Kariakoo Market

Kariakoo is a major local market in the centre of Dar es Salaam.  It is a vibrant, bustling place spanning several blocks, where local people come here for groceries, utensils, clothes, …, anything.  

The main building has high ceilings, big entrance and big openings.  It was airy and relatively cool inside even though it was sunny and 32 degrees Celsius outside.  My Tanzanian friend told me that the building was built by the Germans in colonial times.  That would make it more than 100 years old.  

I was quite happy to find mountains of small dried fish, just like those in Hong Kong and many other East Asian countries.  

I became positively nostalgic when I saw so much rice being sold out of their sacks, scenes that I was so familiar with in my childhood, so many decades ago.  But such scenes have disappeared from Hong Kong.  

My mother brought up three kids while making much needed extra income sewing all kinds of children’s clothing.  Initially she used a foot powered mechanical machine.  Later, my father fitted it with an electrical motor.  I was not prepared to find many foot-powered sewing machines just like those that my mother used.   

I guess this is partly why some people say Tanzania is what China looked like 30 years ago.  

Much of the herbal medicine are also quite familiar, even though I could not name them.  

There are “cuttlebones” (the internal shell of the cuttle fish).  They are supposed to be good for stomach ulcers.  

The man selling colourful towels looked striking.  I was reminded that it was a sunny 32 degree Celsius.  

In this kind of weather, water is a life-saver.  But they are also heavy.  It is hard work selling water on the street. 

I love this place.  I just wish I could spend more time there. 

Service-Learning in Tanzania?

As much as I enjoy seeing Tanzania, I am not here as a tourist.  I am here to see whether it is possible to do some service-learning projects, perhaps similar to what we have been doing in Rwanda.  I have not posted much on service-learning yet because I do not wish to raise false hopes and expectations.  I hate to disappoint people if things do not turn out as expected.  

I did find many promising leads.  I have found an NGO that is doing a lot of good work, knows the country well, and may be able to help us find potential sites and communities to work with.  There are already a few potential projects that we can take on.  

There are at least two universities that are interested in working with us, perhaps sending their students to work with our students.  China has a big presence here.  At the University of Dar es Salaam, they pointed out to me the main library built with Chinese contributions.  

There is still, of course, a lot of work to be done before a project can happen.  There is no shortage of our own students who would be interested in coming here.  The question is who is going to lead them - which teaching team (subject) is both capable and willing to take it up?  

And the funding for the team - where it is coming from.  I have some ideas but there are still many challenges ahead. 

Again, there is no shortage of communities in need and problems to solve; there are plenty of potential partners that we can work with; there are always students who want to participate; there may be professors who are willing to teach and lead the students; and there are often individuals or organisations who are willing to donate to a good cause.  The challenge is to link them together: putting together a practical, feasible, attractive and convincing project.

I did not realise, when I started so many years ago, that this would be what I am doing.  God indeed works in mysterious ways, very often in ways that we do not expect.      

Street Food Tanzania

Coconut water/juice is quite common.  Less common is the core of the trunk of a banana “tree”.  I was told it is actually the stem of the banana flower bud, in the centre of the trunk. 

I have seen more jackfruit vendors on the streets in Dar es Salaam than any other country that I have been to, including Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Singapore. I don’t know why it is so popular here.  

There are dates that are dried,  to different degrees.

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And there are dates that seem freshly picked from a palm tree. 

The oranges here are green.  And the outer layer (flavedo) is sliced off before it is sold.  Again I do not know why.

Fresh corn is available.

So are sugar canes.  Here the vendor peels off the skin for you.  

I have always been told to avoid fresh fruits that are cut open before they are sold.  Here people do not seem to be concerned.  I have seen many people, mostly men, eating them on the street.  

There are many twists and puzzles, making it a lot of fun just watching people eat on the street.  It is an art that has disappeared from the streets of the “developed” countries.  

Tanzania from the air

My first views of Tanzania are, naturally, from the air.  One of my earlier impressions are houses surrounded by rectangular shaped fences made of trees.  

Some are simple squares, while others are more elaborate. 

Then I realized that the fences can be circular in shape. 

Closer to Dar es Salaam, I could see the houses in more detail.  Many of the houses were without a roof.   Is that a sign of a building bloom - that many houses are being built?  Or is that the opposite - that many households lack the finances to complete their houses?  

Could it be a practice similar to that I heard in Egypt - where people have scraped together some money they build one floor, and then add additional floors one by one?  I also noticed that many houses do not have properly paved floors - grass is growing inside the walls.  

Closer to the city, more houses are completely fenced in by proper walls.  And many houses are big mansions - particularly those fenced in. 

The paths among the houses can be quite intricate.  

Many features become visible when viewed from above.  I guess that’s what it means to take a fresh perspective of things.  

I had not even landed.  Yet Tanzania already looked intriguing. 

Cooking projects

Most people in the rural areas in Rwanda cook their food by putting a pot on a 3-stone stove.  

The fuel generally consists of small twigs they scavenge from the hillside.  The twigs burn quickly, much are still moist, burn quickly and generate a large amount of smoke.  The heat generated is not concentrated, dissipates easily and does not achieve very high temperatures.  A lot of wood is burnt inefficiently, devastating the countryside. The smoke damages the health of the women who do the cooking, and the children they carry with them. 

The diet consist mainly of starchy produces that they grow themselves: cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, plantain (green bananas, cooking bananas).  

Those who can afford it supplement it with peanuts, chillies, squashes, …  But the bulk is starch.  

They rarely eat meat or other types of protein.  

This summer we are launching two other projects here besides solar panel power generation.  One team will design number of ways to build better stoves: using bricks, dried mud bricks, etc.  They will also design better ways to use the same fuels.  For example, by pressing together dried banana leaves to make denser and more energy efficient fuel.  

Another team with help the villagers to start small kitchen gardens to grow green vegetables, to improve the diet.  

This is why we are here for the “pre-trip” study.  To discuss with our partner NGO - African Evangelical Enterprise, to learn from the villagers their cooking methods, the diet, the issues and concerns that may affect their willingness and ability to adopt new cooking methods.  AEE seem excited about the new projects.  There seems to be real opportunities to work with their own self-help groups and even local government at the village level.  

We are excited and looking forward to a challenging but meaningful summer. 

A Glimpse of Burundi

Flying from Addis Ababa to Kigali, the plane stopped in Bujumbura in Burundi briefly.   

Hello, Burundi!  

The plane stayed on the ground for half an hour to offload some passengers and upload some additional passengers.  We stayed in the plane.  So I didn’t touch the ground, even though I was in the country.  

Even though I have never been in the country before.  I do know someone there: the wife and son of a friend from Burundi.  Burundi is also closely related to Rwanda, a county deep in my heart.  It is populated by the same two tribes: Hutus and Tutsis as in Rwanda, and shares similar tensions.  

Bujumbura was the capital of Burundi until very recently, when the capital was moved to  Gitega in December 2018. 

When the plane took off, it flew over a community where houses seemed small and closely packed.  It reminds me of other African countries such as Rwanda.  

It then passed over a waterfront community.

There are a number of hotels and restaurants right on the waterfront.  Here the compounds seem spacious.  It is obvious this is where the rich go.  

We were then over the open waters of Lake Tanganyika. It is the second largest as well as the second deepest freshwater lake in the world.  It seemed to disappear in the distance.  

Goodbye Burundi!

Rwanda via Ethiopia

Six of us from our university arrived in Rwanda today from Hong Kong, via Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and then Burundi.  We are here to visit the site and discuss with our NGO partner, African Enterprise Rwanda, for our projects this summer.   

While in transit at the airport in Addis Ababa, I noticed a counter that provides service in Chinese.  

There was also this big noodle shop. which gave me a free bowl of noodles last time I was here,  several other shops with signs and decorations in Chinese, and the many Chinese workers in our plane.  

Then I noticed the many RMB bills, in the box collecting donations for the Eye Bank of Ethiopia.  

At the Burundi airport, we stayed in the plane.  So I didn’t touch the ground, even though I was in the country.  I know very little about Burundi.  But I do have some friends here. 

I recall, of course, the many construction projects, including the mass transit railway in the centre of Addis Ababa.  And the many construction projects, roads and buildings, right here in Rwanda. 

All of these point to the increasing Chinese presence in Africa, and specifically in Ethiopia and Rwanda.  I pray that we are making a positive contribution in these countries.  

International Conference on Service-Learning

With the Social Innovation Hackthon, we opened our third International Conference on Service-Service-Learning.  The conference continues to grow: more people submitting papers, the quality of the papers improve, more people attending (~200 from 20+ countries), …

Again we have Andrew Furco - a pioneer and now an elder in the community - speaking on research.  He is always a favourite, because of his scholarship as well as his unceasing effort to help to build up the community, linking diverse groups together, and unassuming demeanour.  In March, we will ask him to come back to Hong Kong to work with us on a number of research problems. 

Matthew Johnson from Brown University - one of the most respected centers of excellence in the community - spoke about partnership, particularly in the international arena, and the transformations - including that of the institution engaged in service-learning itself. In this community, the desirable transformation results in the institution being more engaged with the community.  I have to wonder whether this is also a desirable goal of the management in many prestigious universities and those who are focused on the climbing the ranking ladders.  

Besides the tow keynote speeches, we also have two interesting panel discussions.  One of which discussed the linkage between service-learning and the academic disciplines, such as business, engineering, health, …   For some, such as health, the linkage seem more obvious to most people.  For some, such as engineering, it is more of a challenge, even though it shouldn’t be: engineering is the application of science to solve problems, it should be natural for students to learn to apply engineering methods to societal problems such as energy, clean water, …  For business, some recent data has indicated that students who went through a business / economics education may actually turned more selfish. It is quite alarming and service-learning may be a method to address that.  

There are also some interesting workshops and many many good paper presentations.  One workshop that I attended explore issues of identity, warming up the audience by asking them to swap identities.  

Many people stayed until the very end of the conference, an encouraging indication that the people enjoyed the conference.  

There are many signs that the community in this region is growing.  And we are glad that we are playing a role in it.  We could not have envisioned this when we started our program in 2000.