Roadside Produce Shopping and a 10 Hour Car Ride with 1 Cassette Tape

Today Deo and I visited the two dueling processors in Iringa: Ivori and Dabaga. While both offer a diverse and different product line, they compete on tomato-based products – from sauces to ketchup.

Dabaga ketchup is pure tomato and spices, but then colored to a shade preferred by Africans. It’s sorta magenta. I was initially turned away based on hue alone – but I tried the ketchup and its pretty good.


Empty "tanga" baskets after delivered to Ivori plant. 1 tanga of tomatoes = 30-40 kg


Entrance to Dabaga plant, 32 years in business in Iringa!

The Ivori plant was started as a part-time experiment by the factory’s son – and is now the direction forward for the future of the company. On the other hand, Dabaga has been in Iringa for over 30 years, with a wide and established footprint across southern Tanzania. Their main competitor is actually Red Gold, which sells to most of northern Tanzania. While Ivori refuses to work directly with farmers due to failed contracts and low production volumes, Dabaga is trying to encourage farmers to work in groups to bring them enough volume. Dabaga also prefers to hire women in its factory as they are more efficient and reliable labor.



More than anything, the aroma / stench of tomatoes from the Ivori plant we toured during processing is what I will remember most!

Deo and I then began the trek to Dar – it was slated as an 8 hr adventure but resulted in adding two more additional hours due to traffic and road-side shopping. We again passed through Mikuni Park – and I got to see elephants, giraffes, and zebras, for free! Antelope – or something like that – were plenty and the baboons remained a nuisance yet again.



Deo’s reward to himself for all of this driving is achieved through the purchasing of produce and charcoal to bring home to his family at far cheaper prices from farmers between Iringa and Morogoro. By the end of the drive, our car was also stowing:

- 40 kg of tomatoes
- 20 kg of onions
- 10 kg of cucumbers
- a lot of chilis
- 4 round watermelons
- free juice samples from UNNAT
- free tomato sauce and orange drink samples from Ivori
- free mango chutney and luxury ketchup samples from Dabaga
- 2 huge bags of charcoal that went atop the Landcruiser

While I am now well versed in the Swahili pronunciation of most of my fruits & vegetables for this project – my favorite one is the “pilipili hoho” – which are the long, red peppers. It’s fun to say.


Turns out, it does take a village...to load enormous bags of charcoal on top of our SUV

With a vegetable selection in tow, I quickly discovered Deo’s favorite song. He had been holding out on playing music the entire drive thus far – the silence only punctuated by me asking a question, me asking how to say something in Swahili, or him pointing out something. Until today. We listened to a one-sided cassette tape of a female Tanzanian singer 12 times. I counted. We listened to one song about 20 times. It would play. He’d hit rewind; it’d start again. By about the 8th time, I didn’t know the lyrics per se but could have joined him in a duet, much like one of my favorite scenes from Tommy Boy, with the singing of Eres Tú. I held my tongue and listened to Deo sing, clear his throat, and sing again. He drove 10 hours without caffeine – so whatever keeps him awake works for me.

I'm happy to return to Dar mostly to get a fresh salad from Epi D'or tomorrow -- but I certainly enjoyed my time in the countryside. Tanzania is a beautiful, undeveloped country.

The Villages of Magubike and Idodi

After meager success in attempting to collect information from the Iringa regional and district offices, we were able to travel with a district extension officer to interview additional groups of farmers to get more precise data on price, variety, harvest volume, and challenges.

Upon arrival, a chair and desk-like structure yet again appeared from somewhere for me to use. This happened in Mhonda – and again twice in Iringa. While in Mhonda, I (awkwardly) sat at the front of the area in a chair and the farmers each brought in a rock or some other hard object to perch upon during our discussion. In Magubike, we met in their local bar – a thatched roof, open wall structure. In Idodi, everyone had a wooden chair and gathered haphazardly. Idodi seemed a bit upscale, as their agriculture field office also had posted a flag pole flying Tanzanian colors. The “landscaping” around the office employed a favorite aesthetic strategy of my late Army colonel grandpa, where trees and walkways are delineated by arranging a series of similarly sized rocks painted white. While the buildings were faded and more dilapidated than new, the white rocks helped to make the area look cleaner than one might realize after a longer gaze.


Stay classy, Idodi


The meeting in Magubike was the most interesting as the farmers do not work in groups – yet they verbalized challenges of not owning transport to take their own produce to the larger Dar market. This highlighted the opportunity that groups could be possible – depending on the perceived financial benefit promised if working together. They offered information willingly on average prices (which were low) for their produce and shared frustrations on poor roads and market opaqueness. The questioning took a long time, as I would ask the field officer in English, he would translate with some additional color commentary in Swahili, there would be some debate and deliberation, and then consensus would be shared to me by the officer in English. I am grateful to the patience of those farmers, who spent several hours with me, instead of tending to their daily, difficult work.

On our return drive from these villages to Iringa, we stopped at a local fruit stand, as Deo wanted to bring his family some watermelon and cucumbers since we return to Dar tomorrow. We sat by the road, eating fresh watermelon – which was delicious! Watermelon grown here is spherical in shape, not the oblong kind found in the US. Deo also asked me why I wasn’t eating the seeds, as they eat everything up to the rind. It was a peaceful end to a long day.

En Route to Iringa…Free mini-safari and flat tires

The four hour drive from Morogoro to Iringa is usually only filled with beautiful landscape and a chance to spot wildlife (for free!). The road naturally cuts through Mikuni National Park in order to travel between these two cities. This qausi-park visit was my first zebra spotting and they are very cool to see collected in a group! Baboons were also in full force, sitting defiantly along the road or scattering into side brush as our car passed.


Awesome

About half way through our drive, we heard the back left tire make the depressed thudding of a flat. I thought it was odd at how flat the tire sat against the pavement based on when we heard the puncture. Deo was a seasoned tire repair veteran, switching to the spare in record time – and I launched into telling him about the growing American followership of NASCAR with competitive tire change teams. I am not sure I was successful in vaulting over the cultural divide on that one, but Deo seemed amused. :)


Not awesome

Our trip later on became more interesting when a second tire blew (the same tire location, faulty spare!) and it was dusk, with 50km to go. Deo and I walked to the next village and were advised to continue to the next small town to find a replacement shop. Along the way, two middle school-aged teenagers befriended us and turned out to be quite helpful, particularly in the extreme darkness of night. The stars were amazingly bright and Deo again set to task to repair two tires and change one out one yet again. I’m glad my mother reminded me to keep a small flashlight in my backpack in Africa.

I soon learned that it is far more efficient here to have a strong “outer” tire shell for traction – and then fill all tires with inflated tubes. Due to the terrain, flats are frequent, hence this tube replacement is far more cost efficient. When the tube bursts, there is literally nothing supporting the outer shell so it flattens entirely – but it is a reasonably easy fix! Tubes look like the same kind that you would float down the Guadelupe River on…just stuffed inside an outer shell. While this is the basic structure of most tires, it just seemed fitting to how Africa willingly improvises to cut cost (at the expense of quality) and reflects the realities of long transportation required to travel anywhere. We eventually arrived to the small mountain town of Iringa.

The Village of Mhonda

Village Center, Mhonda


The village of Mhonda is located in the Mvoromero district of the Morogoro region. In order to arrive to the village center, you drive along quasi-paved freeway from Morogoro for about an hour, turn off along a dirt road for 45 minutes, and then continue along a narrow, dirt walkway that you drive over with extreme bumpiness for another 45 minutes. In short, Mhonda is in the middle of no where.

However, these farmers plant and harvest pineapples, oranges, passion fruits, and tomatoes. Unfortunately, most do not think of their farming as a commercial opportunity – as a result, despite selling much of it over to middle men for severely depressed prices, they often never see returns. Middle men have been successful here in only paying farmers for what of their produce sells from them – not the total amount that is actually picked up by the middle man. As a result, the average annual income is around $230 (yes, per year) and there are few alternatives for people to elevate their standard of living.


Don't let their deadpan serious faces fool you, the farmers of Mhonda spent much of our meeting poking a little fun at this muzungu

We traveled to Mhonda to collect field data and demographics on farmers producing pineapples, oranges, passion fruit, and mangoes in the area. After being introduced by the local field officer in Swahili, one farmer asked me in English: “Are you from Obama?” I replied, yes, which seemed to offer confidence in my ability to increase his income by talking to me. This first farmer meeting was helpful in understanding how to phrase or adapt questions that are most relevant to collecting the data I need, and how to listen for additional information offered by farmers about how to identify their challenges when they don’t realize they are complaining. Mhonda is unique in its wide array of fruit harvesting but it is not terribly unique in its harsh living conditions for anyone living outside larger towns.

Morogoro: Finding Technology in the Most Peculiar of Places

Morogoro!

While people here are lacking many things, I continue to be surprised by the unexpected technology available in the most rural of areas. Upon arriving for my first meeting with the Morogoro District Agricultural officers (in the cement lean-tos), I was asking for some specific demographic data about farmers in their district. I was promptly asked, “I have this data, did you bring a flashie?” (a flash drive). I was shocked when we walked from a sparse “office” with a crumbling desk and 3 chairs to another office with a new Dell Computer and Office 07! Not sure which aid organization funded that but nice work!

Another Morogoro happening was a visit to Sokoinne University for Agriculture to meet with Dr. Msogoya. After a 45 minute discussion gaining little ground, he conceded that he was not the right person to speak with but he could connect us with others more helpful. I was trying to find data that demonstrated the price inflation middlemen inflict upon the next link in the chain at the expense of farmers, but I had been unsuccessful thus far. Dr. Msogoya volunteered one of his students who had worked on a previous mango market project to return to the Morogoro market and request prices from current middle men. He said that I, as a muzungu would not stand a chance in that market, so he was happy to help. He then continued his rain of hospitality by escorting us to another department where I spoke with a graduate student who spent three years in the pineapple fields at the base of the mountain trying to use group pineapple production volumes as reason to request a higher price from buyers.

A tangible sense of a lack of trust among parties in the supply chain has become more apparent – in part due to a history of someone ending up without payment, but more so due to a lack of education of how a well-organized market would operate. The entire relationship is damaged by the lack of loyalty which exacerbates the notion of fairness. For example, middle-men will agree to a price with a group of farmers. In an unwritten contact (can you see where this is going?), the middle men promise to return during harvest to buy XX% of the harvest at a set price. However, middle men will return but – oh! Surprise! – the price now offered decreased. Farmers are left in the lurch as if one middle man’s prices is likely to be the now-standard set lowered amount. On the other hand, a farmer will make a promise to sell his produce to a processor (Mr Morogoro, in this scenario) but when he gets an offer to sell part of his previously promised volume for higher, he takes it. No loyalty.

I visited Mr Morogoro’s factory (his company is called UNNAT), in order to understand the scale of his operation and the challenges he faces in transport and operational costs required to manage.


Entrance to UNNAT processing plant - very good pineapple juice!

Driving in Tanzania

Leaving Dar by car was an adventure in itself. We passed by the major bus station for all Tanzania travel radiating from Dar, which looked like something was being offered for free – but not. The buses and daladalas left the station almost in a péléton formation. It was early on that I noticed that I was serving shotgun to a very good driver, as Deo managed through significant traffic and people with good speed but caution.

We soon happened upon our first village where you slow to 50km/hr; it was a series of mud huts with thatched roofs. Advertisements for cell phones and Pepsi and Coke abound, and people sell everything from plastic baskets to woven baskets to vegetables along the road. This village layout is repeated about every 20 minutes, some varying larger than others if it is also a truck weigh station, creating a longer queue and more time for hawking goods.

The two-lane roads also offer some interesting views of competitive driving. I saw a bus pass a car with on-coming traffic, speeding forward without pause. If you ever find yourself traveling by bus in Tanzania, you want to find out the length of time that bus companies report between departure and arrival – and take the slowest. It simply improves your chance of safety. I saw many motobikes weaving among semi-trucks.

My favorite aspect to driving has been the minivan flair. Tanzanians know how to spruce up their public cross-country transit, with back window sun covers featuring Obama, Jay-Z, Will Smith, etc. The daladala minivans that shuttle between villages and cities are usually the most colorful with car names emblazoned across the front and back. I asked Deo why several daladalas had “TEXAS” in huge stickered letters on the front of the car. Deo replied that since Bush approved the PEPFAR AIDS funding and other aid assistance that directly benefitted Tanzania, he has many fans. The vans are a way to say thanks. Ha!

We arrived to Morogoro after several hours of driving and it is a beautiful place. Situated at the base of the Uluguru Mountains, Morogoro is visually stunning with a mist hanging along the mountain peaks, offering cooler weather than Dar. There is not much there otherwise – most of the 300,000 people live in mud or brick shacks. The government buildings range from bare-bones cement lean-tos (that’s where my meetings were held) to more stately cement construction (started here with regional officers; directed to the horticulture lean-tos down the mountain).

While it is known as an industrial town, that is more so due to the rail road that runs through rather than much industry. Ironically, we did see a Driver’s Ed car with a class in session as we drove into Morogoro. Either people have a short memory from that learning experience or that course actually encourages recklessness behind the wheel.

Goodbye Dar, Hello Open Road!

Tomorrow (Sunday), I will embark upon the open road to visit the regions of Morogoro and Iringa (see map!). The goal of this trip is to meet with regional and district government officials to collect data about fruit and vegetables production - number of farmers, land yields, variety, etc. I will also meet with the very few fruit and vegetable processors in these regions to learn more about their business operations and how intervention (ie, through the USAID grant via TechnoServe) at the farmer level might ease processor pains. I want to understand more about the transport of fruits & vegetables where farmers might re-capture value by collaborating on shipping so that the processor does not have to send individual, huge trucks to each farm. I am looking forward to meeting with farmers on their land to find out more about the current conditions in which they conduct business. I will be traveling with Deo, a TechnoServe driver and former national team soccer player, who will also help translate Swahili for me.

The challenge faced by most farmers in Tanzania is that they don’t realize they are a business. Low, fair, and high prices are understood. Product quality is understood. Even farmer collectives are understood in order to garner a higher price by volume. The obvious makes sense – in most cases.

However, many farmers do not recognize the utility of their role as an agri-business. They miss how an investment in a certain type of fertilizer can strengthen a crop – or how other production techniques(ie, meeting organic-certified conditions) can merit a higher price from buyers as long as the actual conditions are followed. One tomato processor that I spoke with at the end of last week mentioned that his company had established an incentive program for farmers producing high quality volume. Whoever produced the highest volume and met the incentive goals got a goat – or some other type of valued investment. However, the company could not sustain the incentive program, so after a while they stopped the rewards. Instead of adopting and integrating the incentive-driven behavior into their farming practices, the volume lagged and quality faltered. The farmers did not improve their chances to position themselves as a higher quality production. In short, the incentive program only achieved short-term gains.

That said, there is much to learn and I am setting out to gather data and meet with people to represent TechnoServe in the horticulture space. The data is needed not only to formulate TechnoServe’s overall strategy for participating in the fruits and vegetables industry – it is needed to demonstrate and calculate how the USAID funding we are applying for can be invested in order to improve the value chain and increase incomes for small-holder farmers.

I will depart tomorrow afternoon with Deo spending three nights across several districts of Morogoro before we drive further south-west to Iringa. Morogoro is not much of a town – but it is located at the crossroad of the Tanzanian railroad and a “major” highway. Iringa, on the other hand, is at 1,600m elevation – might be chilly at night – and is apparently small and gorgeous. It’s some of the best soil in Tanzania and produces incredible crops.

I will be traveling from this Sunday through next Saturday. It's about a nine hour drive from the last area south of Iringa we will travel to before returning to Dar. Internet access will be a true luxury – if at all available (which I am not expecting due to the slow, slow speeds of Dar) – so I will be back and send along a blog update then!

Kariakoo and the Badminton Institute

This afternoon my roommates (Chris, Al), Ineke (another TNS consultant), and I set out to explore the Kariakoo area of Dar es Salaam. We had been advised to not wear watches, be on the look-out, carry no bags, and carry minimal cash. Armed with cautionary information but uncertain of what to expect, we took a taxi into commercial chaos.

Kariakoo is a place where you can find anything. Similar to other markets I have visited around the globe, it is divided by sections. Auto parts? Right over there. Cooking supplies? A few streets that way. It’s all available and bargaining is necessary.

I was looking for a small amount of Tanzanian fabric – to either bring home for a tabletop or pillow cover. Uhuru Street is the key destination for fabric – however, what we soon discovered is that the actual fabric is from China and all the prints are from Nigeria! There was no original Tanzanian fabric or design to be found! I was grateful that the shopkeepers were honest with me to divulge the Nigerian source – however, how strange! My parents in Lagos can likely find the same prints! :)

We were definitely the only muzungus around – this is not a place tourists or local expats would venture to regularly. The catcalls of “muzungu – look here” were not too bad, and always with a smile with no real harassment. Now that I know the fabric is not original to East Africa and I don’t need a new stereo, plastic stuff, or car parts, I doubt a return trip is needed, but I am glad we visited.

Our quartet wandered around the city more, ventured to the Movenpick hotel lawn for an afternoon drink and then we went to the Badminton Institute for dinner. This is the best Indian food I have had since Gaurav Batra’s mother (yay HBS Section I!) cooked for us in Delhi. For the record, Mrs. Batra’s food remains at the top of my list. Apparently, the Indian community in Dar is pretty concentrated and there are social networks rooted in these membership clubs. There are several prominent clubs throughout Dar and they denote status and reputation.

The Badminton Institute is a gated area, where we paid 1,000 Tanzanian Shillings (about $0.80) for a required day-long membership in order to enter for dinner. The large open-air space inside the gates had many, many tables and the World cricket tournament was projected onto a screen. The food was delicious. The bread of the dosa was some of the best I’ve had – and my veggie dish was spicy and well-cooked. It was a lot of food but it was fresh and made-to-order. The restaurant continued to fill with Indian families and some Tanzanians during our time there. Night falls pretty quickly here and we headed home after a long afternoon – I definitely enjoyed exploring the city center area more on foot today!

Noticing the Little Things

I've surpassed the half-month mark living in Dar and continue to enjoy living here. A few things I've noticed recently include:

- I eat a lot of peanut butter here. A lot.

- A group of us met up for dinner at the Sweet Eazy, a sorta-Thai restaurant, as Thursday night has a live jazz band. From 8-10pm the band catered to the muzungu crowd with an incredible mix of American favorites – I requested my favorite song of all time, Toto’s “Africa” – they didn’t know it. I wasn’t being trite – you would think it’d be the cornerstone of their muzungu repertoire. Perhaps my other favorite song of all time, Tupac’s “Changes” would have been a better bet. I was sorta surprised since they rocked out on Haddaway’s “What is Love?”. However, the band then later switched over to new and old Tanzanian favorites, and it was awesome.

- Going to the lady’s bathroom at popular restaurants and bars is always an interesting observation to the “working lady” world of primping, lip lining (no lipstick to fill, just a strong liner), and trash-talking commentary (in Swahili), etc. Talk about competitive markets.

- I love mango juice.

- I now squish bugs with my fingers or hands without problem when they are crawling on the table or at work or in the car, etc. Not a big deal.

- Jackie’s is a local Tanzanian place (for 4,000 Tanzanian shillings, or just over $3) where you get the legit food and fare. Your meal is served on an aluminum tray that is best described as a TV-dinner tray – with compartments. Assigned to each of those compartments is a ball of rice, a bit of sauce, some beans, boiled cabbage, and 2 sticks w/ meat on it like a kebab. This stuff made my stomach hurt a lot, so I am staying away more often than I dine-in, but the price can’t be beat.

Jackie’s is also the hub of getting pirated movies from the guys who approach your table selling dishtowels, DVDs, plastic things, etc. You can get most movies you can think of (or many you have never heard of) for about $3. The DVD is not guaranteed to be in English, might not have the entire movie or series, and might also not have fully digitized action scenes - a pre-pre-director's cut, if you will. That said, I’ve seen Vicky Christina Barcelona, The Wrestler, Wolverine, Gomorroa, etc. Chris, one of my roommates, just got Slumdog Millionaire. As there is not much to do after dark beyond going to a restaurant or bar, this has been a good thing.

- The smells of Tanzania are many – swinging the pendulum from fragrant to potent. A common smell is the musty, smokey aroma of burning garbage. It’s seemingly everywhere and I guess it depends on what you are burning to determine the sweet or sour behind the smell. It’s sorta like “speed compost”. The askari (gate keeper) of our compound filled in a few holes along the dirt road the other day w/ a mixture of dried grass and burned garbage. Good man.

- My basic Swahili is getting good enough that I open with typical meeting introductions before switching back home to English. People from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Tanzanian Investment Center have laughed at me, in a conciliatory, yet praising acknowledgment that I have limited vocab, but have made a strong effort. People here laugh a lot, actually, which is good.

- I am a huge fan of Tangawizi, a Coca-Cola product, that is ginger beer. It’s way out there on the sweet side, but nice to have. In fact, it is pretty delicious. Ginger beer + rum = dark & stormy, which is also good.

- One of my favorite ads that I pass when driving into City Center is “A little bit of Texas in Dar.” It features a guy w/ a cowboy hat. It is undoubtedly out of place. And it advertises a casino that isn’t really located in Dar. But, way to represent, Texas.

A Jaunt to Mjimwema Beach

My roommate Chris and I (3rd roommate, Al, is on a Serengeti safari) decided to explore the greater Dar environs by venturing south. We traveled via the ferry from Kivukoni Fish Market to the Kigamboni Peninsula, just across the channel.

We ended up at Kipepeo, a rather quiet place with a few families and random folks to enjoy a cloudy day on the beach. Here are a few photos from the day!


Fishing boats as we pulled into the ferry area of Kigamboni Peninsula


Sorta like the ferry to Nantucket, basically the same idea, right... :)


Local trade in action by carrying fresh goods across the channel


At the beach, you are "visited" by local vendors selling a range of chintzy to household goods -- this guy had diversified his chances by catering to the basket, rug and miniature model home markets for locals and tourists...


Beachside / oceanfront camel ride, anyone? Absurd!

Random Observations

- Serengeti, a beer brand, is genius. It appears that they are giving bars willing to serve their beer a bright yellow sign on a metal pole advertising the beverage – upon which the bar can put up a sign naming the bar. As in, while there are still no addresses, yellow signs now punctuate the streets and are an easier way to know where the bars are. Works for me.

- I was running the other day and a Maasi warrior laughed at me – as in, we passed and he was laughing. He’s probably killed a lion with his bare hands, so fair enough.

- Sadly, there are fake Maasi. Due to the desired status of real Maasi – many local Tanzanians will don the purple / red scarfs and stick and get jobs guarding cars in the parking lots or watching the outside of shops for tips – except they aren’t really Maasi. You can generally tell b/c they are too short or have too much meat on the bone. It is very cool to see a real one w/ the multi-pierced ears and proper dress.

- The search for a bicycle is likely over. I surveyed a lot of people and it was deemed a likely dangerous idea with some pretty solid evidence. It’s too bad, but I’ll get over it.

- Generators here, for power outages, sound like lawn mowers. So when there’s a power outage (rather frequent) and it’s long enough that people start up their generators, it’s quite a cacophony. I like to think of it as the sound of development – but its really the sound of haphazard development.

- When I search google, its via the Kenya site – google.ke the websites are in Swahili, which is pretty cool – and a good way to learn basic vocab.

- My Swahili is coming along very slowly but with a patient teacher – I have learned greetings, how to introduce myself, sentence structure and basic verbs. It sounds like gibberish but is rather logical to learn.

- If I lived here full time, I would purchase the land along the water, privatize it somehow with security and let people enjoy it. Seriously, its ridiculous property that goes to waste due to security threats.

- The US embassy is truly a compound and set back from from the road (due to the legacy of the 1998 bombings) – but it isn’t exactly inviting – though people here are psyched about Obama!

- “American Garden” is a private label brand you can find across many of the grocery stores. It is a well-priced generic but I think they would sell more to the local population if it also had a smiley photo of Obama on it.

- “Addis in Dar” is a local Ethiopian restaurant that I went to this past week with a friend and his girlfriend from the Kennedy School. It’s likely the only time I will be rather close to Ethiopia – and still think that Addis Red Sea on Tremont Street actually tastes better. It was good to at least be on the same continent.

The Kindness of Strangers

I had another adventure in the grocery store today, as I am attempting to cook (yes, shocking) very simple things. This is largely b/c while I like the outdoor bars here, the food is dubious and not cheap enough to eat at restaurants nightly. Today, I was set on a salad.

I first went to Shrijees, a bit closer to our apartment, but the lettuce looked sad and the tomatoes were ugly. Saturday’s aren’t the best day to buy produce since Tanzania is a largely Muslim country (especially Dar and the coastline) and many do not work on Friday – hence no new produce on Saturday. But, the search was on.

After venturing down the road to Shopper’s Plaza grocery, I was in the produce “section” (that’s not saying much) and was trying to figure out what I needed to do to prepare the lettuce to remove the potential critters and stuff that would make me sick. I asked a lady who was shopping with her husband and daughter for advice on how to prepare the lettuce – and she gave me some tips.

She gave me some general Dar advice, as they have lived here about a year, as her husband works as a health policy expert for the World Bank. She shared that there are definitely cheaper and higher quality produce available through local markets that are much better than the sad produce on the shelves and gave me her number to visit her and their family this week. We parted ways and I headed off to buy white vinegar to rinse my veggies in after I rinse them in local water, then in purified water, and then in a small amount of vinegar before drying and eating.

The nice lady came up to me again as I was checking out and offered to take me by two of her favorite places with their driver before dropping me home, since that was safer than me walking down the road with $25 US (which buys way less than you would think) of grocery.

It turns out the best veggie places are ones I go by every day – you just barely notice they are there. She introduced me to the shop owners who helped me pick out some lettuce and tomatoes, as I wanted salad for dinner. It was literally 1/5 of the price. They then dropped me home and invited me to tea (!) on Monday.

I prepared a salad for myself, closely following her instructions – and I am still alive, so that is a good sign. There is hope for the veggie market yet – both for me (very small buyer) and Tanzania (big!). I am particularly gracious to their kindness and I am glad to feel like I know more about some of the hole in the wall places right around me.

The Man from Morogoro

Farming in Africa carries many similarities to my favorite game on The Price is Right: Plinko. The farmer stands at the top with little visibility into the end of the chain and lets his produce go – for a very small percentage of the end value gained by the exporter from the market. The fruits and vegetables bounce haphazardly beyond the farmer’s control and he is not rewarded fairly in the end.

This concept of fair is important because its root cause is the missing infrastructure to enable transparency or assembly among farmers to participate more fully in the chain.

This loss in value is due to several factors, including a lack of transportation infrastructure, dirt roads that wash-out in the rainy season, no centralized collection stations where farmers could collectively bargain with buyers to receive a higher price, few larger volume buyers, a lack of education about the actual market value of the produce, and no enforced standards of quality largely beyond size (small, medium, large) or weight.

Today I met with the largest pineapple processor in Tanzania – his operation is based in Morogoro, southwest of Dar es Salaam. He negotiates with local farmers for pineapples as well as processing oranges from the northern Tanga region. He owns a processing facility that can manage 250M tonnes of produce per day – however, the current volume brought to him is 100M tonnes per day. He has the capacity – he just needs the volume.
This means, he needs to find farmers willing to work with him directly.

“Mr. Morogoro” runs a unique model where he negotiates directly with the farmers. It took him over four years to break through the regional level, to the district level, to the village level to remove the multi-layered bureaucracy of middle men that distort prices. Mr. Morogoro wants to work directly with farmers. This is exactly the type of model the project I am working hopes to identify, analyze and encourage in the development of the Tanzanian horticulture sector. As he wants to work directly with the farmers, his pricing reflects the benefits as well as the cost. While farmers can sell to middle men for market prices – they might be able to sell their best produce, leaving the smaller produce for waste or lower priced trading. On the contrary, Mr. Morogoro will purchase a farmers entire produce – small to large – at a price below market. The farmer gains through volume security – he knows he can sell everything – but the farmer risks the potential upside of selling his goods in traunches. Mr. Morogoro’s prices depends on weight (kilos), where even the pineapple is discounted 20% since the head and tail are lopped off for processing juice.

He was also unique in that he is working Saturday – all days of the week. He’s on email – he responds to calls. He is a true entrepreneur who wants to build his business.

I will be traveling to Morogoro at the start of next week for a few days of interviews with district and village level government leaders, contacts at the local university, and to see this pineapple plant.

Running in Tanzania

Neither my office nor apartment really has a street address. No one really does. Everyone has a P.O. box and I’m assuming that letters have the potential to make it here – but packages aren't likely. Someone might declare it their gift before it ever reaches you. However, the lack of addresses continues to be amusing, nonsensical and distinctively African in the way that people cope without it, instead of solving the problem. For example, our apartment is best described as “across from the George & Dragon bar, along that dirt road” --- taxis pretty much know exactly where to go.

I live in an apartment compound tucked in ways off one of the major streets on the Peninsula, called Haile Salassie. The road is one of the muzungu running routes – which means you see other people running too. Sadly, it’s not safe to run along Toré Road along the ocean – and I’m glad I was told that before I took off for a scenic run! It’s sorta annoying running without my iPod and along a straight road – as opposed to my usual route along the Charles River and through Cambridge – but that’s not a fair comparison.

The benefit of repetition in running is that you can more easily notice change along Haile Salassie. For example, two new “bars” have opened along the road (this means metal shack to serve drinks / plastic chairs & tables out front) – and there always seem to be people there. You could say, there continues to be excess demand and who’s to blame for serving the people.

Also, we drink clean water from these huge water jugs – it costs about $2 for a jug – it’s more painful to get them home. However, the other day I was running and saw a woman with one balanced on her head! Running has been more a way to add to the day otherwise largely repetitive (in a good way) but I hope to find some other routes to run with others too soon.

NatureRipe = Awesome

I went to visit with the head of NatureRipe today, a firm that farms over 100 acres of mangoes south of Dar along the coast line. It is an incredible company and would be an ideal target for agri-investing.

The head of the firm and chair of the Board are both African Muslim women who know their firm down to the smallest detail. Part of my project is to identify supply chain partners that would be a good investment for USAID in order to prove how re-arranging the supply chain dynamics within horticulture can best benefit local farmers. NatureRipe has two main lines of business: grows mangoes and purchases cashews that they then process with flavoring. All of NatureRipe’s products are of export quality, which is hard to come by here – but it’s what we are used to the in U.S.

What I admired most was where they saw their company in a few short years. For example, if their mangoes are not of quality to sell as fresh fruit, they will sell the produce to other mango producers to be made into concentrate, at a lower price than fresh whole product. However, in the future, they want to move all their operations that are split between their farm and Dar to the farm. They want to build a on-site factory that allows them to package on-site with private labeling and jarring - as well as have the machinery to make concentrate or make jam.

We also talked about their plans underway for revenue diversification. Mangoes are harvested between November and January – so they have started to plant more short-term crops to even out their cash flow (good call!) As a result, they have started planting pineapples and watermelons among other fruits. Apparently the seedless watermelons were a real hit here – but the order of seedless watermelon seeds didn’t work out as expected from their source in Vietnam (!) – so they were only able to harvest a small batch. Who knew that in good conditions, it takes only 64 days from seed to full=grown watermelon?

They also want to start planting vegetables. Apparently mango trees have to be planted 8km apart (who knew!?) so there is a decent amount of space between the seedlings for other plants.

Lastly, NatureRipe used to sell mangoes to a few buyers in the Middle East. However, then the fruit fly reached Tanzania and entire batches of goods would be deemed unmarketable if a single fruit fly was around – so they lost those contracts because they could not produce enough volume. To solve this, NatureRipe started selling seedlings so that local farmers or farming groups could plant them – in this way, there is a larger volume and larger community of producers to potentially regain the export markets.

In the end, I purchased a bag of fresh no-salt cashews right at the office – and they gave me one of their cashew honey bars to try as well. Both are delicious. They gave me more cashews – and even two bitter tomato vegetables for me to try in my stew*. It was a great visit and I am truly impressed. They have few competitors among mangoes since they are creating and own the market of the export-quality kind – yet their competition is steep in the cashew / peanut market. I am really hopeful for their growth model and I know that an investment in helping them gain access to capital for their processing / packaging facility would be money well spent.

* I didn’t mention that I make “stew” nor gave any impression that I like stew; little do they know my affinity for Bagel Bites over waiting a really long time to cook something.

Free Electricity

As it turns out, we receive our electricity for free. This is because the meter was broken and instead of fixing it, the electric company connected our meter to the main line. Seems logical enough. However, this set-up likely contributed to the power blow-out of the ceiling lights in our entry area that happened just before I arrived.

Apparently when it gets fixed, we will have to walk down to a nearby shop, get a stored value card and pay that way. It definitely places the incentive in our hands for making sure we have electricity. Pretty smart!?

The Expat Scene

There are a surprising number of expats and summer tourists passing through – many are British or German or Danish. Of those actually living here, many are with aid organizations as might be expected.

There are about 8 expat bars and the entire expat island social scene revolves around them. There is a rather unofficial / official place selected at the bar of the night determined by someone (unnamed?) and shared. It’s pretty easy to meet new people here – particularly when you see the same people over and over.

Friday night, my roommates and I went to dinner at a place that is already at the top of my list: Epi d’Or. It’s a Mediterranean expat place where you can actually eat the veggies and they make a good panini. After that, we were planning to go to one of the 8 expat bars, Garden Bistro; instead, we went to a local place just down the road. I prefer this type of bar, as it’s basically a metal shack and plastic chairs out front around multiple small plastic tables alongside the road with no lighting beyond a single uncovered bulb at the bar. This bar, the “Old Officer’s Club,” is ironic on several levels and misleading on many more.

It really isn’t fun that I don't drink beer, as the Kilimanjaro and Ndovu brands are favorites of my roommates – but I had high hopes for a glass of wine with our proximity to South Africa. Well, the Old Officer’s Club offers something worse than Franzia – so that was disappointing.

On Saturday, we went out with some other TechnoServe folks and other NGO expats here. We had sub-par Lebanese food (can’t say the expectations were high) and then went to Q-Bar. Q-Bar is one of those multi-purpose bars / hostels / happy hour locales / “working lady” hang-out. It’s a quite a unique slice of Dar.

My expat adventures continued today when I took a taxi to Sea Cliff at the end of the Msasani Peninsula. There is a very nice (overpriced) hotel with a small pool overlooking the Indian Ocean – the view is not shabby and apparently the café serves great pancakes. This afternoon, I went to Shopper’s Plaza, one of the expat grocery stores, and was shocked at how much “normal” stuff you can get here! The prices are certainly a few multiples more on many items, but nevertheless, they are here! The wine aisle was stocked with South African options, so I have decided to try out a few – however, I will avoid the local Tanzanian wines, “Religious Wine” and “Elegant Wine” – which are unnatural in color and need help in branding.

I’ve decided to purchase a bicycle, since it is difficult to travel places walking as a female alone during the day. Cabs are expensive and aggravating to negotiate; three-wheeled tuk-tuk equivalents have a high collision reputation. I have started to ask any muzungus that I encounter how one might go about doing this. No one seems to know exactly, but it’s my goal for the week.

I start Swahili lessons tomorrow evening with a local teacher, which should be fun. I'm getting used to sleeping under a malaria bed net - at first I thought I might get caught in it and rip it from the ceiling, but it hangs more like a canopy. It's felt like I've been here longer than just 5 days!

Bongoyo Island

Saturday morning my roommates (Chris and Al) and I set out to take a small boat from Slipway Pier to Bongoyo Island. We had to wait until enough people wanted to go for the operator to be willing to take us, but when we got there it was incredible. Bongoyo Island is a small place about 30 minutes by boat from Dar with clear blue/turquoise water and a nice beach.

I had some of the best mango / papaya juice I’ve ever tasted. There was an eel pond and cool nature trail around the island. If you or anyone you know comes to Dar, this is worth it for a great day trip in the sun.