The Grant recipients in the Ngaromtoni, Nayamani and Esther.
The hills of Ngaromtoni, its taking alot of energy andI'm eating so much so I can walk for hrs everyday!Start of the week
Ngaramtoni…not a good start but a good end
Ngaramtoni…not a good start but a good end
Its 9.30pm and I can’t even keep my eyes open….walking up and down the hills has killed me off today! It felt like Mount Longido all over again today, after 2 hrs of walking in the hills I felt like my legs couldn’t go on. I noticed a change in the temperature today it was so hot and I felt burning on my neck whilst walking to one of our grant recipients. I spent the day in Ngaramtoni today, to see the status of the 4 grant recipients. Flora was due to have had her chicken house extended to a two tier in the last week. Both Esther and Nayanami have purchased their vegetable plots and now are in the process of selling to wholesalers or restaurants in the town.
We needed to find out if Evelyn’s food shack was making more profit too. She had invested the grant in new equipment to enable her to produce more quantities of the food she sold. As for Dora, I went around the market today to see what type of businesses were most popular and which one’s were sparse in order to identify a business opportunity for Dora. We are not going with her initial idea of selling maize – as there are a dozen sellers of this already. However after the early start we were finished by 1pm and had been unsuccessful in catching up with any of the recipients.As they were all working in farms which were a located a fair distance from their homes. So you could image the disappointment after walking up the hills for 2 hrs and not to find Flora there and no sign of materials or the expansion of the chicken house. It was very unusual as we tend to meet at least 4/5 recipients on a normal day. But it’s always a gamble as most of them live high in the hills and do not own a phone, so it is always important to arrange a day and time to visit whereby both parties stick to the plan. The rest of the day was spent in town, as I wanted to meet up with the country manager Kate. This was to finalise the criteria I had come up with to assess the potential applicants for the small business loans in Kwa Idd. I’m also grateful that my home stay is only an hour’s walk from town, because I can get access to the net if I start work early at 7 and finish by 4 so I can fit in the net café before it gets dark and dangerous. As for the work, I have come to enjoy the level of responsibility and independence that I am give to carry out the projects, it’s really nice to know both of the country managers have faith in you to lead these projects on behalf of the NGO.
19 May – Kwa idd
its all about the visits…..
Carried out 10 visits today! the journey on the dala dala is becoming more entertaining everyday ..I ended up being pushed into an overflowing bus today with my ass sticking out the door. The locals were laughing saying how muzungus don’t know how to huddle! If you ask me if I got any closer to them I’d be in a humping position,sod that!! So I laughed with them and said’ nimeelewa’ which means ‘I understand’ Mzungu huh! So now I just laugh with them and say I understand to everything lol!i also learnt today why I get called this, regardless of me looking like an Indian. A local said to me how you never see a Tanzanian Indian walking, because they all have cars. Hence they come to the conclusion I’m a foreigner. Walking up to my house has also become quite funny…Habari Mzungu is how I am greeted..my reply nzuri Africana!! The responses are great to that one..good job they have a sense of humour too! I COULD NOT MOVE by the time I got through the front gate today. Was so shattered I noticed my lack of concentration when trying to cross the main roads to walk home today. I was a cheeky sod by crossing and making cars stop for me. just didn’t have the energy to wait and wait for a opening for me to run across today! NOT A SMART PARV! Today was a tough day, I was working towards ensuring selection would take place before the weeks out. So this mean majority of the visits had to be carried out today as I lose couple of hrs 2mro as it’s the committee meeting for the group. This ended up being the case as I was on a mission to walk to all the families like a woman possessed and complete the visits accordingly to the criteria I ran past Kate yesterday. The committee members were surprised as to how much energy I had and the distance I could walk and not say ‘I’m tired, enough for today’ but this also showed them my level of commitment. There was a range of potential recipients I visited today…
19 May – Kwa idd
its all about the visits…..
Carried out 10 visits today! the journey on the dala dala is becoming more entertaining everyday ..I ended up being pushed into an overflowing bus today with my ass sticking out the door. The locals were laughing saying how muzungus don’t know how to huddle! If you ask me if I got any closer to them I’d be in a humping position,sod that!! So I laughed with them and said’ nimeelewa’ which means ‘I understand’ Mzungu huh! So now I just laugh with them and say I understand to everything lol!i also learnt today why I get called this, regardless of me looking like an Indian. A local said to me how you never see a Tanzanian Indian walking, because they all have cars. Hence they come to the conclusion I’m a foreigner. Walking up to my house has also become quite funny…Habari Mzungu is how I am greeted..my reply nzuri Africana!! The responses are great to that one..good job they have a sense of humour too! I COULD NOT MOVE by the time I got through the front gate today. Was so shattered I noticed my lack of concentration when trying to cross the main roads to walk home today. I was a cheeky sod by crossing and making cars stop for me. just didn’t have the energy to wait and wait for a opening for me to run across today! NOT A SMART PARV! Today was a tough day, I was working towards ensuring selection would take place before the weeks out. So this mean majority of the visits had to be carried out today as I lose couple of hrs 2mro as it’s the committee meeting for the group. This ended up being the case as I was on a mission to walk to all the families like a woman possessed and complete the visits accordingly to the criteria I ran past Kate yesterday. The committee members were surprised as to how much energy I had and the distance I could walk and not say ‘I’m tired, enough for today’ but this also showed them my level of commitment. There was a range of potential recipients I visited today…
everyone had their story and plans and aspirations I felt a little sad as I knew we can only help a 1/3 of these people and some will be turned down. It made me feel helpless but at the same time I realised the fact that no matter how many people I try and help there will always be somebody who will be disappointed and disheartened that I couldn’t do anything further for them. This made it even more important to me to get this selection right; if we chose the right recipients then this would ensure repayment would be assured. So money would be put back into the pot to be distributed for the 2nd road between 3- 6 months.
The next day I managed another 6 visits and attended the committee meeting for the last part of the day. Also met Mama Minja , she is a very respected and recognised figure within the community as she has carried out a similat project for women in business in a town close by. I have to say it was very interesting to meet her, as she wanted us to give equal amounts to 10 recipients so it would be easier to collect the repayments on a monthly basis. As the amounts would all be the same. Although this required me to discuss the importance in not treating all the individuals the same as everyone has different expectation and levels of support they required. So it was vital we see each case with the merit it deserved instead of trying to think about how it would be easier for collecting the repayments. I think she was also being biased against the individuals who had very little money but great business ideas on generating income.
21 May
Lets change the plan Parv…?
I was hoping to get the visits all typed up to include the financial information in clear format. However at the end of the meting yesterday we came across 4 women who hadn’t been interviewed. The reason being they worked as manual labourers on nearby farms – it was at this point I made the decision to delay the selection by one day and meet up with these 4 women. For all we knew they could have some really good ideas on how to generate income, the micro-finance loans could make a real difference to them and their families. They probably could not come due to the work commitments; therefore these women looked like they really needed help in terms of improving their lives. However they had asked if I could conduct the visits in the afternoon today as they all had HIV clinics to attend in the am. Sadly none of the four showed up in the afternoon I waited for 2 hours, thinking they must have real good reasons for running late. But I think they could not afford to take any time out to do all of this application for loan business. I was really gutted and had to accept that if they really wanted to be helped they would have turned up..but I couldn’t help thinking maybe they didn’t have any confidence in us..maybe something happened to them on the way back from the clinics? But Dan explained this is common, sometimes the ones that really need the money to better their livelihoods get used to the way things are and don’t expect anything or any help from anybody – so don’t bother. Walking back down the hills to the bus stand was a silent journey….I was trying to come to terms with the outcome of today and came to realise you can’t help everybody you come across. I can only do the best I can during my time here and that will have to be good enough for me. Sometimes such problems are out of my control, for me to try and reach out to these to try and help will not always be possible. Lesson learned.
The next day I managed another 6 visits and attended the committee meeting for the last part of the day. Also met Mama Minja , she is a very respected and recognised figure within the community as she has carried out a similat project for women in business in a town close by. I have to say it was very interesting to meet her, as she wanted us to give equal amounts to 10 recipients so it would be easier to collect the repayments on a monthly basis. As the amounts would all be the same. Although this required me to discuss the importance in not treating all the individuals the same as everyone has different expectation and levels of support they required. So it was vital we see each case with the merit it deserved instead of trying to think about how it would be easier for collecting the repayments. I think she was also being biased against the individuals who had very little money but great business ideas on generating income.
21 May
Lets change the plan Parv…?
I was hoping to get the visits all typed up to include the financial information in clear format. However at the end of the meting yesterday we came across 4 women who hadn’t been interviewed. The reason being they worked as manual labourers on nearby farms – it was at this point I made the decision to delay the selection by one day and meet up with these 4 women. For all we knew they could have some really good ideas on how to generate income, the micro-finance loans could make a real difference to them and their families. They probably could not come due to the work commitments; therefore these women looked like they really needed help in terms of improving their lives. However they had asked if I could conduct the visits in the afternoon today as they all had HIV clinics to attend in the am. Sadly none of the four showed up in the afternoon I waited for 2 hours, thinking they must have real good reasons for running late. But I think they could not afford to take any time out to do all of this application for loan business. I was really gutted and had to accept that if they really wanted to be helped they would have turned up..but I couldn’t help thinking maybe they didn’t have any confidence in us..maybe something happened to them on the way back from the clinics? But Dan explained this is common, sometimes the ones that really need the money to better their livelihoods get used to the way things are and don’t expect anything or any help from anybody – so don’t bother. Walking back down the hills to the bus stand was a silent journey….I was trying to come to terms with the outcome of today and came to realise you can’t help everybody you come across. I can only do the best I can during my time here and that will have to be good enough for me. Sometimes such problems are out of my control, for me to try and reach out to these to try and help will not always be possible. Lesson learned.
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