All Blog Posts (314)

I have spent the past two days manning the SELFINA booth at the Saba Saba Trade Fair.  It's actually quite a nice break from my office duties.  I get to sit, explain SELFINA to passerby, chat with clients, and listen to a jazz CD that plays on loops with American favorites like "My Heart Will Go On" and "Never Gonna Dance Again."

Apparently on Tuesday, one of our borrowers, Theresia, came into the office very upset.  She was nominated but not selected to present at the fair. …

So after yesterday's wallet theft, I was ready for a change of scenery and wasn't particularly chomping at the bit to get on the dalla dalla to Kawe.  So I was relieved when Dr. Victoria asked me to take Bertha's spot representing SELFINA at the Saba Saba International Trade Fair, as Bertha is sick in the hospital.

It took just about two hours to reach the trade fair.  I was glad I had bought my chipati at Mwenge, so I could munch on the way.  But I didn't once remove my eyes…

So before I start off a relatively depressing post...some light humor.  In the past few days, I have seen at least three grown, abnormally muscular men in pale-pink sorority t-shirts.  I am guessing that they have no idea what the greek letters represent.  If they did, I doubt that they would be as willing to be billboards for various sisterhoods (specifically Alpha Phi and Sigma Kappa).

After John's goodbye bash, I headed home.  I saw that the group at the movie star were…

Sunday was a day to catch my breath.  I woke up with a start at 8 am, realizing that I had not woken up at 3 am as I should have to finish discussing the remainder of the applications!  I immediately sent an email to Ray, Ari, and Steph, apologizing for not rejoining the conversation.  Turns out the other two abroad leaders, in Switzerland and Italy respectively, had fallen asleep as well!  This made me feel a little better.

Nothing particularly exciting happened on Sunday.  I caught…

Without power, I was totally unable to get any work done for Hilltop, MCSC, or (especially!) FOCI.  So I decided to take Steven up on his offer to meet some of his friends.  He told me to meet him around 10 pm at a bar called Survey, which was conveniently located between Mlimani and the University.

At 10 pm, I left my apartment.  My gate keeper helped me look for a taxi, to no avail.  I knew that it was SO close, but there was no way that I was walking there in the dark by myself at…

After a good night’s sleep, I was much calmer and no longer bubbling with frustration over the 10,000 Women debacle (which was actually far from over).  I got to the University before it opened, so I decided to stop at the same café for my insanely cheap cup of coffee and some chipati.  I sat in pure bliss.  There is nothing better than reading a good book while dipping warm chipati into a steaming cup of coffee.  Nothing.

A muzungo came up and asked if he could join me.  I silently…

On Thursday, I started the day not believing that four weeks had already passed!  At the end of the day, I couldn't believe that I had five weeks left.

I was sent to report to the University of Dar es Salaam.  I had sent an introductory and two follow up emails to the Program Coordinator of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Program.  Mr. John Baitani had not gotten back to me.  I’ve realized that the “48 hour response” rule that governs email courtesy in the US does not apply here.  You have…

So on Thursday, Edwin stumbled into the office over two hours late.  But he looked so upset, I pretended not to notice.  Finally, I asked what had happened.  Turns out someone had broken into his home and stolen his laptop.  It cost about 800,000 TZS and was a devastating loss.  Yes, he had it password locked, but that wouldn’t help much.  And the police were not a go-to resource.  I thought about what would happen if someone stole my laptop.  I would probably call 911 or the campus police…

Sadly, today is our last day in Zanzibar.  Again, the sunrise was blocked by a stubborn front of clouds.  But again, the breakfast was delicious.  I wanted to stead a handful of that delicious vanilla tea, but prudently decided against it.  It was the same as the day before, except in place of chipati, there was something that was like a spicy hash brown.  Yum all around.  I always eat better with the Georgetown crew than I do on my own.

For the day, we were headed off to a…

My body unwillingly awoke at 6 am. After cursing my internal time table, I went out to the pool area to see if I could catch the sun rise above the glistening horizon. Unfortunately, a thick layer of clouds blocked this picturesque view. But breakfast TOTALLY made up for it. We had this delicious “African Pride” Vanilla Tea that was lusciously sweet. And we also had a full plate of fresh fruit: mangos, papaya, bananas, pineapple, and orange. This was followed by fresh toast with jam and…

So not much is new at work.  It was just a day of tying up loose ends.  I submitted the Tigo Pesa proposal and the proposal for the two schools in Njombe and Tukuyu to Airtel, because Airtel's CSR focuses specifically on primary schools.  And at long last, I finished the weekly report to everyone's satisfaction.  As stated earlier, there is no way that I am going into accounting. 

As promised, Caroline and I got our chips with fresh meat.  Chips= french fries.  Except no one…

The past few days at work have been sooo busy!  I literally haven't even had time to log onto Facebook! Hahaha.  The first order of business was completing the stories for the newsletter.  In addition to the IT training, my bio, and the first client profile, we decided to include a letter from Dr. Kisyombe, a short paragraph about the upcoming trade fair, a paragraph about our CSR outreach, and another client profile.  This profile was of a woman named Neema.  Unfortunately, her husband…

So even though it was Saturday and I had been out early last night with my new Tanzanian friends, it was time for work.  Yes, I was at the office at 7:30 am on a Saturday morning.  Why do I have this dark feeling that this is a harbinger for my future/real adult life?  Except then, it won't be so I can go on an AWESOME trip to Zanzibar.  It will be because I have to keep my job/get a promotion/earn my bonus.  Moral of the story: I need to do as much living as I can when I'm…

Today is sadly the last day of IT Training!  Because TAYOA's Magomeni branch's Internet was spotty, we moved to TAYOA HQ, which is actually really close (same dala-dala stop close aka a three minute walk close) to SELFINA's HQ.  It is a beautiful three story building adorned with handpainted images about AIDS education.  While I was waiting for clients to arrived, I browsed on the guy from Harvard's laptop because he randomly had three for "no good reason."  I am really impresses with…

Today is officially the two week mark of my time here in Dar!  I went back to the Tayoa office today for the second day of IT training.  Training started an hour late, at 9:30, but I am starting to get used to this on time is early lifestyle (though admittedly not adopting it myself).  The women came in and were much warmer to me today than yesterday.  One woman, Eliza, even insisted that I come over for dinner, as she would like to be my "rafiki." 

At 9:30, I had to leave to…