Local Transport and a New Car

I wrote the following blog post back in October about an experience (one of many!) I had taking local transport around Iringa region. In the end, I thought I sounded a bit whiny so I didn't post it. I am happy to report that my reasoning has now been made redundant by a very kind donation of funds for a vehicle for Mama Bahati Foundation! We are all so excited about the new possibilites that a vehicle opens up for MBF's work in the rural areas around Iringa. And since, public transport is no longer a must, I can freely share my many opinions about the Dalla Dalla...enjoy!

There are four of us going to the field today. Myself, Joram, the credit officer and the three MBF trainees. We are taking the Dalla Dalla (local minibus taxis) to Ifunda, a rural village outside of Iringa. We all have to arrive at the office extra early when we take public transport as the whole process adds at least an hour and a half to transport time. We meet at the office and walk to the crowded bus stand together, weaving through the mass of hawkers, taxis, minibuses and coaches. When we locate the minibus to Ifunda, my companions very kindly offer me the front seat of the dalla dalla with the driver. Stupidly I decline and follow Joram’s lead, boarding the van and walking towards the back. We climb over seats where there should be no seats and other customers—grey-haired grannies, school kids, business men with laptops , young women in trendy clothing—to land in the back row. I am squashed between Joram and a woman, who is holding a squawking parcel on her lap. After our friendly greeting, she promptly situates her vocal parcel in my lap. Apparently I have a new pet chicken!

The dalla dalla begins to crawl through town with the sliding side door wide open, the hawker leaning his body out over the pavement to solicit customers as we go. The minibus begins to fill until at one point there is 29 people in a 12 person vehicle. (At this point you are thinking, she is exaggerating. Let me assure you, I’m not.) My line of sight is limited to a tangle of limbs and torsos as well as the cropped, braided and colorfully wrapped heads of the passengers in front of me. Now I understand why Tanzanians are so friendly and chatty with each other on public transport as it is difficult to ignore someone with whom you are awkwardly squished into an embrace—this all in a country where there are social prohibitions against holding your husband or wife’s hand in public. While awkwardly embracing my neighbor, two school girls next to me take turns surreptitiously patting my hair and remarking in Swahilli how my hair feels different to their own. I am powerless to do anything but laugh as my arms are pinned at my sides.

Once we leave town and get going, its better not to be able to see the road flying by. Nonetheless, all of my senses are flashing warning signals of imminent danger! The rattling of the old dalla dalla, the sound of the air whooshing by and the numerous times that the van hits an invisible bump and catches air have me trying to think happy thoughts and take deep breaths. Joram keeps catching my eye and then laughing because of the anxious look on my face. Amazingly, we stop at two traffic safety checkpoints by police officers who then wave us on! After an hour and a half of this (to drive 50 km), we arrive at Ifunda (late!) and all pile out into the fresh air and sunshine. We have all sweat through our clothes and my face is smudged with dust turned mud. Hilariously, we now have to pull ourselves together to appear professional as there is a meeting of 80 MBF clients, who have been waiting for their credit officers and trainers to arrive. What a way to do business! We look a sight.

I can laugh about this because for me the dalla dalla is more of a one off than a regular necessity. I can’t imagine the extra time and the good humour that is required to ride the dalla dalla every day. And yet the MBF staff do just that in order to provide financial services to the most needy clients in rural areas outside Iringa. I applaud them for their stoicism and the sacrifices they are willing to make for clients in need!

Going to the Field

Four or five mornings a week, Immaculate or one of the other credit officers will go to the ‘field’ for what’s called a centre meeting. At the centre meeting, between 50-100 clients will meet with an MBF staff member and discuss what’s going on with their businesses as well as make payments against their loans. To the credit of the MBF staff, they will happily travel up to three hours roundtrip in the dalladalla to hold a centre meeting for those clients who would otherwise lack access to financial services. The first time I accompany Immaculate, we squash ourselves into the local taxis with the chickens and dried goods of the other people heading out to the rural areas and bump along for an hour and a half to arrive at the town of Ilula. During the course of our journey, one of the (live) chickens has somehow gotten lost under the overcrowded seats of the dalladalla and so we all have to take a moment upon arrival to help the owner locate it.

Due to road construction, we are late and as we walk the dusty paths to the centre meeting site, we knock on the doors of various clients to notify them of our arrival. The women pause in their work, selling vegetables or making chapatis for their food stalls to greet us and come to the meeting. The meeting site is a humble room, part of a complex of government buildings, with a cement floor, a long table and several couches that lack any cushions. As the women arrive, Immaculate explains who I am and that I am learning Swahili. She invites the clients to ask me any questions they might have about where I am from and what I am doing in Tanzania. This is a big mistake as the clients begin to drill me with questions, taking me through the paces of all of my Swahili. After 1 ½ hours, my brain train wrecks and I can no longer think let alone form sentences in Swahili.

Seeing that I have been taken out of the equation, they turn to chatting among themselves while they wait to see Immaculate. Given the opportunity to now just watch the proceedings, I am amazed by the level of organization that is managed with just a pencil and paper. One at a time, Immaculate calls up a group of 4 to 5 women. Each group has a name, which varies from the very practical, Ilula Market to the more flowery, God Bless or Hallelujah. All the group members carry small books that contain the details of their loan, their repayment efforts and their compulsory and voluntary savings which they present to Immaculate. Using a trusty calculator, Immaculate records the new balances of all their loans and savings in their books following their repayment. Their details are then separately recorded by one of the clients who has been elected as a secretary by the centre group. In this way, the women know who is on top of their repayment and who is behind. They can then encourage each other as well as keep each other accountable.

Considering that we will soon begin to develop the training arm of MBF, I watch all the proceedings with an eye to considering how basic business skills training can fit into this picture. It is clear that the centre meetings are a place of exchange. MBF has built up trust with this community, so that Immaculate and the staff can both joke comfortably with clients as well as discuss serious matters of hearth and home with them. When clients sit together and wait to see Immaculate or the other credit officers, they are constantly sharing information and experiences. I am excited that this lively time for exchange can be converted at least partially into training opportunities that we can hopefully match with their needs.

Another Day at the Office

Each morning of the work week, I walk 30 minutes to the Mama Bahati Foundation office. Walking in the front door, I am politely greeted with the many different Swahili greetings (What’s the news of the morning? What’s the news from home? How did you sleep? How is your health?). Then, I’m told ‘you are welcome.’ Seeing as I have now been here for 5 weeks, this seems quite formal to me. And yet, it also seems that I am the only one with whom formality is the norm. There seems to be a constant stream of visitors and clients coming into and out of the MBF office. I marvel how each person seems to be put at ease by the laughter and good natured banter of the MBF staff. There is also almost always some form of music playing which adds to the congenial atmosphere. This is common in Tanzania, where the radio or Christian worship music forms the backdrop of many a setting in which it might seem out of place in the West. Most mornings, I can hear all the other staff members singing along enthusiastically as they sit at their desks doing paperwork. As I have learned more Swahili and can understand some of the songs, I try to forget my self-consciousness and join in as I figure it must be part of the job description here.

Although most of MBF’s work happens in the field, clients from Iringa municipality sometimes come to the office for ‘marijesho,’ or repayment in Swahili. They arrive in their loan groups, of four or five women at a time, and often use the local tribal dialect to greet the staff rather than the more formal Swahili greetings. They wear colorful combinations of Kangas, the traditional wrap covering of Tanzanian women as both their skirt and their top. Depending upon their age, they carry babies on their backs. Some days the office starts to look like a clinic as a long queue of women and babies wait in the hall to be seen by one of the credit officers or David, the accountant.

Clients come to pay their weekly installment of their MBF loan. Depending on how many loans they have successfully repaid, a client might repay $5 of their $50 dollar loan, plus any voluntary savings that they might want to deposit. It’s particularly humbling to watch these transactions as often the sums they have scraped and consciously set aside to save are what I might spend on a can of Fanta. And yet, this is the heart of the discipline of microfinance, that sums of money that seem small or insignificant to Westerners make a difference in the lives of women here. Not by our efforts but by theirs. And little by little, their efforts add up, in the form of their savings and their expanding businesses.

And then as soon as ‘repayment’ has begun, it’s over and the clients are off. With many loud thank you’s and handshakes exchanged with the staff and shy good byes offered to me (the white bystander), the clients are out the door and back to their businesses

A Place to Start

Today marks the beginning of my fourth week in Iringa. I can hardly believe it. Funny how the hours of each day seem to pass slowly and yet the cumulative effect is one of time flying by. The things which at one point seemed impossibly foreign and new have gained a familiar cast. Now instead of bouncing along in survival mode, I have started to absorb and appreciate my surroundings here.

Iringa is a place full of life and noise. Although it is one of the larger towns in Tanzania’s southern highlands, it only just tips the scales of a city—really two parts market town, three parts metropolis. From its highest point, Gangilonga Rock, you can see semi arid hills of scrub brush and rocky outcrops for miles in all directions. From this perspective, the Jacaranda-lined streets look deceptively peaceful. And yet, each morning a cacophony of noise begins and lasts throughout the day. Stopping to listen at any point you may hear the Muslim call to prayer, roosters crowing, dog barking, children laughing, women haggling over bananas, fish and beans in the market, taxis soliciting customers and belching smoke as they drive away.

Kiswahili is my constant companion as I endeavor to learn the language that narrates life here. Each morning I spend two hours in lessons, trying to absorb the many Tanzanian greetings and linguistic customs. Luckily Swahili is quite similar to Xhosa, the Bantu language that I studied in South Africa. And so, although much of the vocabulary is different, the principles are largely the same.

Becoming (at least) functional in Swahili is a prerequisite for any other work with the Mama Bahati Foundation (MBF). MBF is the local partner of Five Talents, the microfinance organization that I represent here. Their office is located in the centre of town and it stands out in my mind as an oasis of calm. My work with the organisation is really just beginning as I try to mentally map out, who does what, when they do it and where there might be opportunities to improve the growing bundle of microfinance services they offer to the community. And this is what I fixed my mind on for now, just like I have done with my physical surroundings, I have to observe and map the many goings on at MBF now that I have adjusted to my new surroundings. It doesn't seem like much but it's a place to start.

I'm off

Today I leave for Tanzania.  I will be embarking on my Five Talents Fellowship and this blog will serve as a record of that experience. Five Talents is the microfinance initiative of the Anglican Church.  It provides loans and business skills training in 10 countries around the world.  I will be working with one of their newest microfinance partners, the Mama Bahati Foundation in Iringa, Tanzania to support their business skills training programme for new entrepreneurs.

In considering my near future, I have been mentally revisiting the last time I lived and worked overseas as a missionary with the Episcopal Church in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.  I have been reading my old missionary journals as well as the email updates that I sent back to my supporters at home.  In remembering the people I met and worked with then, and the joys and struggles of their lives, I am moved and encouraged even now, two years later.

So with this blog, I hope to renew the practice of noticing and communicating the ways that I see God’s redemptive plan at work in the lives of individual people. What will this look like?  Stories—practical stories of the people that I meet and how their lives are being positively changed.  Microfinance is nothing if not this: a very practical way for individuals to change their own circumstances through taking on small scale loans and training.

I hope their stories will be a source of hope that change can and does happen in real and practical ways.