Thoughts of
field trips typically conjure images of small children in matching colored T-shirts
bouncing along a path with brown paper sacks or tin boxes glinting in the sun
with pictures of Superman, Batman, Barbie, Spongebob Squarepants, or Shrek. Maybe
they have those oversized dangling nametags, squinted eyes as they shield them
from the sun, and a seemingly permanent painted frown giving them wrinkles in
their young age as they complain about their feet hurting, having to go to the
restroom, and wanting snack time (all not unlike their wizened counterparts at
the opposite end of the age spectrum.) This field trip was a bit different. It was
a work trip. Very official. Very…aherm, business-like and all that jazz. Having
worked out of the American culture context before, I knew to expect (or perhaps
not to expect) quite a number of norms from the American office place. No water
coolers, no Starbucks coffee breaks, no automated projection system that lowers
from the heavens and clicks magically in place with a blinking blue screen
waiting patiently for your Powerpoint or Prezi, no little thingies that remove
staples from papers once you’ve stapled them. But with relatively few field trips under my belt, I was admittedly
a bit unprepared for exactly what such an outing would entail.
We wound on
farther and eventually found ourselves in the town of Mbulu in Manyara
District. As if on cue, just over a dozen women emerged in colorful bursts from
various places around town and followed us to the screening site where we would
conduct a series of interviews to select the participants for our pilot
project. Eager to get started, I made to pass out the papers we had brought
explaining the program—a solar energy initiative targeting rural women who were
leaders of a number of local village savings and loans associations (VSLAs)—but
was quickly stopped by my colleagues as it was necessary to perform an extended
greeting, personal welcome, and introduction first. Strike one against the
overzealous American.
I introduced myself briefly in Swahili giving my name and explaining that I was an American working with d.light and was very pleased to meet everyone. As the women approached
one by one we went through a series of questions. Excuse me sister/mam, but how old are you? Samahani dada/mama, una
miaka mingapi? Do you have a husband? Una mume? Do you have children? Una
watoto? We learned that almost all of the women save two had been educated
to Standard 7 (Grade 8), were farmers (wakulima)
of some sort and entrepreneurs, had no personal means of transport (bikes
included), could read and write to at least basic level, and were relatively
(professedly) debt-free. One woman explained how she rose at 3am every day to
prepare her children for shule (school),
take her wares for sale nearly a three hours’ walk away to town, and then
return home in time to cook, clean, and set up the house for when her husband
returned home. Others, women barely older than me were responsible for families
of two and three children and somehow managed to tend farms, prep for market,
attends savings group meetings, and still get dinner on the table before dark
as few had electricity at home and needed to squeeze the most out of the
daylight. When it came to time management, these women were pros.
Consulting my
Excel spreadsheet, I tabulated the data, calculating scores for each woman
based on traits we thought would embody a strong retailer and community representative
for the brand and the project: did she make frequent eye contact? Did she speak
confidently? Was she animated? Did she project? Did she understand the role and
responsibility? Was she a trusted member of the community? Then we came to the water selling task. As an on the spot demonstration, we asked each women
to sell us a bottle of water. She got highest marks for demonstrating the
benefits of the water over soda or juice, negotiating a fair price,
highlighting the best characteristics of the water, and vouching for it
personally as the best drink on the market. Great activity, right? It
frequently went like this:
“Okay, now dada/mama,
please sell me this bottle of maji (water).”
“You already
bought it. It’s on the table.”
“Right. Okay,
I know I bought it but now sell it to me.”
“I don’t
understand. You have it.”
“No you have it. This is pretend,
make-believe so imagine please.”
“Imagine
what?”
“That you are
selling it. Pretend we are in a duka (shop).
I am the mteja (customer). You are
the shop keeper.”
“Ah yes.
Okay. This maji here is very
delicious maji. It costs 600
shillings.”
“That’s
expensive and I don’t like water. It’s tasteless. I like soda. Maybe Coca or Tangawizi
(a ginger soda).”
“Okay. Wait,
can I sell you that instead?”
“Alrighty then let’s go to the next activity.”
Strike two
against the foolish American. Silly me, they would be selling solar lights not
water. Didn’t I know that? Oof. Imagination is a luxury. When do adults have
time for that when they’ve got cows, sheep, children, maize, and wheat flour on
the brain? I silently cursed the theater-phile in me for conjuring up the task
though my colleagues seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. They were exceedingly
patient in managing to explain to each woman just how this activity had
anything to do with selling solar products and eventually got through to each
one. They were convinced if a woman could sell us this bottle convincingly, she
would have no trouble fielding the same questions about the solar lanterns.
Activity saved! Task behind us, we moved on and wrapped up the interviews just
as the sun sank low behind the clouds and our stomachs told us it was dinner
time. The next day we repeated the process first in Hanang and then Babati, two
towns also in Manyara district, but not without the foolish American rearing
her ugly head inside me again.
Working lunch. \WER-keeng Luh-nch\ Noun. Definition:
a meal around midday completed while performing tasks related to one’s job or
occupation. Origin: Somewhere due
West.
To be fair we
were already an hour behind. We were wrapping up the interviews in Hanang which
had taken longer than expected as extra people showed up eager to be
interviewed and possibly selected. Babati was about 45 minutes to an hour away
with bat out of hell race car driving. We were all starving and I suggested
calling ahead to the next group to say we were running late and getting food on
the other end once we arrived. Negative. My colleagues were bent on getting
lunch in our current location. Fine, then, I reasoned, let’s just get it to go
and eat en route as we drive. EEEEENNNNNHHHHH. Somewhere a million buzzers went
off. Eat as we drive? Eat as we drive? What absurd recommendation was
this? What bizarre machinations was I plotting such that we needed to eat in
transit? But, but, I stammered. Didn’t we eat en route yesterday? Ah yes, but
only to beat the darkness back down the mountain. There was plenty of light
now. We would sit. Forty minutes later we were almost two hours late and still
an hour from the site. We piled into the car again and took off. Flying down
the road. I buckled up and held on for dear life, a silent prayer escaping my
lips at some point, and then as quickly as we had begun we stopped. It was time
for muwa. I cringed as I looked out
the window and saw the man running with the cart of sugar cane sticks. My
colleagues pulled over and asked for six. Now mind you, these things are about
six feet long and he has to hack them down to manageable two feet size with a
machete. That’s six feet and at least two cuts per stick for six sticks. My
head was spinning with the math that screamed We’re already going to be three hours late!! I said nothing.
Sensing my inner turmoil perhaps, a colleague assured me that a few more
minutes would not hurt that much. I breathed. I calmed my Western anxiety,
remembered my own role among friends as the erstwhile latecomer, and relaxed…a
little. Strike three against the uptight American!
Eventually we
made it of course. As in Hanang, the Babati group was a bit more mixed than our
first town of Mbulu with men and women, producing an interesting dynamic
between the male interviewees and the female interviewing team questioning
them. Most men, not surprisingly, had no trouble with eye contact whatsoever
and typically barreled through the questions with ease. Like the women, most
all were married farmers/entrepreneurs with several children and had completed
Grade 8 though a few had gone on to Form 4 (secondary school). As leaders of
their VSLAs, like some of the women, they had remarkable reach into the rural
community, accessing as many as two and three hundred individuals on a regular
basis. Jackpot. This was exactly the rural penetration we desperately needed
where our local distributors had no reach. I thought back to the houses dotting
Rift Valley and pictured each of these village agents making their way through
communities we didn’t even know existed on roads far from any map I’d ever
seen. And guaranteed just about each and every one of those houses goes dark
when the sun goes down, hauling out smudged and dangerous kerosene lanterns and
jerry cans that cost them hundreds of shillings per day to burn. With solar energy, the possibilities were staggering. 
We wrapped up
the screening, jotting down notes on scribbled pieces of papers and print outs
and headed back to Arusha. I was pumped and ready for action. This was why I
wanted to be out here in the field doing this sort of work. We had spent
several weeks being bogged down in bureaucracy. It’s bound to happen with so
many cooks in the kitchen on a single project, too many organizations with
conflicting agendas just trying to make sure their best interests are kept in
mind. Getting out there reminded me of the people on the other end, miles and
miles away from headquarters and conference calls and absurdly long email
chains where sometimes very little actually gets done. Instead as the field
team, we are the ones getting regular calls from these farmers and
entrepreneurs wondering what was taking so long? When were the products
arriving? Why had we come and visited them two and three times with no results
to show? Would we be like that last organization that came through with so many
promises and never followed through?
I cringed when we had to call them
back to notify them that there was yet another delay at HQ and we would be
pushing back the training one more week, maybe two. But didn’t we know harvest
season would end soon and the money would dry up? Who would they sell to then
when everyone was pinching shillings again? Those are the moments that make
this work difficult, not just from a logistical angle, organizing meetings and
interviews and trainings, but from an emotionally taxing perspective as well.
We are here on the ground because we want to help, but how much help can we be
when our hands are so tied by donors and board members, country directors and
distributors, and the like? The money is not in. The board doesn’t agree. The
MOU hasn’t been signed. The team is not assembled. All these are typical
development problems, and necessary evils most would say, but it leaves you
wondering: is there ever an easier way to just take action? To get things done
and provide the services needed without a cadre of squabbling figures like
crabs in a barrel, clawing for this interest or that? Perhaps no because we
need the funding. We need the support. We need the technical expertise and
resources. At the end of the day, frustrating though it may be, perhaps it’s
just enough that the work eventually gets done, no matter the creeping road to
get there.
A week later
on a flight, I sat down next to a woman in a beautiful colored kanga wrap much
like the women we had interviewed. I asked her where she was from. Mama, unatoka ni wapi? She told me
Manyara, Hanang specifically. Excitedly I tried to explain that my work was in
solar with the sun and did she know of our company? Kazi yangu ni solar, na jua. Unajua d.light? She said that she had
not, but was very happy to hear we would be coming to her hometown. She did not
have electricity and wanted light at night. She said our work was good, very
good, and thanked me for doing it. I paused for a moment. Even though she hadn’t
seen the work and had no idea of what our products were like or when she would
see them, even so she was grateful the work was being done and that someone
wanted to invest in her town. That alone was validating. I smiled and thanked
her, adding Mama, nafurahi kukufahamu.
(Mama, I am happy to meet you/It was a pleasure meeting you.)
Truthfully, it
really was.
