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.