28/9 and 29/9: Swahili weekend

This morning when I was going to my Swahili lesson I saw one of my Kilimanjaro porters! I think we were both really surprised, I mean it was on my Sakina road, so not just around town. I had long given up seeing any of them again; as I thought that when they aren’t on the mountain they are probably in Moshi. But there was reggae Jackson. He was on his bike and he saw me first and slowed down and then I saw him and I am sure we, or at least I, had the biggest smile on my face, and then we just said: “hi” and he moved on. But I saw him. I don’t know why it matters so much, but it made my day. I mean I never really talked to him when I was climbing Kili in the first place, but we went through this thing together that I think I will always look back on as one of the best things I have ever done. Then I had my Swahili lesson. Which wasn’t a whole lot of fun, PJ doesn’t make it as fun as Victoria tried to do, but I have still learned a lot, though most of it seems to go in and out in the same breath. I had three hours and then lunch and two and a half more after lunch. A lot I must say, but I need it. So after Saturday I was down to missing 36 hours. On Sunday I met Freja and Camille at the Mt. Meru market, I knew what I wanted: postcards and small gifts for my Icelandic cousins, a Kilimanjaro bracelet and a painting with Kilimanjaro on it. I got all of that, which is good because I really don’t have time to come back later with all the Swahili. Then I had another lesson for some three hours (though in truth only two as I was a bit late), but I was feeling unwell so we couldn’t do it for the originally planned four hours. Then when I got back I moved officially into Laura’s room. This is my last weekend in Arusha, it’s a bit weird, but with Mt. Meru and Zanzibar that’s all there’s left. 

27/9: Nafisa

Today we went to the Amani group first many of them were quite late and they were supposed to have a business plan ready, but it seems something was lost in translation last time, so they didn’t have anything. Then we went to a business visit to Nafisa’s business. She has a kerosene business, she goes to Kenya and buys it and sells it here, and it seems she makes quite a profit on it. After lunch we went to Mshikamano, by then it was so warm out that no one could concentrate and we just wanted to be done with it, but we got through all six post loan interviews/application reviews. Though it was only half done, which means we have created more work for us in the office for later. But it was just so hot! Then I walked home and just relaxed for the rest of the day. I even bought an ice cream in Sakina supermarket and it was wonderful to get something cold. Another thing is that Laura’s boyfriend sent her a DVD player and 30 DVDs, so we have been watching movies this week.

26/9: Fourth social

On Thursday we started off by visiting Paulina from the Amani group’s business. She has cows for milk, beans, chickpeas and she is doing quite well, but she is supporting an entire family of children and grandchildren so much of the money goes to that. After meeting her we went back to the office to work on the September report and now we are almost done, so we just need to add the finishing touches on Monday and then send it. As Chrissie will be in Zanzibar next week, it’ll just be Gustav and I until the next volunteer come sometime that week, so it is good to be done with most things. I was supposed to have a Swahili lesson today, but as PJ was in Moshi yesterday and today and left there too late, he didn’t show up. This is really irritating as I need so many more lessons in so little time I wanted to do a lot this week, now I won’t have time for anything else this weekend. In the evening it was social time, we went to the Mt. Meru hotel for a pizza buffet. The pizza wasn’t really all that interesting and it took them a long time to make, so that was nothing special, but it was fun as usual to meet all the others and talk about anything. So far we are five people for certain for the Mt. Meru trip next weekend. As Laura hasn’t been feeling all too well the last couple of days we went home after dinner, Laura had been given a letter to give to the family. A new person is coming. On Sunday. And he is going to use my room, so after two months in the same room I will move into Laura’s room, it’s going to be a bit weird, since we are used to being alone in our rooms. But it is only for two weeks until Zanzibar, where we will share a room anyway. He is from Switzerland, a year younger than me and apparently he has difficulty understanding. 

25/9: Fortunata

Today we went to the CHE group. As the last five women are finishing their loans we wanted to do post loan interviews with them. But as there was a funeral most of the women did not show up. In fact only two out of the ten women came and one of them just got a new loan. Fortunata was the only one there that is finishing her loan today. Her business is that she makes a nutritious porridge and she is making a lot of money on it, but she needs to expand her business as she is able to make 100 kg a month as it is, but there is a demand for 200 kg. In the afternoon we had a meeting with the chairwomen, though in truth only one of them was the actual chairwoman, but the rest represented their groups. It was a good meeting and we got a lot of positive feedback from the women and some things that we could do better, which was the real reason for having the meeting. To know what we can do better, that is also why we have made an evaluation survey we want to hand out to the women next week. 

23/9 and 24/9: Business visits

Today we went to the Riverside group and gave them their new loans. One of the women, Hadija,  had asked us to find a price for a scale, but this time she said she wanted to buy sardines instead so it is a bit difficult to be sure that they invest in what they put on their applications for the loan. We also visited Hadija’s shop and there is a lot of space left for stock. There was also a woman who came in asking for soap, Hadija didn’t have any and made a call. Less than ten minutes later a guy came with a box full of soap. But either way most of the women seem to benefit a great deal from the loans. In the afternoon I had a Swahili lesson, so we are down to 41,5 hours now, I want a lot of lessons this week and during the weekend so I won’t be so stressed during my last weeks in Arusha. But we’ll see. As the others were still on their safari I had a quiet day when I came back from the office and I started writing all of my Swahili into a new book where it can all be at once. On Tuesday we went out to Tengeru as usual, first to the Tupendane group. With them we did forecasting and planning training and Clementina, the chairwoman of the group, came up with the idea that for next time they should all come with a business plan that we can look over and see what would be most profitable. In the afternoon we visited the Ikusura group, we also asked them to come up with business plans for next week. Then we visited a woman called Helena she has many things, animals, vegetables, fruits, chicken and a shop. In her shop she pays 40,000 for an employee a month that she also supplies with food worth 45,000 a month, her rent is 30,000 and for electricity she pays 5,000 per month. She told us that the income in her shop is 120,000 a month. This did not seem profitable to us, but as her bookkeeping books were apparently locked away somewhere we could not check it. After I got back I was meeting with Camille, Freja, Laura and a new member to our Zanzibar group; Sofie, to plan a bit more and change dates for some hotels and of course add one more person. I was about one hour late as the visit to Helena’s house had been longer than I thought it would, but we got everything done and now we are just missing a place to stay in Dar, as we can’t get hold of the place we wanted to stay. 

21/9 and 22/9: Relaxation

Today I planned to meet with some of the other volunteers; Nienke, Sarah, a German vegetarian working with human rights and Genna an Australian here for her medicine studies, at the Ilboru Safari Lodge pool, which we did. It was a lot bigger than at mt. Meru hotel, but not as luxurious, a lot cheaper though. There weren’t so many people so we could just relax and swim a bit, though it took two hours before we could actually swim, because it was being cleaned - very thoroughly. We ate lunch there as which was nice. Then I had to get back around 3 pm to talk to Iddi. Because I am planning a mt. Meru trek, for five people his first price had been 490 USD per person, which was too much I said, and then it was down to 470 USD, still quite a bit of money, so he came today to talk about it. I said that there were some of the people who were still unsure because of the amount of money we had to pay, but that they all later wanted to climb Kilimanjaro as well, so I think I made it sound like an investment to have a lower price. He then went back to Moshi to work a bit on the numbers. On Sunday he wrote me a new price: 395 USD, which is a really nice price for three days, so I am hoping the others will want to come with this price. So far it is Gustav, Marco, Freja and me, originally also Genna, but she has figured out her host brother or something has his graduation the same day that she has to go to. I am hoping I can find some other people, who will want to join, so that we can keep the price down. Today I also washed, not all my clothes, as there was too much, but quite a bit, but I think I will do it again in a week’s time, because it is too much to do all at once. Other than that I just relaxed. 

18/9, 19/9 and 20/9: Working, working

Today we were giving out loans to five of the women in the CHE group. We didn’t really do much else other than count the money out for them, in Swahili, and give it to them. Later today we had to visit the market in Tengeru to do business visits with some of the women from the Tupendane group. We had planned it to be from 3:30 pm, but the others moved it forward, but as I had a Swahili class from 1 to 3 pm, I couldn’t come. My class was nice, though PJ expects too much of me. in the evening I met some of the other volunteers who had just had an African workshop at Via Via and we had some dinner. That took a really long time to get ready and then she overpriced us at the end. I had another Swahili class the next day so that’s another four hours down, only 43 and a half to go… in three weeks… I will be busy. Though I feel I have been busy enough this week. Otherwise it was an office day, we started off by having a meeting with Glory, who is the leader or something of PA in Tanzania, she was one month behind as to where we were, but other than that the meeting was very productive. We also finalized the survey, which has come out really well. Then we had sports day, which was football/soccer, we won the second half, but lost the game 2 to 6 goals. It was really fun; I would just have like it to be earlier so we had more time before it got dark. On Friday a big group of volunteers set off on a four day safari, among them are Laura, Camille, Freja, Gustav and Marco. It was a short working day today because Chrissie had to go early to catch the bus to Nairobi and Elizabeth had to go to the hospital. We did some forecasting training with the Amani group, but not so much with the Mshikamano as we were there quite early. So I was home for lunch time and played a bit with the children and otherwise relaxed, as I was quite tired.

16/9 and 17/9: Working again!

Today I had to start working again; I hadn’t really looked all that much forward to it, but it was good. We started off by visiting the riverside group; they will receive the 3^rd loan next week, so we went over their loan applications with them and listened to what they wanted and all that. There are only four women left in this group, one of them haven’t been so good at coming to the training sessions, so the others had previously said that they did not want her to get the full amount, but now they are okay with it. Not sure how vise a decision this is, but we want to respect their choice. Around lunch time I had a lot to do, as I had to fill in a lot of stuff for my later travels to Kenya, so that I can visit some of the Plan projects. I first had to go to a store to print out the papers, then I had to go back to the office to fill them out, then back again to the store to get it scanned in again. A lot of hassle all in all, but at the end I could send the papers onwards. After that we got some office work done, and then it was time for a Swahili lesson. Two and a half hours, at the end I met my new teacher; PJ, whom I will have because he has a lot of time and I need a lot of lessons.  On Tuesday we started off by visiting the Tupendane group where we did business visits with one of the members; Witness. Witness owns a fruit and vegetable stand, she is doing okay. Today there was a funeral for a very important member of the community, so after lunch we went straight to the Ikasura group because no one would be there anyway so we just needed to collect the money. That meant we were back early and could get some office work done. We are creating an evaluation survey that we will hand out to all the women and hear from them what they think about everything relating to their loans, their skills, their training, us etc. Then I had to go met up with Camille, Freja and Laura to plan our Zanzibar trip and to book all the rooms. It was really fun, we got almost hold of every hotel we wanted, we ate cake and had milkshakes, only downside was how much my phone charged me for making all those calls, but I had fun while doing it! We had to call Imma, our regular taxi driver, to take us home as it had gotten dark. We like Imma because he plays very loud music, something we don’t get anywhere else, but sometimes you just need very loud music. 

7/9 to 13/9: Kilimanjaro

I started out late from Arusha on Saturday because we had to pick up the two guys going with me up Kili from the airport. I thought they were Italian but then I heard their names: Carlos and Pablo, and I asked my guide, Iddi: “They are Spanish, right?” They are. That night we slept in Mama Clementina’s hotel that is a charity hotel supporting young girls through their education. After a good night’s sleep we headed for the office to make the last payment and arrangement and to meet the rest of the crew. Then we set off for the Machame Gate that would be our starting point on our Kili trek. There we had to wait a long time while we were registered, the last money was paid and the bags and other things were weighed. We meet our two other guides here: Nasoro and Seba. Carlos has tried to reach Uhuru peak once before, so he knew all our guides, though Seba had been a cook before. It was finally time to start our trek, so we began, leaving Iddi behind to do the last paperwork. This first stage of the trek was about four to five hours through the rainforest. It was incredibly beautiful, you could really see it was a rainforest because there was moss everywhere, and I got my fresh air to breath. We just walked along and talked about all kinds of stuff, like we would continue to in the next few days, but that I no longer remember. The trek was about a 1200 meter gain in altitude from the gate at 1800 meter to the Machame hut, where we would be sleeping, at about 3000 meter. So the path was steep in places, even with stairs made of wood in quite a few places. Because all the climbers had set off at different times there wasn’t any queuing as there would be the next couple of days, which was really nice because then you could really experience the magic of the rainforest. The Machame hut is at the edge of the rainforest, and just before we arrived we walked through a mist, the trees had also gotten smaller so it added to the mystery that is Kilimanjaro. We were sleeping under the trees so we had cover from the wind. I can tell you, the food was really good and much more varied than I have gotten used to, so during the time on the mountain I got known as the one in our dinner tent always eating the most, if there was only one piece left, I got it. The next day we set off sometime after 8 am in the line already formed on the way to the next camp. It started out the steepest part (though I seem to remember it continued for quite a while) so it was good that there was a line and that we always had to stop and wait for porters to overtake us. It was a beautiful day as we walked along a ridge leading us closer to the mountain, so we could see a lot of things surrounding us. Sometimes when we had just reached one top, we could see tiny people already on the way to the next one, so we knew which way to go. This trek was only some 3 and a half hours, so we reached the Shira cave, the next camp, before lunch and had a nice warm one there. In the afternoon we walked a little more to the Shira hut which is a camp for a different route up Kili. This was just an hour both ways so we had time to enjoy the scenery and the splendid Kili. The altitude was now around 3800 meters, the sunset over the Shira mountains was quite incredible. The next day, day three, we had to walk up to a place called lava tower at around 4600 meter I think and then down from there to the camp which was about the same altitude as the Shira cave, because we had to get used to the altitude, but not get too much at once. When we reached the lava tower I had a bit of a headache, but it got better as soon as I sat down and had some lunch. From there it was only, mostly, down. This stage took some five to six hours. I really like the next camp, the Barranco camp, because you can see both where you came from and where you are going and it is this piece of flat land that is just stunning. What we could see of the beginning was the breakfast (Barranco) wall, one of my favorite parts of the route. Because it is a wall, a very easy wall to climb, but it meant that we could use our hands as well, so it was really fun. On top of the breakfast wall we could see the summit, or at least close, and feel that it wasn’t long at all now. From there we still had a long way to go before reaching the last camp at Barafu – a lot of valleys to cross. At one point we stood quite high up and we could see we had to go way down, before going higher than we were already, though I had started to hate going down only to go further up again, we did it – pole pole (slowly) and were eventually at Karanga. A camp that I was supposed to sleep in, because I had booked seven days, but as Carlos and Pablo had to do it in six, to catch their plane on the same day as going down, I wanted to do it with them and continued with them to Barafu. Both Carlos and Pablo are 42 years old, engineers, from Madrid and good friends. Pablo has a wife and three children, one girl around 12 years old, one boy who is eight – almost nine, and a little girl that is one year and some months. Carlos has a fiancé. Pablo’s little girl is the same age as the guide Nasoro’s daughter. This next part of the stage was some of the hardest, a kind of test for the summiting as there was a lot of fog so that we couldn’t see all that much and it was just up and up. But miraculously we reached Barafu after some six hours in total and got a good night’s rest (not so much sleeping) before attempting the summit. We had decided to start later than usual. Most climbs start at midnight, this is what Carlos did last time, and one of the contributing factors to him having to come down before the summit. We started around 2:30 to 3 am this meant that we could see everybody higher up on the mountain because of all of the flashlights, but it also meant we were alone on out stretch of the mountain. So we went in our own tempo with Nasoro in the front, we had a few short breaks along the way to get some warm tea and rest a little bit. Then the sun came up, most people would see that from the summit, but as we were climbing towards the west, we had a splendid view of the sun behind us. After the sun had gone up we did the rest of the climb in the daylight, which was a big help because then you could see that there wasn’t so much left. Though of course there still was some two to three hours left. As I wasn’t taking any altitude medicine the further up we got the more you could feel it, it was like a pressure in the head. Then we reached Stella point at 5700 and something, from there we could see the actual summit, but it was still quite a way to 5895 meters. When we reached the summit the headache had started to get worse, it was really nice to be there and have done it, but I was like: yeah, let’s get down again now. As soon as we started going down the headache lessened. It was so much fun going because we (or at least Nasoro and I) were practically skiing down through the rock debris. Which was nowhere near as hard as going up where every step took effort, here you just have to move your feet fast and avoid the rocks and you’d be fine. It took six or seven hours up, but only one down to Barafu again. After a good warm lunch we had to go further down to the next came, which took some three hours. But it wasn’t nearly as much fun as there were a lot of stone steps and things that were easy to fall over after a long day. We eventually reached the Mweka hut, we were going down via the Mweka route which is only for descend, Machame is only for ascend. I had a few blisters on my feet, but otherwise I was fine, though my mood could have been better. The next morning the crew was singing and dancing for us and afterwards we gave them their tips. The night before we had learned that there were more porters with us than we had originally thought there would be. Something we could have avoided if we had been introduced to them in the beginning, which I wanted to, but there never seemed to be time for it. There was a cook, a waiter/porter named Adam, who was the only one except the guides that we really talked all that much to and nine porters, I don’t remember all their names, but there was: Jackson who was always listening to reggae music, Ibrahim whom I thought was younger than me but turned out to be 21, he was carrying my bag, Goodluck who seemed charming, but was missing one of his front teeth so maybe he did not have so much good luck. I don’t really remember more of their names as I only heard them that one time, but I remember their faces. Then we went the last two to three hours down, it was better than the day before as there were not that many stones and only a few big steps. Then we reached the end of our trek and signed out, we drove together back to Moshi town where I was staying at a hotel called the Kindoroko Hotel. Because I paid for seven days, so I got to spend my last night in a hotel, with a hot shower and cable TV. So I spend the rest of the day eating lunch, taking showers, watching movies, and sleeping. I remember that some five or something years ago I made a list of things I wanted to do – a bucket list, the only thing that I originally wrote on it, that I wanted to do all those years ago, that has anything to do with this trip, was to climb mount Kilimanjaro. How is that for a dream come true? It exceeded all of my expectations and so much more. Just do it!

5/9 and 6/9: Amani

Today was office day and we actually did a lot, because we looked over the Friday group’s, the Amani, application for the third loan and what they should be given. We also looked at the cash flow because the model we have for it now is really complicated so we are trying to figure out how to build a new model that is simpler to understand for Elizabeth and future volunteers. We also wrote down what we have been doing for the last two weeks and made a plan for the next week. We were still at the office at 5 pm, and we had planned a social because there wasn’t anything for 6 pm. At Maasai café of course, because we just cannot keep away from the pizza. I brought Gustav to meet the rest and another Dane came as well that have started this week on the same project as Freja and Camille. Theresa who has just returned from climbing Kili came as well, I haven’t seen her in some three weeks and it seems like an eternity. The pizza was good as usual as was the conversation. I had been looking forward to Friday all week because now we were finally going to try to give out a loan and talk to them about our concerns and things like that. We talked through everything and in the end they got the money that they had asked for or the maximum of 300,000 tsh. In the afternoon we went to another group, the solidarity group or they are called that in Kiswahili at least. We had given them book keeping training last week and this week we checked their books, most of them were surprisingly good. But one person earns maybe 40,000 a day and another only a couple of thousands, so there is a really big difference. We also did a business visit with the chairwoman of the group Rehema, who sells tea spices. All in all it was a good day. When I got back home it was time for more washing as I don’t want to deal with it when I get back from Kili. Tomorrow I will go to Moshi and Sunday, Sunday it begins. I am looking forward to it with a mix of excitement, clarity, dread and happiness. I know that no matter if I make it or not I will come back an experience richer, wiser. And no matter what it will be so good to get out of the city and into the fresh mountain air for a week, so that I can breathe freely.

4/9: Dentist

Today a new member arrived on the micro finance team; Gustav who has Danish parents, but has lived almost his entire life in Sweden, except when he did his bachelor in London. He will be here for two months. We went to a group today; CHE, five of the women have finished their loans and last time we interviewed one of them, but the others weren’t there. They were today so we did four post loan interviews and it was really interesting to learn what they had used the loan for. One of them bought a cow, a male cow, that hasn’t brought her any income yet, so she used her other businesses to pay for the loan, but when she sells it she will get some 900,000 tsh. Another sells beans in Nairobi, another yet has been sick so she hasn’t really done all that much. It was a good day in the field all in all. Then in the afternoon I finally went to the dentist. I got in pretty fast and I had the same experience that I have had when I was in Tunisia and a guy in a market spoke Danish I couldn’t believe it, but he really did, he was fluent. The dentist wasn’t fluent but he spoke some kind of Scandinavian. He has studied in Oslo, which means that while he was trying to fix my braces I kept repeating to myself; he studied in Oslo, he studied in Oslo, he studied in Oslo interspersed with the occasional I hate my dentist. In the end he fixed it, for now, though it isn’t all that pretty but that doesn’t really matter because it is facing into my mouth. As this was in Njiro, we, Laura was with me, went to the Njiro shopping complex afterwards, we will definitely return because they have a big supermarket that is cheaper than Sakina supermarket, tons of restaurants, a cinema and all kinds of other stuff.

2/9 and 3/9: Micro finance continues

This week we are visiting the same groups on the same days. So today we visited one group: Riverside. They have a problem with one of the people in the group and they don’t know what to do about her, she hasn’t really shown up to the meetings we have with them and therefore she hasn’t had any training from us. But then right when we were discussing her she showed up, so the rest of the group has agreed to support her, but not let her get a bigger loan than last time. They will finish their loan next week, they really have two weeks left, but they want to finish earlier. After we got back I had a Kiswahili lesson, and then I had to go to town to Skype a bit with my sister, but the connection was really bad so we couldn’t do it for long. After that we met up with some of the others to have dinner at Khan’s barbeque that I had heard was really good. It was, but I had eaten too much cake before going so I wasn’t that hungry anymore, which was a shame because the cake hadn’t really been all that good. The next day on Tuesday we were in the field all day visiting two groups. The first one to do some savings training and a business visit, the woman we visited was doing really well. Much better than most of the other women and she doesn’t really need the third loan, but that is when we have to figure out what our goal is; for the individual women to be financially independent or the entire group, because this woman can help the others if they need it. We met the second group in a church made of concrete, and we talked and discuss what problems they had. When we got back to the office I had another Kiswahili class, which means ten hours down, 50 to go. By then it was getting late, so it was time to get home. 

31/8 and 1/9: Painting the day care

Today we started painting the day care as we wanted to do. We couldn’t paint and do all of what we wanted with the ceiling because it is simply too high up for us without any kind of ladder. But our landscape on one of the wall became really good, better than I even imagined it could be. It starts in one end with water, turning into a beach with palm trees, then some hills and at the end some trees and there are flowers and butterflies and a sun. We didn’t even use all that much of all the paint we bought or time we had. So we ended up talking a great deal and hearing more about Camille and her family and discussing different things, it was really fun. On Sunday we met again this time to go to the Mt. Meru market and then have lunch; it was great and also nice to have a weekend in the city without stressing around. Next weekend will be Kilimanjaro so there will be a bit more to do. 

30/8: Field day, night sky

Today we had another field day. We visited two groups of women who both seemed to be doing quite well. In the first group the talked a lot about the third loan criteria because five out of ten of them have paid back the entire second loan and is now waiting to see it we will loan money to them a third time. They wanted to meet with some of the other groups to get idea from them and I think that is a really good idea. The second group haven’t loaned as much in the first or second loan as the other groups, today we gave them books for book keeping and we told them how they should do it. Laura and I have planned to paint the day care during the weekend so when I came back we wanted to buy paint and things like that but we couldn’t find anything, but we will look again tomorrow, because apparently we didn’t look the right places though it was Salim that showed us where to go. After dinner we started cutting out stars and clouds that we are planning to tape or something to the ceiling to get a night and day sky as the ceiling is divided in two. Two other volunteers will be joining us in our effort; Freja from the hot springs and her new roommate Camille. 

29/8: Third social

Today was office day. I had to come to work at 9.30 am, I was still not really doing anything two hours later and I have a Kiswahili class at 2 pm, so maybe I will get two hours of actual work done today. But it was okay to have a bit of time to do what I wanted I looked over a lot of the micro finance stuff in their drop box that I know have on my computer as well and I could check my bank account and be pleasantly surprised. Which was nice as I had been dreading checking it for a long time. Scratch that we didn’t work at all before my Kiswahili lesson, not at all. But just before I was about to go to the lesson (here are two supervisors one has been on maternity leave (Elizabeth) and just come back and the other is leaving this Friday because she (Diana) was here when the other was gone) Diana came with the translated forms we needed to go over. I am down six hours of lessons now so 54 left! It is always fun to have the lessons because Victoria teaches in many different ways. Afterward I went to Africafe to Skype, I got in touch first with my mother and then my sister got home and then we conference called my father as well and it was really good finally being able to talk with them and not worry about how much money we are spending doing it. But there was a lot of background noise and despite how good the carrot cake and strawberry milkshake was, I’ll do it a quieter place next time. And maybe try adding the video to see some familiar faces. Then we went to my third social this one at the Maasai café, pizza again, it was wonderful. We talked to some of the same and bit of other people, the last two socials have been really nice because we could all just talk and enjoy the evening. 

26/8, 27/8 and 28/8: Micro finance begins

Today, on Monday, I started my micro finance project, it wasn’t all that I expected but it is only my first day. There is a lot of people that have been doing micro finance that are leaving this week and last week so it seems we are going from a really big group to only two people or something like that, so there will be plenty to do for us. Today we visited one of the women groups that we are working with to see how they are doing, this is done once every week and it is also when we collect money from them and so on. After that I had my induction into the team and we were talking some but there wasn’t really a lot to do for me since I can’t help with the monthly reports and things of that nature yet. Later I met the hot springs group for a trip to the Mt. Meru market and then a goodbye dinner for Marscha at Maasai Café. I haven’t introduced you to the hotsprings group yet, there is three from Denmark; Laura, Freja who’ll be here for four months and I, four from Holland; Marscha, Nienke, Marco who just finished his bachelor in medicine and Robert a fifty year old out travelling the world and Emily from the US, more specifically Pennsylvania who is a hospitality major and dance minor at college.  You all know about the market so I am going to go straight to the Maasai Café – they have amazing pizzas I was savoring every bite. It was so good. We might be going there for the social on Thursday and that gets no complaints from me. When we were done eating my second cousin from Iceland, Bjarni, and his three friends joined us. It was really nice to see a known face and listen to Icelandic again though they were speaking quite fast and most of what they were saying was negative things about Denmark and Danish people, though Bjarni kept reminding them that I understood and said that they had gotten used to no one understanding them. I just found it funny and they seemed nice. They had to leave during the night and I had to get up early in the morning so we didn’t get to spend a lot of time together. On Tuesday we were out in the field all day visiting two different groups, but what we did most was wait. We didn’t get back before five, but we spend maybe an hour at the most really working. It was nice to see more of the groups and the individual women. The leader of the second group had a really big garden with tons of different vegetables and other things. She seems to be successful, which is what we want for them. Most of the micro finance team is leaving this week and only I and another will be left next week. A Japanese girl made a farewell dinner to the second group as well because she has been doing this for five months and have started to really care for these groups, so she wanted to show her appreciation. As we got back late I just walked home afterwards to relax. The next day on a Wednesday we visited a group we call the CHE group though nobody seems to know why. Only three out of around ten women showed up, they were all claiming sickness, but apparently that happens quite often. I don’t think that they are all that serious about the loans if they don’t even show up to these weekly meetings. Five of the women had their last payment for the second loan of 200,000 tsh today, only one of them showed up so we could only do one post-loan interview. But it was nice to listen to how it went for this woman with her loan and what she did with it. It seemed like it has been really helpful to her, also all the savings and book keeping training seems to have helped her. It is good to know that some people are appreciative of the help that we give them and that they are moving towards something better. After lunch I had an hour (really only half an hour) of Kiswahili and we did question words that will all be really helpful to me. In the afternoon I went to town because I was planning to Skype with my family, but tomorrow will be better for that. I also visited the Tanzanite experience about tanzanite and it was really interesting to learn about and I really want one, it is just really expensive so I think that will have to wait until I have more money to spend than on this trip. After dinner at home Laura and I had a long conversation with Patrick and Grace we talked about a lot of different topics like poverty and drugs trafficking, it is good to get their perspective. We have also promised to paint/decorate the day care room of the house so we will take a weekend at home next weekend and do that and relax a little bit. In our minds it looks great, but we are both not the most creative people so we will see, but no matter what it will be fun to do.