Asante Same - A couple days in Same, Tanzania

The Elephant Motel feels like home. I have had such cool experiences there, working with students from Cal Poly, designing a sign for the Mbesese Campus we are working on, having parties with the local staff, and connecting friends from Dar with friends from California. So arriving at the Elephant was such a great feeling. First, a little background on how this came into my life.

In 2005 I participated in a Fulbright study abroad program studying urban design. It was a collaboration envisioned by Shannon Chance, an amazing woman and professor at Hampton University, an HBCU in Virginia. I was invited when I connected with her when I was at USC. I declined the offer three times before I decided I should do this - go to a country I had barely heard of with no one I knew to study design. It was the most life-changing experience I have had. I was in a low place before I went but some of the friends I made are for life and the experience of collaborating with students from Hampton, Kansas State, and the Univerity of Dar Es Salaam had so many life lessons. Anyway, fast forward to me living in LA and there was a missionary that came to speak at my church named Fr. Settings. He was from Tanzania so I went up to him after mass and introduced myself. I told him I was an architect and he said I had to meet his colleague David. Well turned out that David was a structural engineer at Arup and working on a project in Northern Tanzania (Same to be exact) called Mbesese - the concept is that it is a trade school/technical college that is available to people in the local villages as an option for education after secondary school. Currently there are few to no local options - if you are smart enough you go to university and if not you can go to technical college (but it is very far) or find work in the town. David’s vision is for the school to create a venue for the local welder to teach welding, for the local farmer to teach farming, etc. The goal is to have a school of agriculture, construction technology, hospitality, automotive technology, etc. I was really inspired by this vision and offered to help - every structural engineer needs a good architect, right? So I began going almost annually to Same with David, Kevin Dong from Cal Poly SLO, and Thomas Fowler, also from SLO, to bring students who were designing and building structures for the school. Some years we were testing building materials, others building buildings. But it is a great way for students to get some hands on experience, especially to learn about quality of materials and how to manage inconsistencies that happen when you are actually building something rather than designing it on a computer. I have not been able to make the trip since Covid, so this was my first time back in several years. The big news this year is that we finally secured the title deed for our land and our local nonprofit status, which means that things can start to move forward at a stronger pace, we just need to fundraise! For more info www.Mbesese.org

From humble beginnings - the sign was the last build I participated in… The sign is gone but the base remains

In going today to Mbesese, it was great to see all the progress they have made. There is a concrete slab waiting for a Third building. The structures that I had seen before were still there but there was also a tire swing and monkey bars. They had set up a great rainwater capture system though there is some water available from the town. We met Mike, the guard who lives on site. He was filled with joy and such a nice man. He taught us Ubarikiwesana - be blessed. David said the only big issue on site is that the elephants keep eating his trees. I mean, these are problems that would never happen in the US!

So as I was saying, seeing Peter (Fr. Setonga’s drver) after years was simply amazing, and we shared a long hug. We don’t speak much of the same language but sometimes you just bond with people when you share powerful experiences together. Juma was also there, so welcoming and he was our host for the time we were in Same. He is the manager of the Elephant Motel and also a safari guide. Then there is Albert, who has worked in the hotel for 15 years, I recognized him right away. Dr. Norbert is a “boots on the ground” collaborator for Mbesese and is a great connector too. When we woke up and went to breakfast we met a group from an amazing organization called EyeCorps. They are a group from the states of Opthamologists who come to Tanzania 3 times a year for a month. Their mission is to support Tanzanian doctors who are starting out in their career as opthamologists. They said that more than half of graduating opthamologists in Tanzania do not continue with their profession because they are thrown into the frying pan of being a business owner, patient care, and all on their own. So this group of doctors from the states comes here to support the Tanzanian doctors and nurses in helping their community. They want to be clear that it isn’t the white person coming in and doing it, it is their own people who are helping them. We chatted with this group of people from all over the states last night and they invited us to see their space. They basically come in and take over a hospital building for a month, pay the Tanzania doctors a stipend to come, and do outreach to the local people that if there is anyone with eye problems to come to get screened. They focus on cataract surgery because it is the biggest impact. In Tanzania, blindness is something that can cause dependence on other family members, so if an elder is blind, either someone else in the family has to work less, compromising wages for the family, or a child (usually a girl) needs to stay home to care for the family members, usually foregoing their education. So with this fairly simple eye surgery, the impact to multiple lives is significant. For more info www.eyecorps.org

Susan, the leader of the organization, invited us to come see what they were doing and we went this morning, and WOW. It was so emotional to see. We saw a woman they called “mama” who had just had surgery the day before. She was completely bling and now was saying how many fingers Susan was holding up. It was so powerful, and such joy to see. We talked for a while about how to create a sustainable organization so that the people of Tanzania could invest in their own systems and feel empowered, which perfectly aligns with our vision at Mbesese. So I am hoping there is an alignment and collaboration in the future. It’s overwhelming. To build an eye clinic is over $100k, and micro business loans don’t get a young doctor there. I met a great doctor named Emanuel from Dodoma who was really inspiring, he traveled into town to mentor the young doctors as well.

As if that wasn’t enough, we also met through Dr. Norbert a wonderful couple named Paul and Laura. They come to Tanzania from Minnesota every winter and look for ways they can help rural communities in Tanzania. This year they are looking at building a dormitory in village about 1 hour away from Same. The dormitory is for all girls. The issue is that sometimes in rural communities school is so far that kids will do jobs for community members close to the school and in turn they will get to sleep on the floor, but this is not acceptable for girls. So girls will either have a 2 hour commute or not go to school. Paul has secured financing for about 3/4 of the dormitory so the government is supposed to pay for the rest. Just amazing people here in Same.

The staff at the Elephant Motel are so lovely also - Juma said that they all went to technical college and not university, except the sweepers and gardeners do not require technical college education. We talked for a long evening about the education system in Tanzania. Kids start school at 4 and have 7 years of Classes (Class 1, Class 2, etc). But there is an exam after every class and if you don’t pass you need to repeat the class. At the end of Class 7 (age 11 if they have not gotten held back) they go to secondary school and then start at Form 1 all the way to Form 6, with the same requirement to pass an exam each Form. So then there is an exam to determine if you are eligible for University and if not (Oliver from Giraffe Manor is an example) you can either quit or go to Technical college. Juma went to University and studied to be a guide, where he learned identification of animals but also their behavior, how they interact, etc. He said that a couple years after he entered the work force safari companies started hiring “driver guides”; while Juma needed a driver to be is counterpart while he managed the people, nowadays those two roles are performed by one person. In addition, there is more demand for additional languages than English, so now there are guides who speak different languages, can drive the safari jeep, but dont know as much in depth about the animals. If he were to do it all again, he would have just gone to technical college, which is so interesting.

Every business you enter in Tanzania is required to have a photo of the president hanging on the wall. The photo is everywhere! And also, people here hang paintings and photos really high on the wall.

The bustling town of Same was fun to walk through last night. Everyone stared at us, as expected, but Liz did support the local economy by buying a notebook for about $1. We couldn’t even bargain, like how do you bargain that. Then we got an adapter plug from a woman owned business with a woman named Helen who was super nice. They charges us 4000 shillings for one and so I bargained her down to 7000 shillings for 2 and she immediately accepted. I mean literally 3 bucks for 2 adapters, and we bargained. The motorbike or boda boda is definitely the mode of efficient transport around here. Things we have seen on a boda boda: large screen tv, windows for someone’s house, a large sheet of corrugated metal, full desk, a large pig. I will create a separate post for Mkomazi safari!