Bangoyo Island

On Saturday, I made my way off the mainland to a nearby uninhabited island to take my first dip into the Indian Ocean. Bangoyo Island can be reached by taking a 30 minute ferry from the Slipway on Msasani Peninsula to the sandy beaches of the long, narrow island. The water really is that blue and clear, and on this day the weather was just right. Although it turns out the sun was a bit more intense than I anticipated, and I'm still feeling the warmth now with my lovely sunburn.

A fun little treat was finding a tide pool about 6 m/yds by 2 m/yds, which was home to about 15 eels, which were entertaining to watch slithering through the water with their beady eyes and large mouths open wide.

All in all, it was a very pleasant beach day, and I highly recommend this little getaway, if you happen to find yourself in Dar es Salaam for a couple of days, in which case the SWAHILI WORDS OF THE DAY would be mashua (boat) and kisiwa (island).

Wandering through Nairobi

Unfortunately, the majority of my time in Nairobi was spent in the hotel where the conference was held. But I decided to extend my time on Saturday so I could actually experience the city a bit. The fun actually began on Friday night, when I went with a couple of colleagues to a local restaurant with live music - a band with at least 10 members with lively trumpets, guitar, keyboard, and loud voices belting out the best of Congolese and East African music, but recent and older classics. And the dance floor reciprocated the enthusiasm.

On Saturday, I walked all over downtown Kenya and even found some local public transportation routes that made for interesting rides. A couple of highlights were the Kenya National Archives, the first picture here, which had a range of art and artifacts from Kenya and across the continent. What made it such an enjoyable visit was that I happened to arrive at the same time as a high school group, and the tour guide found excellent ways to keep it lively and engaging. Meanwhile, I was amused as students tried oh-so-slyly to snap a picture with the mobile phone that included this foreigner in the background.

I also stopped by the memorial garden for where the U.S. embassy was bombed in 1998. In the picture to the left there is a sculpture made from some of the rubble. Another part of the garden had a fountain and list of names of those who were victims. Sadly, the vast majority of those who died were Kenyans who were in or near the embassy when the bombing took place.

I could share more about the tourist market maze I found myself in, or the crowded meat market I stumbled upon, or the little agricultural shops I snooped around, or the city park I found myself in when the rainclouds burst open, but that's all I'll write about today.

SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: "ndege" - the word for both bird (there were huge 4' tall crane-like ones near the hotel) and airplane (which got me safely home on Saturday night)

Visiting Amani Ya Juu

So I seized the opportunity while in Nairobi to stop by an organization that I have been familiar with for the past several years. Amani Ya Juu is a sewing and reconciliation project for marginalized women in Africa that began about a dozen years ago from a tiny operation with women sewing place mats in a tiny space to a well developed business, with both a local market and exports (including a boutique in Washington, DC: http://amanidc.wordpress.com/). I was privileged a couple of years ago to meet a few of the women who came to the U.S. to showcase their latest clothing line and share their stories though a fashion narrative. It was great to finally get to visit them at their workplace and hear about their stories of perseverance, hope, and community.

I was also encouraged to talk with the director and hear about some of her vision for the next year, which includes working more closely with the women to discern their hopes and dreams, and how Amani can serve as a platform to help the women move forward with their own initiatives and expand the scope of work. At Amani, it is important for these women to learn and develop skills, and as well as living out the message of peace and reconciliation in the work that they do.

So if you're looking for a great place to buy gifts and support some incredible ladies, I encourage you to take a look at Amani Ya Juu.

SWAHILI WORDS OF THE DAY: Amani ya juu means "higher peace"

CAADP lessons learned

Here are a couple more pictures from Nairobi, where I spent the majority of my time sitting in these conference rooms. But it was a productive time. The first picture is from a discussion of the role the different actors play in the implementation of these programs around food security. I found it interesting to listen to the discourse and word choice. "Development partners" is the preferred term, rather than donors. Although when we talking about roles, someone said, "well, the role of donors is to donate." And "sensitization" was another common phrase. "We need to sensitize people about gender (or nutrition or whatever other aspect)." And we kept talking about building capacity. I wish it was as simple as the construction work I used to do. Or that the results of building capacity would be as concrete and obvious as building a house. Alas.



The second picture here is of Jacqueline, who is the executive director of an apex organization for Tanzanian horticulture, and I was quite impressed to see her leadership skills and vision for sustainably developing horticulture in the country, with an emphasis on including the small holders.

I was impressed by another woman from the Tanzanian delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture, who emphasized on the third day that the workshop would have been even more comprehensive if we had systematically looked at the environmental aspects to these agricultural value chains.

An overall takeaway from this conference is that there seems to be a new paradigm emerging with renewed focus on agriculture and a firm commitment to leading at the country level in a consultative way. On the flip side, I still see opportunities to strengthen the regional integration/coordination, but in general I left the workshop hopeful.

Jacaranda Trees

I've heard of them, but this is the first time I've gotten to experience them. Jacaranda trees in full blossom, with vibrant hues of purple, richer than a periwinkle, intense in their beauty.

Moving from "we lack" to "we have"

Over the past couple of days, I've been in Nairobi participating in regional donor-sponsored meetings on addressing food security. But today began the conference I've been waiting to attend. One of the major principles we've been promoting has be a country-led and country-owned process. Great. But what does that actually look like and mean? Is it actually happening?

So this conference is put on by the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme ( www.caadp.net ), as well as the regional economic community COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa). It's actually more like a work meeting, with specific breakout sessions and tasks to address key issues along value chains. And the delegations include diverse stakeholders - government officials, producer associations, trade associations, development organizations, civil society, etc, etc. And I've been hearing some great things:

"Before, the government just made their own policies, but now, because of the CAADP process, they are involving the private sector"

"We have found that if we organized ourselves and explained our situation, and the government worked with us to change the regulations to what we need."

"All 10 ministries related to the agricultural sector agreed to this one plan, which is amazing"

We then broke into working groups to discuss different agricultural commodities, and the specific opportunities and challenges in each sub-sector. There are definitely opportunities, but we expressed many constraints and underlying causes, ranging from political will and interests to lack of capacity and lack of standards.

Afterwards I spoke with someone who helped put some of the session in perspective for me. He has been working with every East and Southern African country represented at this conference to move this country-led process forward. He said he was getting so discouraged in our session because he kept hearing "we lack...", "we lack...", "we lack...". He doesn't want them to see a tremendous gaping hole, but rather to identify the specific gap. It isn't that we lack standards, it's that the standards aren't enforced. Do we really lack capacity? So much has been invested in each of the leaders that are represented at the conference. Have they not received quite a bit already that can be claimed?

The man also shared a couple of other stories. He has cone to these countries and asked, who is the maize expert or the cassava expert, and has found it difficult to have people step forward and say, "yes, I am". Or when he was working with papaya farmers, they tremendously increased their yields and capabilities. Yet when the donor organization came by, the farmers shared, "we lack...", including "we lack capacity." I was so inspired by this man's firm believe that, yes, we have something to offer. We need to believe that.

I must confess that after talking with this man I realized that I too was guilty of seeing things through the "lacking" perspective. Even in this working session, I had been so quick to see gaping holes. I think part of it comes down to "the one with the hammer sees nails everywhere" (or however that proverb goes). We as Western educated people see all the areas where our expertise should come in. When can those who have traditionally been in power get to a point of humility and willingness to listen, and when can those who have been traditional recipients stand with confidence and belief in what they have to offer and share their vision of the way forward?

I think that's what is exciting me about this conference and the paradigm shift that I believe is beginning to take place. With these CAADP country-led plans for food security, we in the donor community are saying yes, we will listen to what you have developed and use that as a context for moving forward. I feel like I'm beginning to witness a change in perspective that has the potential to be revolutionary.

SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: "maendeleo" means "development"

Tingatinga

Not far from my place is the Tingatinga market. The Tingatinga art are primarily oil paintings on canvas, with a distinctive style and caricatures of animals and people. The website for the artist cooperative is: http://www.tingatinga.org/index.html . The picture here is of the street market, but there were also shops and you can walk directly into the cooperative artist studios. The vibrant colors are very eye-catching and inspiring. I've got a few Tingatinga paintings in my room. When I was downtown, I also noticed that the Tingatinga painters have left their marks on other kinds of canvases - the picture to the left is a garage door for a residence near the main market.