Hamna shida!

We just finished a very busy and productive week, although the outcomes of our findings are a bit grim. The financial situation of the Mama’s is very worrisome. Jesse borrowed the financial books they keep for purchasing milk, sales and money coming in, and their miscellaneous expenses and performed an audit. He found that at the end of this month or next, depending on their savings, they may not be able to afford to pay for their milk supply. The Mama’s are currently purchasing on average 55 L per day, but only selling an average of 22 L. The market is huge and there should be no reason why they are not selling out of their inventory. We investigated why there seems to be a lack of initiative and from what we see it seems to stem from dependency on external income. In the past UWO has supported the Mama’s in times of need, but as of January they have cut funding. As well, since it is now during the school break for the students at Mtoni High School, income from the chapatti kitchen is not coming in to cover the costs they are incurring at the yoghurt kitchen. This is the first time that they must rely solely on their ability to run the yoghurt kitchen and we are now seeing the cracks in it.

In our meeting with Maimuna we discussed other Women’s groups in the area interested in starting up a yoghurt kitchen. One group in Buswelu, which is a little ways outside of Mwanza, but is currently growing, seemed very promising. The women there she said were very motivated and in need of a positive opportunity, such as the probiotic kitchen can offer. We are hoping to visit them next week to get a better feel for the group and area. We will be setting up a meeting this week with Mr. Mkama, the City Community Development Officer, who was suggested to us at our meeting with Mr. Ngowi. Mr. Ngowi said that he has some funds for projects that will be working to help those living with HIV/AIDS. This would be a promising source of funding for the Buswelu group, as Mr. Ngowi is still waiting to receive his budget and won’t become available until sometime in August/September.

During the meeting with Maimuna, we also wanted to know more about the dynamics of the Mama’s at the current kitchen to help in understanding why there is lack of motivation to go to the market. We learned that on top of always having interns to push them and external funding, there was some divide among the Mama’s. What had started out as a good idea, making shifts for the Mama’s to work, there began conflict between them. When one group went out to Market to sell the yoghurt, there was hostility from the others who were not going and making extra money. As a result the group that was going stopped because their efforts were not being reciprocated by the others. We decided that a serious meeting to discuss the financial situation and potential solutions to these problems were needed. On the following Monday we held the meeting. Although only three Mama’s were present, Esther was very firm and conveyed exactly the seriousness of what is happening. The Mama’s that were present were fueled up by the fact that the other Mama’s were not present. This I think gave them a lot of motivation to let the others know how they felt the following day about the lack of commitment from everyone. At this meeting, Jesse presented the graphs to the three Mamas and for the first time we feel that it clicked for them. From the meeting they have decided to develop a new constitution and have concrete agreements regarding attendance at meetings, selling in the market, and being present for shifts. The shifts and distribution of Mamas was another great change that they would like to implement. Instead of having so many Mamas at the chapatti kitchen they would like one general supervisor over both kitchens, then 1 or 2 Mamas at each kitchen working and the remaining putting effort into going to market. The following day, Jesse and Kathleen went to the kitchen to post the graphs as reminders and the news had definitely spread. This was really great to see and we are hoping by changing up the structure of the shifts that the other issues of conflict between Mamas will be resolved so they can all work toward the common purpose of supplying probiotic yoghurt to the community. In the first day of going to market the Mamas tripled their sales for the day. The following few days were just as successful and we will follow up this week to ensure that it was not a temporary push.

This week was full of meetings; I also attended one at SNV with Mama Paskwalina and Esther. The meeting was geared to bringing together small dairy businesses in Mwanza and Mara. The morning we learned about what SNV is doing in regards to helping small dairy operations and we were also informed that as of July 1^st that in East Africa products can cross the border without any duties. This means that there will be an increase of dairy products potentially coming into Mwanza and Mara region competing for the market that these small operations are already struggling to hold. In the afternoon a consulting group presented on an idea called Cluster Competiveness Programs. In Pakistan it was used to increase milk supply by having people purchase milk chillers that decreased contamination and allowed farmers to use both the morning and evening milk supply from their cows. The refrigerator machines were sold through a government loan that had no interest for 5 years. The day was interesting and could have some benefits in the future. Esther was able to make a good contact with a milk supplier in Mara, where they sell milk at less than half the cost and could be a potential source of milk at some point.

Mama Joyce, Mama Leah, Esther, Kathleen, Jesse and I also arranged to meet Mary Mushi at SAUT to discuss the Memorandum of Understanding between SAUT, TWG and WHE. It went well and we asked Mary Mushi to set up a meeting with the department head of Sociology, from there we can make arrangements to meet the head of Health Sciences at Bugando. We will set up meetings to discuss the potential of doing a student partnership with a student in Mwanza and interns coming from Canada.

Aside from work we have continued to be following the soccer. I’ve been supporting Holland in support of Arja and Yolanda. They’ve done really well and it should be an exciting upcoming week, as Holland is potentially going to the finals this upcoming Sunday. These past few weeks a few more of the students have left, which was sad to see. I definitely could not live in Mwanza as people are always coming for short periods only and it would be difficult to have friends coming and going so often. For the last day of our one friend we hiked up to Dancing Rocks, which has an amazing view and is pretty much as it sounds, a bunch of cool looking rocks that you can climb up on. There were about 15 of us that went and on our way home we took a dala dala back to town, where we filled the entire van save for one seat occupied by a local passenger.

After a productive week and following Monday, Tuesday I became very ill and was unable to do much the remainder of the week. I luckily recovered by Friday (although not 100%) because we were heading off on a Safari.