Spice tour

Working on ag in Tanzania, I knew that it would be very useful to go on a spice tour and learn a bit about this critical part of the agriculture sector, especially on Zanzibar.

It's amazing how much I learned in one morning - that vanilla is actually sort of an invasive vine, that cardomom grows at the roots of trees, that leaves from the arbaini tree can be boiled for a natural way to treat a bout of malaria, that mace is vibrant red and feels like plastic and is wrapped around the nutmeg seed, and that there's a pod that has bright orange natural dye that's used in tandoori chicken (pictured left).

I realized I actually knew so little about the origins of many of the items in my spice cabinet. Those dark brown cloves actually start out a vibrant red and yellow. And there's rambutan, a relative of the lychee that is a comical spikey red, yellow, and green fruit with a squishy, clear, delicious inside.

And all along, the tour guide helpers filled up our little palm leaf containers with samples from the trees, and fashioned all kinds of tree leaf ornamentation for us - I ended up with a frog necklace, two bracelets, a ring, and these stylin' profilin' glasses to complement my bride's maid basket of spice samples.

It's only appropriate that the SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY is viungo, which means spices.

Listening to the Liturgy

For many of the Sunday's that I've been here I've gone to a liturgical church and I've appreciated the rhythm of the liturgy and that I know at the very least I'm going to hear two lessons, a psalm, and a gospel reading. And since my Swahili is still getting up to snuff, having the consistency of words that I know what they mean.

In Zanzibar I stayed at a guesthouse next to the Anglican church that was built on the grounds of the old slave market, after the end of the slave trade on the island in the second half of the 19th century.

Each morning I would hear the early morning call to prayer, since the island is 99% Muslim and a mosque was only a couple of blocks away. But on Sunday morning I also heard the 6am church bells ringing. And I stumbled out of bed to go to the early Swahili service.

It was interesting and I was surprised that there were more people present at the service than I expected, considering the small population of Christians in Zanzibar and that this was the early morning service. I caught a bit of the message, but the priest spoke a bit too quickly. So I found my mind wandering back to the Scriptures that were read the previous week that were still ringing in my head, because it runs so counter to the way that the world tells us to live:

Romans 12: Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone... If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And even in the Old Testament reading, which sometimes includes not-so-palatable stories of death and destruction, there's this crazy account in 2Kings 6. The prophet Elisha sees the Aramean army coming, and his servant freaks out. Elisha says, don't be afraid we've got more on our side than they have on their side and prays for the eyes of the servant to be opened, and there's this supernatural army standing guard. Then Elisha prays that the Arameans would be blinded. Then he leads the blinded straight to the king of the people they were trying to attack, then opens their eyes again. The king of Israel asks Elisha what to do and whether to kill them. Elisha responds: "Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master.” So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory.

Isn't that just insane? I mean, who does that? What would the world look like if we sought to overcome evil with good, to feed our enemy, and didn't choose to repay evil with evil? What if the church as as revolutionary as that?

SWAHILI WORDS OF THE DAY: kanisa = church, mapinduzi = revolutionary

An evening in Zanzibar town

I wish I could do more than just send pictures of what a stroll around this island is like.
I wish you could smell the seafood kebobs being sold in the park.
I wish you could hear the waves breaking at the port.
I wish you could feel the sand beneath your toes as the sun slinks below the horizon.
I wish you could see the enthusiasm of boys and young men doing crazy jumps, flips, and all kinds of gymnastic feats just for the fun of it.
I wish you could could spend an evening with me in Zanzibar town.

Just crazy enough to get into trouble, just smart enough to get out of it

So once upon a time there was a girl who was just crazy enough to get herself into trouble and just smart enough to get herself out of it. She decided that before her friend arrived in town at 12:30 she could squeeze in a quick little morning jaunt to go snorkeling. So she picks a place on the island that looks like nice peninsula, reads somewhere that there's some hotel in that village, and sets out to find her way out there.

Being far too parsimonious, she walks past the taxis and meanders towards the local minibus that bears the name of the destination she desires. For a mere fifty cents she sets off on a 30 minute journey, with all of the other passengers on the bus looking at her like she's a crazy foreigner and asking her, you're really going to that village. Yep, she says with her head held high.

At the end of the tarmac road, the minibus comes to a halt and everyone gets off. Except it doesn't really seem like a village with just a couple of houses around. The girl asks the driver, which way to the hotel in this town? Down that dirt road, then turn right, go a ways, then it's on your left. As she sets out, she walks alongside a local woman who kindly informs her that it's at least 30 minutes by foot to get there.

Suddenly this adventure and the fact that she's walking down this random dirt road doesn't seem like such a great idea. Luckily, just as the dread is setting in, a taxi bumps down the dirt road, carrying a couple of Brits. The girl waves down the taxi, finds out they passengers are also headed to the hotel, and jumps in, thanking the kind villager who had walk a little ways with her.

After a bit, the dirt road splits into three and there's only one sign post, for a place that doesn't bear the name of the hotel. The taxi driver calls someone and somehow decides to take the far right fork in the road. After jostling down the road for a bit, the girl sticks out her head and asks a lone passer-by if this was the way to the hotel. With an affirmative answer, the intrepid carload presses on. After another ten minutes or so, they ask someone else, who also seems to point them towards continuing in the same direction. Considering that the village woman at the beginning had warned of a thirty minute trek by foot, this appeared to be a bit to long. When they stopped at the next small shop, the owner kindly informed them, oh no, it's back in the opposite direction.

Returning where they came from, this crew returned down the bumpy dirt road to find a sign, clearly visable from the opposite direction, pointing to the hotel at the far left fork in that road. Not too far down that way, a luxurious hotel emerged in the tropical forest. The Brits had found their destination, but the girl cleverly said she was coming to investigate future vacation options, got a quick tour of the place, and then high-tailed it, with the taxi driver who had kindly agreed to wait, back towards town to be back in time for the friend. This "snorkeling adventure" turned out to be quite an adventurous way to see the countryside of the island. The direct and safe route back to town for a few dollars with this taxi driver was the smartest thing that girl had done all day.

Farmers' Marketing Hub

So it's great that there are the women like those in my last post who are producing vegetables, but how can they be assured that they will be able to make a living from it? USAID has partnered with one of those fancy hotels in Zanzibar town that'strying to make a difference in the community and said, we'll help raise the quality of the produce from these small holders and create a marketing hub with cold storage, will you be a committed buyer? So the facility has only been open for less than two months, and they're starting things out and trying to get the system down before the main harvest season later this summer. But it seems like they're on the right track. You can imagine being a high end hotel restaurant and finding it much more appealing to find produce in crates like in this first picture and with people who know market prices shown in the second picture, than buying directly from the street like in the third picture.
I was also fortunate to get to be there for a stakeholder's meeting with members from the farmers' associations, ag extension workers and government officials, shown in the last picture.

Zanzibar Women's Producer's Group

While in Zanzibar, my colleague and I took the opportunity to go out to the field and visit some of the farmers that are supplying a marketing hub in the city center in Stone Town. The chairwoman of the association, dressed here in vibrant green and orange, took us on a tour to see the various crops - okra pictured here, as well as zucchini, tomatoes, corn, eggplant, watermelon. The women were in the midst of cooking their mid-day meal and were busy chatting with each other in the shade, but posed for this group photo. After they pick their produce they are able to keep it in a "cool storage" facility before it's transfered to the city. The innovative small hut with walls of charcoal keeps the produce sufficiently cool in the balmy weather. The building can be seen in the distance behind that ubiquitous donor sign.

CAADP zonal workshop

One of the main principles of how the United States is seeking to address global food security is to work through country-led plans. In the African context, this means through the African Union endorsed Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP). Through this process, a country (the government, but also private sector, farmers organizations, civil society, etc) creates a comprehensive investment plan for several years to address agriculture development and food security. Then there can be greater coordination so that you don’t have many different entities off doing their own thing, but there is an agreed-upon strategy to unite all players to a common goal.
Since being here, I’ve been able to witness the process of creating the Tanzanian plan. There has been a great deal of energy from the Tanzanians who are drafting it and feel a sense of ownership. But it’s a challenge as the immediate reaction for the that some donors or development partners have is to wish for an outside consultant to just quickly dive in and do the work. But I believe the longer road may be more sustainable.
So this past week I got to attend a meeting in Zanzibar for stakeholders to review and discuss the current draft of the investment plan. Although there were some things that I had wished had been different (it would have been good to have more private sector, civil society, and farmers and fishermen themselves attend; some of the materials were printed in English), there were other things that encouraged me (there was honest discussion on how to improve shortcomings of the current plan, I was really the only foreigner there and the entire workshop was held in Swahili).
It takes a lot, though, to bring this all together and make a unified plan. One component of the strategy for agriculture development in Tanzania is with the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, and the relationship between that and the CAADP investment plan still needs to be more clearly articulated. On the same day that this workshop was taking place, President Kikwete was presenting the SAGCOT investment blueprint at the World Economic Forum, where USAID Administrator Shah was also present.
To conclude this post, I'd like to pay tribute to Mama Ndaba from the Ministry of Agriculture who is one of the people moving the process forward. She's pictured in the first photo. I've admired her dedication and perseverance in the long process. If you think of it, please pray for her extended family. The day after this workshop, her nephew passed away, which has been very hard for the family.

Zanzibar Visit

Okay, so I’ve gotten terribly behind in blogging, so this is my attempt to bring things back up to speed. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I may write just a bit and if you’re interested in more, let me know. The second week of December was pretty hectic, as I was trying to complete revisions on a journal article, as well as my work responsibilities of drafting a multi-year strategy. After quite a few long days, I sent off near final versions for review for both of these massive writing projects and decided to treat myself to a day trip to the island of Zanzibar, two hours away from Dar es Salaam by boat. I took the first ferry there and the last one back and spent my time wandering through the labyrinth of streets in the old part of the port city, known as Stone Town. Zanzibar is now the ZAN part of Tanzania, but it has its own unique history of rule by sultans, the Portuguese, the Omanis, and has a distinct character as a major point along the trade route of East Africa. The population is nearly entirely Muslim, and has a more conservative culture than the mainland. Here are a few of the pictures from my visit there. Of course I had to stop by the bustling market to check out the spices and take a look at the rice, which is a staple on Zanzibar. The next one shows a large over 200 year old Catholic church in the foreground, and a minaret from a mosque in the background. Then there’s one of the famous ornate wooden doors from Stone Town. And inside the Zanzibar museum, there was this reconstruction of a traditional boat, which actually doesn’t use any metal nails at all. All in all, it was a pleasant day of exploring the island.