First of all, on Thursday night I found out that one of the girls in my program, Laura was leaving to go home to the US on Saturday morning. Because of a whole bunch of health issues, she had to go home to go to a good hospital which meant that she decided to leave extremely quickly. By the time I found out she was leaving though, I had already made my plans to go to Dodoma for the weekend and had bought my bus ticket. It was really sad saying goodbye to her on Thursday night, and I have another goodbye this weekend when Adrienne goes home. It’s so sad that everyone is going home soon! Time has gone by so quickly, I can’t even believe it.
First thing on Friday morning, my friend Ivan and I left to go to Dodoma for the weekend to get my research for the summer figured out a little bit. Ivan is a friend from school who I have been going to the orphan center outside of Dar with the past few weekends, and he has some friends in Dodoma who he wanted to visit anyways so agreed to go with me for the weekend to help out. The bus takes about 6 hours, but it was a fun ride since I have never been out that direction (past Morogoro) so it was all new sights. Oh and I found my dream place along the way. There is one area, about an hour and a half before you get to Dodoma, which I absolutely fell in love with. It is just these beautiful fields/farms that stretch in every direction with mountains in the distance and I looooove it there. Not to mention that in the middle of it there is literally Pride Rock (like you the big rock/mountain from The Lion King!?). No joke, it looks exactly like it... I got very excited haha.
When we finally came into Dodoma, I practically laughed out loud at the central bus station. Dodoma was technically made the capital of Tanzania about 15 years ago and has all of the main parliament buildings, but Dar continues to be the true capital. From plenty of research and from talking to a lot of people about it, I knew that Dodoma was no Dar es Salaam... but I guess I didn't expect it to be quite as pathetic as it was. Don't get me wrong, I ended up really really liking Dodoma, but it's pretty wimpy for a capital city. It is only a little bitbigger than Moshi was, no more developed, and just about the only big/impressive building in the whole town in the Parliament Building. The bus station that we came into was so small and dusty and undeveloped that at first I didn't even believe we were there. Anyways, once I got over a little bit of intial shock, we met up with Ivan's family friend Beatrice and headed directly to the Regional Government office before it closed (it is only open on weekdays). Beatrice is my age but is only in her final year of secondary school (high school) because of the way the schooling system here works. Because students start school later and have more years of schooling before the university level, most people don't start university until they are 20 or 21... which is why every here thinks I'm crazy when I say I am already in my third year of school. Anyways, Beatrice ended up taking care of us the whole weekend: we stayed at her house, she cooked for us, she helped me out with my research, she showed me around town, etc. It was wonderful.
When we got to the Regional Government office it was about to close, but I managed to make it in just in time. I spoke with a guy there and explained to him that I wanted to do research on water access in rural villages in the Dodoma region and was hoping he could give me some information on the area. He ended up being a really big a-hole (excuse my language) and being very rude to me. He said that I needed a letter from the University of Dar es Salaam explaining that I am a student, I am interested in researching water, etc. He kept saying that if I didn’t have a letter “or anything else to offer,” there wasn’t any way he could take me to his boss to talk about getting information. After a while I just gave up since the whole letter thing made sense, but when we left Ivan was really mad and I didn’t really understand. He said that by not having “anything to offer” the guy basically meant “well if you don’t have a letter than you should have at least come with money.” I was so surprised… that thought had never even crossed my mind when I was in the office. I guess that’s how things work here, but I’m not about to get involved in that so I’m working on getting the letter now. After that, we went to the local municipal council to try to find out the information, and they started telling me the same thing about needing a letter; however, after lots of persistence and talking to about 3 bazillion different people (I think the whole building knew and hated me by the time I left haha), I finally got to speak with one guy who helped. He told me the names of the local NGOs (non-governmental organizations) who do work with water, a few villages that have been worked with in the past (which I am assuming means that they have functioning wells now), and a few villages in desperate need of water access. That was enough of a good start for me, so I finally agreed to go back to Beatrice’s house for the night (it was about 5 at this point and we were still carrying all of our luggage from when we got off the bus at 2). Beatrice lives with her family about 20 minutes outside of town in a really nice house, but her parents/aunt/uncle were out of town so they had lots of extra space. We just hung out at the house for the rest of the night and watched some movies, which was a nice break from all of the running around I had been doing the whole week before.
On Saturday morning I went back into town to try to find the water NGOs and any other organizations that may help. I made it to the WaterAid office (a big international NGO) and there was a secretary there to talk to, but the office itself was closed. She told me that the Team Leader for Dodoma was out of town anyways, so she gave me his contact information and I’m still working on emailing him for information. Next, I wandered around town trying to find the other two NGOs, but they either 1. Don’t exist, 2. Don’t do enough work to be well known by the people, or 3. Are hidden in some magical part of town that disappears whenever I walk by it haha. I don’t know where they are but I walked around aimlessly for almost 2 hours asking people where they were and NO ONE knew anything at all. I guess I’ll have to go back to the municipal office next time I’m there (and it is open) to ask where they are located. Walking aimlessly, however, was actually surprisingly productive. First, I made friends with a guy who has perfect English, works at the Central Development Authority in town (not exactly sure what they do but they sound like they could be useful), and did his graduate study research is rainwater catchment systems. Worst case scenario, if I can't find any well experts or anyone else to work with for my research, he seems like a pretty great option for a translator. Also, I found one private drilling company located in town, which will be helpful in getting some price estimates for building/repairing wells in the area. Lastly, I found a few NGOs dealing with rural development initiatives. I figure NGOs like that would at least know info about the towns they have worked with and which ones need water access, have water already, etc. All of the companies were closed since it was Saturday, but it was really helpful to learn what Dodoma has to offer NGO-wise, figure out my way around town, get the phone numbers/contact info for different places, etc.
In the afternoon, Beatrice, Ivan and I went to visit a local orphanage that Beatrice works with a lot. The orphanage has about 35 kids living there, between the ages of 5 and 15. When we got there, the director told us all about the orphanage and the NGO it is run by, which also runs about 5 other community development/youth education programs in the surrounding area. Then we spent an hour or two just hanging out with the kids, playing games with them, and listening to them sing for us. I love the children at orphanages in general, and these kids were even more loving and excited to have us there than the most. They weren’t shy at all either, which made it really fun.
We had a late lunch/early dinner in town and then bought our tickets home at the central bus station. I had originally planned to stay until Monday, but after walking around Saturday I realized that there was really no point since everything would be closed all day Sunday. I considered staying just so that I could spend an hour or two in town on Monday when things would be open, but I didn’t want to waste Sunday not doing anything in Dodoma when I had a lot of work to get done at home as well. Plus, I didn’t really know anyone in Dodoma and Ivan had to go home for class Monday, so I would have been really lonely in town all day Sunday. Anyways, we spent the night relaxing at Beatrice’s house once again and then left to come back to Dar on Sunday morning. As much as I laughed/made fun of Dodoma for being such a pathetic capital at first, I really ended up liking it there. It is completely un-touristy (because there is honestly nothing to see there) and all of the people there are extremely nice. I take that back, all of the people except the ******* who worked at the regional office haha. Nonetheless, I think it’s a great area and I really think I’ll enjoy spending a few weeks there.
It was a good thing that I decided to come back when I did because I ended up getting some sort of stomach bug/food poisoning on Sunday night and was sick all day Monday… which would have sucked even more than it already did if I had been in a hotel alone in Dodoma and/or on a bus back home. So, I’m glad everything worked out as it did.
Yesterday I had a history essay/presentation AND a history test on the same day (I’m the unlucky one who got stuck with my presentation on that date), so I was busy all day Tuesday working on that. Both went well, and I’m glad to have them over with so I can get started planning more for my research. The trip to Dodoma was really successful in the sense that now I have a long list of preparation stuff that I need to get done which I didn’t know about before. Jason, the kid from Lehigh who I worked with this water project on from the very beginning and who I won the grant with, is coming to Tanzania May 8th-19th help out with the beginning of the research. I’ll have to skip classes for a week then, which isn’t exactly great, but it was the only week he can come so oh well. Anyways, I have soooo much to get figured out before he comes… and it’s only a few weeks away! Ah!
Now I stressed myself out thinking about it all and need to get back to work haha. First step is figuring out how to get the Vice Chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam to sign off on my research in less than three weeks (mind you that NOTHING in this country happens in less than three weeks… I’ve been here three and a half months and still don’t have an ID card from the university…). Wish me luck! Miss you all
Love,
Lisa
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