Shipwrecked!

Sometimes being wrong is a great feeling. You haven't missed your flight yet, those wild berries you bravely sampled don't make you sick, you aren't as lost as you thought. I have gotten scarily good at fooling myself into thinking that I have 'judging a book by its cover' down to a spiritual science. It has become a common party trick. So while our boy Malcolm Gladwell can take a bit of the blame for that one, I feel a need to own up to my own shortcomings. And thankfully, even my misjudgments work out for the best, it seems.

Mtwara, I misjudged you.

I started this post about three weeks ago, two weeks into my Tanzanian adventure. I have been surprised and disappointed at my own loss for words, to the point where writing has felt like an assignment incurring late penalties that you still can’t manage to hammer out and forget about. Frankly, I think it comes mostly from this cocktail of culture shock, inhaled dust, and my big head overheating under the (winter!!!) sun, and my less-than-sunny mood that emerged from it all. During my formative weeks in Tanzania, I am sad to admit that I couldn't see the beauty here.  I saw (and smelled) a sea of garbage, heard a sleepless city, tasted border-line food poisoning, and felt… well, uncomfortable.

Through a series of fortunate events, I was able to make my peace with Dar es Salaam, where I spent the first week of my time in TZ, before heading south down the coast for my new home base, Mtwara.  As much as I tried to pump myself up for a clean slate while in transit to Mtwara on a small, pray-to-god-we-don’t-go-down, plane, no amount of positive self-talk could have gotten me off the “what the hell am I doing here” wave.

I rode that wave (or more like was tossed and pummeled by it) for my first moments in Mtwara. Yet, now, coming up on my one-month anniversary here, I can hardly remember feeling anything but excitement, curiosity and belonging.  Emotional amnesia is a blessing and a curse!

I credit the flipping of my switch to my housemates Gillian and Tanya, who see (and create) beauty here. Gillian is essentially me one year down the road (she started out here as an Aga Khan Fellow last year and ended up staying) and Tanya started her journey here three years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer before getting hired on with the Aga Khan Foundation’s Coastal Rural Support Program Tanzania (CRSPT). 

CRSPT runs on similar principles as the Program where I am working for the remaining 7 months of my 8 month adventure. CARE International administers the program, which is called Pathways to Empowerment. Pathways, which operates in 6 countries in Africa and Asia is funded by Mr. and Mrs. Gates, and is said to be the darling of CARE’s current development programming. The program targets women smallholder farmers, with the goal of improving their productivity and equitable participation in sustainable agricultural systems. The basic logic behind working with women is that they deliver a higher return on development dollars – they use their increased income and social positions for improving the nutrition and education of their families. Pathways has identified what the drivers of change are toward its ultimate goal, in its Theory of Change.

Back to waves and cocktails... (don’t mind if I do!)

I have noticed that my time spent here in Mtwara with Tanya, Gillian, and their wonderfully eclectic group of odd-ball friends, has already taught me something important about community.  It hit me recently that the last time I lived in a social ecosystem where everyone knows everyone was in high school.  And while I would wager that many of us would be praying never to repeat the high school experience again, I feel this tight community is just what I need at this point in my life and career. There is something very humbling about not being able to choose your friends, or the team you work in. It teaches you to be accepting of everyone, and to find a unique love for each person in your community.

In Tanzania people call each other brothers and sisters.(Kaka means brother and Dada means sister… and yes, for the first couple of days it feels like you’re calling women ‘Dad.’ ) You may not even know the name of a guy you have been calling Kaka for months or years… as the case goes with our current night watchman. The way I see it, the mere gesture of calling people brothers and sisters is significant. To an extent, language shapes a culture’s norms and values.

So as the work and social pots simmer steadily, I plan to dedicate special attention to learning the language of Timone, Pumba, and my new dada and kaka. Aside from this romantic side of it all, I expect it will make life and work here a whole lot easier. The villages I have been to so far on my field visits have been very forgiving of my broken Swahili and have greeted me with great warmth and enthusiasm. (Fun fact for the online shoppers—Kijiji means village in Swahili.) I hope to surprise them next time I come around with at least a C- level vocab. Barely hanging on with a D- right now… my miming skills and sound effects have been doing most of the legwork.

While I’ve thankfully climbed out of the murky waters of my initial impressions of Mtwara as a “what the hell am I doing here” sort of place, I still haven’t figured out what the hell I am doing here. And maybe it is for my own good not to try to figure things out, per se. It has been a while since I have just let myself float.  That’s the challenge and the thrill I see before me. Discomfort demands of its subjects new levels of openness, acceptance, risk taking, and personal development.

Karibu to my blog, where I will attempt to chart (or bob along) these treacherous seas. I hope to share some pearls from my dives into the deep with all of you back home in Canada and scattered around the world. 

Sincerely yours,

Dada Ola