The Start

What a whirl wind it has been! I ran my first marathon, finished up my presidential term at the USC and left for Africa all in one week. I have been here now for five days and already have had the most unbelievable experience.

I left Ontario on Saturday and had a full day layover in Amsterdam. I intended on finding a corner in the airport to set up camp to send emails and finish up some reports for work, but as I was getting off the plane I noticed a friendly face. It turned out that four other students from Western were going to work in Africa as well and were on the same flight. So with this new discovery I decided to forget about emails and venture into Amsterdam with the others. We took the train into central Amsterdam and grabbed some breakfast and wandered around. We went through Anne Fran’s house which was quite an amazing experience. After having read her diaries growing up it was pretty unbelievable to actually tour where the stories took place. It was pouring rain by the time we were finished and we were starting to get tired. We decided to do some work walking and explore a little more. Once the rain let up a little it was quite enjoyable. By the time we were ready to head back to the airport we were all exhausted. We boarded the flight and when I woke up we were about to land in Kenya. The layover in Kenya was quick and before we knew it we were in Mwanza. The sun was pouring down on us as we got off the plane. When we finally got our Tanzanian visas and our luggage we were all very relieved to see a friendly face to greet us at the airport. Marta was there and had taxi’s ready to take us all back to the apartment. We dropped our things off and headed out to explore the town. The students that had arrived a week earlier took us around to get money and phones organized and we grabbed lunch at an amazing pizzeria. Marta and I spent the rest of the afternoon going over what we had to do for the week and how we had to get ready for our trip to Arusha at the end of the week. That evening we went for dinner on Lake Victoria with the entire Western crew. There were 10 of us total from Western and it was nice to have some time all together. We ate fish, watched the sun set, had an amazing campfire and played some pool. We spent the evening with some other students working in Mwanza. Below - all Western interns together.

It was the perfect first day, although not all what I was expecting. The apartment was much nicer than what I had imagined and I was not expecting to know people right off the bat, especially people that knew how to speak English. I’m not 100% sure how to articulate what I was expected but it wasn’t that. Since the program has developed over the past few years Western students have built up a strong community in Mwanza. There is a support group of people to connect with who are willing to show you around and help you settle in. It was nice having an overlap with outgoing interns who were able to show us the ropes. It was almost too easy. I feel like Arusha may be a bit more challenging as we will be the first to establish any sort of support system.

Tuesday we woke up early to get a good start on the day and headed to the kitchen to meet the yogurt Mamas and get a better idea of the daily operations. The kitchen is located on top of a hill, at the end of a market road. To get to the kitchen you must pass stands selling food and clothes. This was my first real experience feeling “different”. As we walked up the hill everyone was staring, some were pointing and others were yelling “Mazungu” which is Swahili for “foreigner”. At first you laugh and keep walking but as the days passed I realized this pointing and yelling would never end. It’s actually quite frustrating at times. You cannot possibly ever fit in solely based on the colour of your skin. No matter how much Swahili you know or how hard you try to fit in you will always be known as a “Mazungu”. Most of the time it is not used as a derogatory term but rather just a term describing the obvious, but it becomes an identity.

When we arrived at the kitchen I got to meet the Mamas and see how the yogurt was made. I even got to taste some! Despite the sour taste and lumpy texture in comparison to North American yogurt, I quite enjoyed it. We spent some time there with the Mamas but found it hard to engage because of the communication barrier. The kitchen itself was quite impressive – very clean and organized.

In the evening we went to a local tribal community and were entertained as we watched some traditional dance performances, one involving a MASSIVE snake. It was amazing! The last dance they invited us to come up and follow along. As we danced the children of the tribe were losing it! They thought it was hilarious that a bunch of white girls were up dancing. It was quite funny. For dinner we went to a local pub around the corner by our apartment and I tried Ugali for the first time. It is a very common dish that African’s eat all the time essentially made of flour and water and used to dip in sauce or broth from meat or fish. It was good, not very exciting, and more of a filler than anything, but fun to try. As we ventured back to the apartment, now very dark out, we realized we did not have a key to get in. We knew that the housekeeper, Margaret, would have a key so we took a taxi to where she lived and had people help us find her. This was quite the experience. Margaret lives on the hillside around central Mwanza. Her neighbourhood was a mix of small stucco houses with tin roofs and mud huts. Only a few houses had electricity and in the dark it was very hard to see around. It is in a place like that, that one realizes just how lucky we have it. I was very happy to have been able to see the real side of Mwanza, not the apartment and lifestyle the Western interns experience while working for the summer – quite a difference between the two. Once safe and sound in the apartment Marta and I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning to finish the business plan, budget and price analysis for start-up in Arusha. It was a late night but very productive. Wednesday we woke up early to finish number crunching and finalize the start up manual as we had to get it printed and photocopied to be ready for the Arusha teams’ arrival later that night. What a process it was to print and photocopy! An easy task in Canada, like printing, turned out to be the most painfully slow and excruciatingly sluggish task in Africa. It took us three hours to print 40 pages and photocopy them twice to have a total of three booklets. A task so straight-forward and simple required unnecessary amounts of energy and time. It was definitely a good test of patience. In the meantime we enjoyed cooked bananas from across the street. They were UNREAL and are my new official favourite food.

The Arusha team, comprised of the coordinator from Youth Self Empowerment Programme (YSEP) and three Mamas arrived late Wednesday night. We picked them up from the bus station, grabbed some dinner and took them to their hotel. Thursday and Friday were all business as we took the Arusha team to the yogurt kitchen to learn to make yogurt and ask the Mamas questions (Marta and I with Arusha team at Yogurt kitchen in Mwanza), went over the budget and business plan, took them to the lab to learn about the probiotic strain, took them to The Kivolini Women’s Organization (the founding funders of the kitchen in Mwanza) to speak with the executive director about the start up process in Mwanza and took them to the market so they could buy some fish. It was a full and busy two days. We are getting up early tomorrow to get on the 6am bus to head back to Arusha to spend the rest of the summer and get this kitchen up and running!