South Africa.
The summit will build on his legacy by bringing together African and African-American businesspeople, activists, academics and government officials to seek answers to the continent's economic woes and strengthen ties between Africa and the United States.
Statistics suggest there is room for improvement in trade between the United States and Tanzania, which shipped just 23 million dollars worth of goods to the United States in 2006, according to a fact sheet on the website of the U.S. Department of Commerce. About half of these goods were agricultural products.
For its part, the United States exported goods totaling 111 million dollars to Tanzania during the same year, principally transport equipment, agricultural products and machinery.
U.S. imports from African nations increased by 17 percent to 59.2 billion dollars in 2006, according to U.S. statistics.
Of that amount, 44.2 billion dollars was shipped under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a U.S. initiative introduced in 2004 to alleviate poverty through trade. AGOA has seen duties and quotas reduced on 6,000 products from 39 African states.
Tanzania -- which produces coffee, tea, cotton and gold (the country is Africa's third-largest gold producer) -- is benefiting from a commodity boom and increased investment, after most of its debt at the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and African Development Bank was cancelled (the debt was written off in 2006).
President Jakaya Kikwete expects economic growth to reach 7.8 percent in 2008, from an estimated 7.3 percent last year and 6.2 percent in 2006.
However, Tanzania remains one of Africa's poorest states, with about 36 percent of its 38 million people living below the poverty line according to United Nations figures -- and with about 42 percent of its 2007/08 budget funded by donors.
Copyright © 2008 Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
Source:http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200802070034.html
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)NEWS6 February 2008 Posted to the web 7 February 2008 By Sarah McgregorDar es Salaam
U.S. President George W. Bush will spend most of his time during a five-nation tour of Africa later this month in Tanzania, to spotlight development gains in the East African nation.
"This is a success story," said U.S. embassy public affairs officer Jeffery Salaiz of Tanzania, during a press conference held in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam Tuesday.
In what will be his second presidential visit to Africa, Bush is to travel to Tanzania, Rwanda, Benin, Ghana and Liberia from Feb. 15-21 for talks with their heads of state and to visit projects funded by the U.S. government. Most of the trip -- Feb. 16-19 -- is to be spent in and around Dar es Salaam and Arusha, a town in northern Tanzania. "It will be an opportunity to see Tanzania's natural beauty and strong leadership," said Salaiz.
During the tour, Bush intends to highlight his administration's efforts to improve health in Africa, in part through the President's Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), added Salaiz.
PEPFAR, unveiled during Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, is a 15 billion dollar, five-year programme to fight the AIDS pandemic by providing anti-retroviral treatment to HIV-positive people and improving access to health services for AIDS patients.
PEPFAR also aims to reduce HIV infection rates through the "ABC" approach: abstain, be faithful and use condoms. However, critics of the initiative claim it places undue emphasis on abstinence and being faithful.
PMI focuses on strategies to combat mosquito-borne malaria such as spraying homes with insecticide, distributing bed nets and providing life-saving anti-malarial drugs. The 1.2 billion dollar plan aims to cut the number of malaria-related deaths in 15 African nations by half between 2005 and 2010.
Tanzania alone will receive 334 million dollars in this year's U.S. budget under PEPFAR and PMI, said Salaiz.
This comes in the wake of the five-year, 698 million dollar grant given to the country last September by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to upgrade electricity and roads infrastructure. Arrangements for this grant, the largest awarded by the corporation, will probably be finalised this month, noted Salaiz.
The MCC was formed by Bush in 2004, and gives aid to poor countries to help increase economic growth and ease poverty. Recipients are required to demonstrate good governance.
Business on the back burner
Bush is not expected to focus on bilateral trade or other business matters during his time in Tanzania, said Salaiz. Instead, these issues will be raised at the eighth Leon H. Sullivan summit, to be held in Tanzania in June.
A Baptist minister and activist, Sullivan promoted racial equality in the workplace in the United States and abroad before his death in 2001, notably through the 'Sullivan Principles': guidelines for firms that operated in apartheid South Africa.
The summit will build on his legacy by bringing together African and African-American businesspeople, activists, academics and government officials to seek answers to the continent's economic woes and strengthen ties between Africa and the United States.
Statistics suggest there is room for improvement in trade between the United States and Tanzania, which shipped just 23 million dollars worth of goods to the United States in 2006, according to a fact sheet on the website of the U.S. Department of Commerce. About half of these goods were agricultural products.
For its part, the United States exported goods totaling 111 million dollars to Tanzania during the same year, principally transport equipment, agricultural products and machinery.
U.S. imports from African nations increased by 17 percent to 59.2 billion dollars in 2006, according to U.S. statistics.
Of that amount, 44.2 billion dollars was shipped under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a U.S. initiative introduced in 2004 to alleviate poverty through trade. AGOA has seen duties and quotas reduced on 6,000 products from 39 African states.
Tanzania -- which produces coffee, tea, cotton and gold (the country is Africa's third-largest gold producer) -- is benefiting from a commodity boom and increased investment, after most of its debt at the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and African Development Bank was cancelled (the debt was written off in 2006).
President Jakaya Kikwete expects economic growth to reach 7.8 percent in 2008, from an estimated 7.3 percent last year and 6.2 percent in 2006.
However, Tanzania remains one of Africa's poorest states, with about 36 percent of its 38 million people living below the poverty line according to United Nations figures -- and with about 42 percent of its 2007/08 budget funded by donors.
Copyright © 2008 Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
Source:http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200802070034.html
Friday, February 1, 2008
Pictures of my new home
Stuck in traffic in Dar Es Salaam - Population = 3,000,000 
My bedroom - fan is very useful for sleeping
My bathroom - complete with real shower and water heater (don't need to use the water heater)
Coco Beach 1
Coco Beach 2
Welcome to Tanzania
It’s time for me to tell you a little bit more about my new home. I now live in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania with Mama Bridget, her niece Monica, the boy Julius and her 6 dogs. I have my own room with a bathroom, a fridge, a fan and a water cooler. There are pictures of Jesus everywhere and a sign that reads «Jesus is coming» over the doorway so I feel somewhat protected. I also feel lucky because there are 2 television sets and they both have some English channels. I watched the Tanzanian version of American Idol last night. I also don’t have to cook or wash my clothes anymore because Julius takes care of that for me.
Another cool thing about this place is its proximity to the Ocean. It kinda has a California feel to it, except with a lot more black people and Indians and less Hummers. Last weekend we went to the beach and I got to swim in the warm Ocean water.
Some of the less appealing aspects of the city is that it’s dirty compared to Kigali, mosquitos are everywhere and it’s damn hot. With an average of 30 degrees, I feel sticky 24 hours a day and sleeping without any air conditioning is driving me crazy. I am even starting to enjoy taking cold showers every day (yeah I have a shower now).
It’s also a more dangerous place. Whereas in Kigali I could walk in the streets at 3AM in the morning without any problems, here, Coco Beach is just a 10 minute walk away, but I am still too scared to go alone.
As for work, it is also very different. I work at Dunduliza, the company that oversees a network of 35 SACCOs (basically credit-unions). The network is structured a lot like Desjardins back home and each SACCO is an independent coop, rather than a branch agency of a private entity. Some SACCOs are located in very remote rural areas not even accessible by car and employ 1 or 2 people. The goal is to make this network financially viable by the end of 2009 (this is no easy task). Right now, a lot of funds come from the government who is trying to encourage development through microfinance loans.
As for friends, I have been hanging out with a Rwandan called Maurice. He is the nephew of my boss and has lost both his parents. His goal is to go to Canada to study nursing, like his sister. He is a courageous guy who has tasted both the tough life and the good life and knows what he wants. We plan on going to eat sushi sometime this week.
Alright, that’s it for now. Hope everyone is doing well back home in the cold. I would gladly send you some of this heat if I could.
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