First week in Moshi, Tanzania

I arrived at Kilimanjaro airport last Sunday, having gone through the Ebola check and negotiated a taxi I was on my way. My first impression was that while the people here are far less friendly than in Ethiopia (at passport control she would hardly grunt at me), everything seemed so civilized in comparison. Moshi is a beautiful town on the foothill of Kilimanjaro, with a relatively wealthy population. There are some beautiful houses with lush green lawns interspersed by various charities, schools and aid agencies. In the city centre there are a seemingly endless amount of tourist companies offering safaris and Kilimanjaro treks, a well-stocked Nakumatt, (an upmarket Kenyan supermarket) and coffee shops that would fit comfortably on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. I almost felt relieved when the power went out on my first night, reminding me that this is still Africa (especially given the fact that it took 18 hours to come back and has been intermittent ever since).

To give some background, I am here volunteering for a social enterprise that works with small-scale farmers to produce natural extracts. Currently they work with around 1000 vanilla farmers to whom they provide training and support. Once the vanilla is harvested it is expected to increase the famers’ incomes by about $280 per year, a substantial amount for poor farmers at substance levels. Currently the company has 3 all-natural extracts on the market vanilla, cacao and orange with various others on the way. So far I have been very impressed by the professional and socially motivated team that comprises of an El Salvadorian, former McKinsey partner, an Indian MBA/chemical engineer who previously worked on nutrition supplement in Haiti, a Tanzanian rural development expert and a newly graduated Tanzanian food technician.  I am also joined by two expert volunteers, one retired Dutch chemical engineer who is part of a Dutch program called PUM that sends experienced volunteers to support SME’s in developing countries and a somewhat eccentric vanilla farmer from Costa Rica who describes himself as being here to “spread his passion about Vanilla”. So in brief a pretty cosmopolitan team.

In general it’s a pretty international, self-selecting crowd that finds itself in a place like Moshi, where everyone has their own story to tell about what brought them here. I’ve been incredibly fortunate in that the company arranged for me to stay in the home of a Spanish/British woman who after a successful career in the corporate world relocated to Moshi 5 years ago. She now runs various projects in the area including building an entire school completely out of recycled plastic bottles! She is one of those people where every conversation I learn something new and feel completely inspired by her dedication, authenticity, warmth and care for everyone from the pupils in her school to their parents (all of whom have to help in the building of the school) or the volunteers who take up a huge chunk of her time (she also runs a youth hostel which helps sustain the school). Already we have a project in the pipeline (but I’ll write more about that in a separate blog).

In general so far its been a great experience, while I don’t feel so “hard core” in terms of roughing it in Africa, being here is providing me with an opportunity to learn, reflect, relax and remember to enjoy the small things in life I often don’t have the time to savour: sitting outside in the garden, reading, thinking, meeting new people, running, walking, coming up with new ideas, the all-vegetarian Indian restaurant I discovered last night, riding the boda bodas (motorbike taxis), learning some basic Swahili (there are like 10 different way just to say hello!), reading the local newspapers this morning while drinking chai tea, one of my favourite drinks and just exploring and getting to know a new place and new people.

The pace of life is so different here to what I am used to, I begin work at 8am each day, come home at around 5pm, make myself dinner (something I barely ever have time to do in Tel Aviv), and am often in bed by 11pm, (this probably has something to do with the almost non-existent internet, its amazing realizing how much of my day the internet eats up). But its been great slowing down a bit especially since in Ethiopia we were on the go non-stop and the week before I left I was being a 24/7 chaperone for a delegation of Kenyan entrepreneurs we hosted in Israel.

Its funny people have asked if I have been lonely, but not at all, sometimes in my busy life in Tel Aviv I feel far more lonely than I do here where I have actually enjoyed the time I’ve spent alone (especially with Succot and Shabbat). It gives me a chance to think about bigger things I rarely have the time to in my day-to-day life. This is not to say I don’t miss Israel, there definitely is a part of me that already misses my life in Israel; Shabbat dinners with friends, the beach, my work and the general busy-ness which I actually live as part of my life. But I realise this is a good thing, as much as I love travelling and experiencing new places, its also good to know I have a great life waiting when I return.

But until then I plan to enjoy what I have left. Today I was finally social again and joined a group of 9 volunteers along with 2 Israelis doing a project nearby with EWB for a trip to a nearby waterfall and coffee plantation. It was fun hanging out with people my age again and I am looking forward to continuing to explore this beautiful country in the weekends that remain.