Peter's Second Tanzania Update - Wadudus to Bodabodas

Dear Friends,

I am writing my second update from the second floor bar of the Tilapia Hotel overlooking Lake Victoria.  The breeze is warm, the view stunning, and the beer cold.  I am not quite sure about the Afro-techno music videos but 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.

As usual, the time at Imani VTC has flown by.  Sophie and Amandine have been frustrated by our elusive Black Soldier Flies although they have set up an extensive network of traps which comprise rotten tomatoes in the plastic storage boxes that we shipped the hand tools in two years ago.  Even though the boxes have been labelled and decorated by Amandine in Swahili, our most promising box got dumped by the gardener who thought the rotting tomatoes were just more trash.  We are putting a bounty out on the flies this week in the hope that the students can find a secret stash to start our colony.

In the meantime, Amandine has been very successful in growing and transplanting the local variety of cherry tomato collected on the “tomato runs” into some surplus shipping boxes.  It is our hope that these will provide nutritious snacks for the students and dissuade them from pilfering un-ripe produce from the garden.  We want to compare the local variety to some hybrid types from North America, but this experiment may have to wait for next year.

Sophie has spent a lot of time compiling video she and Olivier have been taking of their experience and we hope to upload some of this after she has edited out the most embarrassing segments.  The pieces I have seen didn’t cause me any concern, but she is rightly applying the adage that internet uploads are forever.  We hope to incorporate some of these video clips into the newly created Imani VTC web site (www.imanivtc.com).

The web site has been a long-standing deficiency of our project and I am infinitely grateful to Greg John for finally get us on the web.  It is very much under-development as we add content in consultation with the sisters.  They are very supportive, but this is new territory for them and we want them to feel comfortable with their interface to the digital world.  Sophie and Amandine are helping to build the picture content as they wait for their wadudus, so check it out as it advances.

Joe and Olivier have also been exploring new personal frontiers as they fabricate the first of the rocket stoves.  They have been working with our metal fabrication shop and adjusting the design as issues develop that weren’t mentioned in the U-Tube videos.  There is a lot of interest in these stoves, both at Imani and elsewhere, as cooking fuel becomes scarcer and scarcer.  I am noticing that my premonitions from previous years are really becoming noticeable in the local community.

Two weeks ago we went on a short safari to the Ngorongoro crater with a stop at a Maasai village for lunch.  We got an extended visit in the small boma which was the enclosure of one Maasai hearder, his four wives, a dozen children, and the family’s cows and goats.  Apparently my jumping skills have not improved since my last visit to a Maasai village, so I would still be single in their culture.  Given the four wives, this might be a good thing.

Last weekend was spent at a large farm on the slopes of West Kilimanjaro.  The farm is run by a first generation, Tanzanian-born, son of a Dutch family who bought the farm in 1980.  They have over 6000 acres of wheat and seed been crops and are a major supplier to one of the breweries and a large commercial bakery.  They also have a large market garden and raise their own beef.  While the kids decided to cook their own food, I splurged on dinners prepared at the lodge and had some of the best beef I have eaten anywhere.  This is definitely a worth-while stop for our rotary group next year.

Last week at Imani was a little crazy as the school raced to prepare the new guest quarters for Guido Kuemin, his wife Verena , and four friends from Switzerland.  Guido has been supporting Imani since before I started coming and much of the new infrastructure is due to his generosity.  In the same week Rene Mueller and his wife Josie were also in Moshi.  Rene, through his NGO, Waterkiosk, provided the new domestic water infrastructure Ted and I worked on in 2014.  We continue to cooperate with Waterkiosk, sharing resources and expertise, in support of each other’s projects.  I have taken Rene and Josie up on their offer to stay with them in Zurich on the way back to Canada this year, and if the weather cooperates, I am hoping for one early season ski day.

Leaving Moshi on Friday, I arrived in Mwanza around noon, and decided to try the “local” transport from the airport.  Just beyond the guarded gate of the airport (complete with mandatory green-fatiqued private security with AK-47s) is the local dala-dala bus stop.  The Toyota Hi-ace was waiting, door wide open and a big smiling face welcoming me to join them.  In very un-daladala fashion there were only two of us to start, but we quickly added 23 passengers (12 legal, 11 not so much).  I repaired one purse strap, got an offer of a safari guide and got spat on by one baby, all for 500 TZS (about 30 cents).  All in all, a lot of country flavour for 1/50 the price of a tourist taxi.

I met Bartolomeo, my project manager for the Rotary project on Ukerewe Island as well as Shu Bwire, David Beking and the rest of the CACHA Shirati medical mission.  Shu and David have a very interesting business opportunity which we hope to incorporate into the Community development project on Ukerewe.  It is still in its infancy, but if it works out should be a great combination of philanthropy and business investment.  Stay tuned.

Today we are again hanging at Tilapia.  Shu stayed for lunch while setting up my accommodations on Ukerewe, and I am meeting with two other Tanzanian friends this afternoon.  One is the nephew of our patron, Bishop Lukanima, who we lost two years ago.  The other is a young woman sponsored by the Rotary club of Moshi, who has grown into a young leader in the local community and continues to give back in the same spirit that was extended to her.  She has extensive experience in micro-finance with one of the local banks and I hope she can provide us some guidance with the financial institution we are working on for Ukerewe.

Tomorrow we leave the luxury of Mwanza for the simple pleasures of Ukerewe (cold showers, warm beer, and fresh Lake Victoria Tilapia).  It is with great regret that I will not see my friend Stephan Cesca, the French pisiciculturiste.  Apparently Tanzanian Immigration Authorities and his business partner were not able to see their way around government red tape, and he was sent back to France.  This is a huge loss for the island, and I hope that he can eventually return to carry out the fish farming that he was so passionately pursuing.

As in the past, I will have to stay in Nansio, the capital city on the island as there is no accommodation at the site of our project at Kabuhinzi.  I have been keeping the yoga up in preparation for the 45 minute roller coaster ride on the back of the BodaBoda motorcycle taxi. One week of this will cure any middle-aged desire to own a motorcycle.

In addition to completing our work at the Kabuhinzi school, we will be investigating a permanent base of operations for the next phase of our community involvement.  This will likely be in Murutunguru which is the largest village in the ward which includes the Kabuhinzi school.  We will be laying the ground work for the next phase of my Rotary Club’s Signature project and there are some really exciting developments which I will save for the next update.

Peter

 

Peter's First 2016 Mission Update

Dear Family, friends, and supporters,

Welcome to my first African letter of 2016.

It was a very busy summer preparing for this year’s trip which will include a bevy of projects at Imani VTC and on Ukerewe Island.  The Ukerewe project has really come along under the sponsorship of my Rotary club (Kingston-Frontenac) and the dialogue with our partner on the ground, Bartolomeo Misana.  I will be doing some administrative work on this project while in the Kilimanjaro district, and I am looking forward to my two week visit to the Island at the end of October.  I will leave further discussion of this project until we get closer to our visit.

As in previous years, I want to introduce this year’s work  by introducing our great team of students from the Université de Sherbrooke.  This year we had four candidates apply for the two positions, and Sista Adella has called in some divine assistance to create two more places for our students to stay.  As a result we were able to offer an internship to all four applicants.

Sophie and Amandine will be focusing on composting and agricultural projects including conventional composting, Black Soldier Fly composting, and Moringa tree development.  Joé and Olivier are going to pick up the Rocket stove project initiated last year and test three different sizes of these high efficiency  stoves.  They are also going to experiment using dried maize stalks as a fuel source as these are currently burned as waste.

In the first two weeks the students have quickly adjusted to the rhythm at the school although the last week gave them a bit of an early morning noise reprieve as the students were away for a week’s holidays.  Joe has become the Conventional Compost Master starting 7 new compost piles in one week.  He has been assisted by the others, but he has been the driving force in this initiative.  Amandine has developed her own following of students who are eager to learn French, so we will soon have tri-lingual education at Imani VTC.  Olivier is demonstrating excellent technical skills and has tested and restored many of the donated products received from Lee Valley giving them a second lease on life.  The crank operated LED lights look to be particularly popular with the Sisters in this land of irregular power.  Sophie has been fighting a cold (NOT Malaria or anything really serious), and is slowly getting over it.  Her management and accounting skills are coming through as the team accountant and chief organizer.  She had her PDI document (the first mandatory work term submission for the University) completed seemingly before it was out. If she can transfer some of these management skills to the rest of us we will be well served.

The Sisters have dug a new shallow well to expand the irrigation opportunities at Imani so I suspect that all of the students will also be involved in the expansion of the drip irrigation system installed in 2014 by the student’s predecessors.  This is the ideal prototype site for our solar-powered rope pump, so it is time to move this project up the priority list.  The challenge is simple: Create a robust, solar powered pump, to serve hand-dug wells, capable of pumping 2000 litres per hour at 20 m of head, and costing less than 1000 USD.  The pump should be able to be manufactured and serviced locally.

To those of you who understand the above, please help me out.  Realization of the above could save as many lives in Africa as anything else we do here.

Last week when we cycled into Moshi, Olivier was not able to join us as his bike had 3 broken spokes and an un-rideable wow in the rear wheel.  It was definitely a job for the local Fundi wa Baicikale.  The alternate mode of transport was the recently introduced 3 wheeled Bajaji.  The driver (who spoke no English) was not quite sure how to deal with the 6’-2” mzungu with the extra large bicycle, but for 10,000 shillings he would have taken him back to Montreal.  Olivier arrived in one piece at my friend’s office, who called the local fundi (who again spoke no English) and he and Olivier trotted off to the shop carrying the broken bicycle.  1 hour and another 10,000 shillings later the bicycle wheel was repaired and running truer than when it left the factory 25 years ago.

The sequel to the story is that as Olivier was flying around the Coca-Cola round-about on his way back to our B&B his left pedal flew off into the middle of the traffic.  He took one look at the chaos of cars, trucks, motor bikes, and bajajis, and decided the pedal was not worth the risk to life and limb.  Two hundred meters beyond the round-about, as he was pushing his bike up the hill, a young local cyclist stops and hands him his pedal.  Very Cool.

That’s all for now.  We are off to another great year of opportunities and new friends.  Karibuni sana (Welcome to all), we would love to see you in Tanzania.

Peter

2014 Imani Mission Wrap-up

Imani 2014 Mission Wrap-up

As we are now planning for our 2015 mission, it is important to briefly summarize what was achieved in 2014.  This was another rewarding year for our small team of volunteers and supporters.  We built on initiatives started in previous years and took on new projects which were important to Imani VTC.

David Guérin and Charles Frenette-Vallières, our Université de Sherbrooke Co-Op students, had a very successful work term and made some significant contributions to Imani VTC.  They expanded the conventional composting project started by Michele and Sylvie in 2013 so that a new batch of compost is generated every week.  A conventional composting project was set up at the Chekereni site in conjunction with the pig farmer next door.  The project will be managed by Honesty, one of the carpentry shop workers, and the compost will be used in the Chekereni gardens and shared with the neighbour who provided the pig manure.  In this way we share knowledge and build good will in the local community.

David introduced a new composting technique, known as Black Soldier Fly Composting, to directly convert pig manure into a food source (fly larvae) for our chickens and fish.  This was an experimental program which showed enough promise, that the Head Mistress would like us bring this project to the production level.  A former student, and now employee with Imani VTC, Dully, worked with David and will carry this project forward.

Charles and David worked directly with two Imani students, Ali and Innocent, to present their composting projects at two open houses held at the Chekereni commercial centre for the benefit of the local community.  These Open House events were extremely well received, gave a tremendous boost to our students, and shared valuable information with the local community.

While David was working on the Black Soldier Fly project, Charles took the lead on designing and installing a new drip irrigation system for the school’s vegetable gardens.  This new system replaced the original irrigation system installed by Greg John, CACHA’s first volunteer, and the School’s creator, Sista Placida.  The new system has a large sediment filter which should help prevent the plugged orifices experienced with the original system.  This new system, funded by CACHA, is serving as a test bed for much larger drip irrigation installations which are currently being planned.

Still on the agricultural theme, our Egg Production initiative has grown from 100 to 250 laying hens.  This past year, the sisters embarked on a project of raising broiler (meat) chickens, which to date has yielded a good profit.  Broiler chicks do not have the same long-term benefits as the Egg Program, but they produce immediate cash flow which allowed the sisters to sponsor a student’s tuition and board in exchange for his services tending the chicken flocks.  Through the input of our technical advisors, John and Cora Beking, we continue to share best practices of poultry farming with the staff and students of Imani VTC.

2014 was the second year of a joint-venture project with Waterkiosk of Switzerland.  We first met this NGO in 2013 when they had been asked to provide a new well for the primary school adjacent to Imani VTC.  Subsequent investigation established that a new well was not necessary, rather the existing well had become plugged with silt and a small coupling had failed on the well pipe, effectively reducing the pumping capacity by more than 50%.  Waterkiosk and CACHA cleaned the well and repaired the leak restoring adequate capacity for both Imani VTC and the Primary School.  This initial project grew into a 3 year joint-venture to replace all of the leaking distribution piping on the Imani complex, install new high pressure storage tanks and provide an automatic pump control system.   By December 2014, new high pressure riser tanks had been installed and we had replaced the critical piping on the VTC side of the complex.  Further work is required on the control system and the buried piping at the primary school needs to be replaced.  It is our intent to complete this work with Waterkiosk by December 2015.

Waterkiosk also have a very interesting solar oven project.  Their design is essentially a solar slow-cooker which will cook traditional Tanzanian food over 3-4 hours using only the heat of the sun.  Waterkiosk engaged Imani VTC (let by our Carpenter in Residence, Ted Dawson), to construct 6 proto-type ovens at our wood shop.  Ted took this idea one step further and constructed a larger masonry unit at Imani that would be used for institutional cooking.  The small solar cookers worked out very well and we hope to produce more of these this year.  The larger masonry cooker did not generate adequate heat so we need to do some more experimentation in 2015.

When Ted joined our team in 2013 he led the charge to gather used, quality, hand tools to bring to Imani.  CACHA supported the shipping of 5 pallets of tools in a container shared with the PTE project in Moshi.  It took over a year, but our tools finally got to Imani just before Ted and I in September 2014.  After these tools had been sorted and distributed to the Imani programs, it was apparent that we had more tools than we could use.  This led to the Chekereni Open-House (referred to above) and accompanying tool sale.  Tools of all sorts were sold to the villagers at “local” prices.  The biggest hit was the files being purchased by the women to sharpen their pangas (machetes).  Their men had better be on their best behavior!  The revenues from these tools sales went to buy wood to make furniture in the carpentry shop.  We plan on holding at least one more of these tool sales in 2015 to get our remaining tools into the hands of people who can use them.

For our fun event this year, we sponsored a field trip to a commercial seedling farm.  This was an exciting outing for the students and gave them a chance to see what a little technology (irrigation) and good management could achieve.  The school was split into 3 groups and each group was taken around the farm by one of the Tanzanian lead hands.  My friend who manages the facility said his workers were extremely happy to share their knowledge and were empowered by being able to share their accomplishments with our students. 

In our commercial woodshop, Ted worked with Msofe and his staff to create two pieces of furniture for our friend Sandra Proctor.  We would like to significantly expand this capability and are hoping that the wood purchased in 2014 will spur a flourishing custom furniture business in 2015.  There are still many hurdles to overcome, but the woodshop could be a major contributor to Imani’s financial self-sufficiency.

One of our major set-backs was a failure of the Landcruiser engine which required a $2000.00 rebuild.  This was not envisioned in our budget for this year, but there did not appear to be any alternative source of funding for the repair and the vehicle is essential to the school’s operation.  Sister Adella actually diagnosed the cause of the failure being the repetitive filling of the vehicle’s radiator with water from the school that is high in salt.  This was necessary because the coolant recovery tank was not replaced after an earlier accident.  This is a strong lesson, that preventive maintenance saves money in the long term.  The Landcruiser has now had its coolant recovery tank replaced with funds from the furniture sales, and we hope for a long service life (with regular routine maintenance).

We are currently posting our position for two more students from the Universite de Sherbrooke, and planning our 2015 program.  Over the next two months, I plan to outline this year’s projects in a series of postings.

Please stay tuned,

Peter Morrin

Peter Morrin Update - October 17, 2014

October 17, 2014

Dear Friends of Imani,

This is my first dedicated article to CACHA supporters of the Imani VTC.  I had previously sent out a personal newsletter, but felt that an official article is long over-due.  CACHA has made a long-term commitment to the Imani VTC which started with Greg John as young CIDA intern in 2005.  Greg wrote a great storey of his adventures (“Mizungu Days”) and also prepared a documentary film of the Imani project.  If you have not read or seen them, I highly recommend it as a great entertaining overview of life in Tanzania.  Both Greg and the original Founder, our beloved Sista Placida, have moved on to other projects and a new group of Canadians and Tanzanians have picked up the torch.  Greg and Sista Placida continue to look over Imani and share their wisdom in an advisory capacity. 

Imani has continued to grow each year, although we have our share of challenges along the way.  I am at year 4 of my 5 year commitment (not a hard date) and we continue to move toward our goal of self-sufficiency.  Imani VTC is a very interesting partner in that my involvement with the school was precipitated by Sista Placida’s expressed vision of self-sufficiency from outside assistance.  This is very unusual in the aid/NGO community, but I believe should ultimately be all of our ultimate goals.  At the same time as we strive for financial independence, we are constantly reminded of the need for charity, compassion, and support for others less fortunate.  This, the sisters and the students of Imani, continue to demonstrate on a daily basis.  It is interesting to note the struggle between selfish capitalism (self-sufficiency) and economically reckless compassion.  I hope we achieve the proper balance.

Enough of Philosophy and on to the story.  It has now been over a month since we arrived at Imani VTC for our 2014 adventure.  Our group this year includes my African wingman Ted Dawson, back for his second year, and two new recruits from the Université de Sherbrooke Environmental Studies Program, Charles Frenette-Vallièrs and David Guerin.  Charles and David are picking up the composting project started last year by our first interns from the same program, Michele Provencher and Sylvie Chamberlain.

Our Tanzanian team is still lead by the indomitable Sista (mbey) Adella, supported by her team of sisters.  We are joined this year by a new treasurer, Sista Maria-Cecilia, who switched places with Sista Alfoncina, who is now at Kilema hospital.  We saw Sista Alfoncina the other day.  She is well and sends her best to all our supporters.  Sista Maria-Cecilia appears equally intrepid as she has agreed to go on the school’s small pici-pic (Honda 80 motor bike) with David.  She did, however,  advise that she would drive on the way back so he can get a taste of the back seat.

At the wood shop, our foreman, Msofe is joined by two former students Honesty and Emmanuel.  Emmanuel has some motor-movement challenges and a most erratic hammer swing, but Ted says he always hits the nails square on their heads which is better than I do.  Honesty and Emmanuel are paid a monthly salary at market rates, while they continue to learn on-the-job.  The wood shop operates as a separate cost centre which generates a profit which is returned back to the school.  Profits from the school’s micro-industries continue to allow the sisters to subsidize students who would not otherwise be able to afford even Imani’s modest tuition.

We have a new student tending our flock of chickens who comes with experience in the poultry business.  The school offers these “working students” free tuition in exchange for their services.  This frequently makes for a very long day, but these particular students always rise to the challenge.  Our lead “cowboy”, Gabriel, who taught Sylvie how to milk cows by hand last year, is now employed by the schoo while he pursues further education.  Our head composting student from last year, Ali, is now in third year but is in the process of training his successor, Innocent is in first year.  Ali is frequently a spokesman for the students, due (hopefully) in part to the presentations on composting he made last year with Michele and Sylvie.

We continue to share Michelle and Sylvie’s composting manual, written in both English and Swahili, around the country, and even offer the teaching services of Charles, David, and Ali to get other people started.  This trio started a compost pile at the Chekereni commercial centre (home of our carpentry shop and canteen) using manure from the neighbour’s pigs.  They will share some of the compost with the neighbour and will thus start an outreach engagement with the local community.  They trained Honesty (whose main job is in the wood shop) to carry on the composting operation so we hope this will become a self-sustaining demonstration project.

The Chekereni canteen serves produce from the Imani farm to the local community.  This includes pigs which makes deliciously disgusting fried pork in soya sauce dish called kitimoto.  It is server with fried green bananas (ndizi), chili sauce (piri-piri), and cold (if you are lucky) beverages.  CACHA was the key contributor to this facility and it is nice to see it coming into its own.  This year, CACHA donors helped replace the freezer in the butcher shop serving the canteen which had previously failed under the harsh climatic conditions and poorly-regulated power.

As I have exceeded a ponderous 1000 words I will prepare to sign off with a promise of a future update.  CACHA support this year will go to the following projects:

·             200 broiler chicks (loan) to be raised and sold (hopefully at a handsome profit)

·             150 new laying chicks and construction of new chicken pens.  Our first batch of hens were “harvested” for the primary school graduation.  My calculations suggest that this first batch of 100 laying chicks generated a net operating profit of about 3 million shillings over 21 months.  Some of this profit was in the form of eggs served back to the students when market conditions precluded sale of the eggs.  I would like to thank John and Cora Beking for their on-going support of this project, without which, it would not have happened.

·             The previously mentioned freezer for the Chekereni butcher shop.

·             Money to buy hardwood and allow it to properly season.  This typically requires purchasing the wood 1 year in advance, something that no local business can do because of cash-flow challenges.  This will hopefully support a growing custom-furniture business that is slowly being nurtured in the Moshi area.

·             Upgrades to the water distribution system for the entire site which includes not only Imani, but also a 450 student primary school.  This project is being executed in association with the Swiss NGO Waterkiosk.  This has been very beneficial to Imani and we are looking forward to future associations with this forward thinking group of people.

·             In conjunction with the water upgrades we will be replacing the drip irrigation system installed by Greg John and Sista Placida.  The first system had demonstrated its worth, but unfortunately had become plugged with silt.  The new system will have an industrial filter which should mitigate this problem.

·             In addition to continuing the outreach composting program and helping with the irrigation system, Charles and David are hoping to introduce Black Soldier Fly composting to Imani to allow direct conversion of animal manure to a food product for chickens, pigs and fish.  Charles and David have been diligently searching through piles of “merde” looking for these elusive flies and I have just been advised that they have found 30 larvae and are carefully raising them to be the new breeding stock.  I can assure you that if the next generation of Canadians is represented by the students we have had, we are in good hands.

·             Ted Dawson is carefully sorting, cleaning, sharpening, and demonstrating the tools donated last summer by private individuals and a very modest, Ottawa based, tools manufacturer/retailer.  The tools we brought last year are already hard at work and we are hoping no less for the main shipment.  Provided we are confident in our distribution system (which includes partners through-out Tanzania) we are hoping to bring over a full container in 2015.  If you want to book space, please let us know. 

Thank you to all our supporters and to the CACHA staff who make this happen.  Until the next update,

Asante and Carpe Diem,

Peter Morrin