A Swansong Journey

Back to the road! I will depart tomorrow morning at 6AM for a 14-hour drive to reach my first destination of this trek starting out beyond Mbeya, a small city in the southern highlands region of Tanzania. I will be gone for about two weeks to visit new places and return to several that I traveled to previously on my initial fact-finding mission. With the plan of heading far out and working our way back, Deo and I will return to the road; I hope he has acquired at least one or even two new cassette tapes since our last roadtrip.

The goal of this Tour de Tanzania is to get down in the details on avocado, tomato, and pineapples. The overarching question looms of whether or not these crops are sustainably competitive – it is our job to steer farmers towards or away increased investment and risk on their part to, let’s say, double down on tomato plantings.

A highlight to this timing is the overlap with “Nane Nane” (literally “eight eight” or August 8th; also, coincidentally, Carleen Raymond’s 28th birthday and I hope it’s a happy one). Nane Nane is a national farmer festival – hooray farmers! The celebration is based in Morogoro region always, but another region is highlighted each year drawing particular government officials and national attention. This year is Mbeya’s time to shine! As a result, I will remain in Mbeya through the weekend, where I plan to be “that mzungu” who approaches these farmers and dealers at the festival to learn more about what they do and how they transport foods and veggies across Tanzania. That should be both helpful and amusing on many levels.

I will then return to the tomato heartland of Iringa region to learn more from processors to plantings to the challenges farmers face with such an abundance of one crop for their livelihood.

Rounding out the Tour de Tanz is Morogoro, where I will return to the land of pineapples to dive into greater detail on the Sweet Cayenne variety.

I hope to return to Dar on Saturday in time for the Dar Goat Races (see earlier posting below; how can it not be amazing) and then it is time to get summarizing, concluding, and recommending!

Even though my time with TechnoServe will come to an end, it is thankfully not yet time to leave. My parents, Scott and Nanners Laidlaw, arrive to Dar at 23:00 on June 20th where we will depart for the northern safari circuit and then some time on Zanzibar. This summer continues to fly by quickly – though I suspect I will have some quiet, slow nights in the field reading and working on data analysis in the two weeks ahead.