July 10, 2007

This morning we were at the BRAC office at 8:15 sharp. Your first thought may be BRAC? Doesn't that stand for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee? What are they doing in Tanzania?

In fact, BRAC in Tanzania opened just last year and BRAC has also recently extended its development work to Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and several Afrian countries. BRAC now stands for Building Resources Across Communities and is one of the world's largest and fastest growing NGOs, with 4.8 million group members of which 4.3 million are borrowers. Though BRAC is most well known for its microfinance activities, they are extending into other development activities as well. For example, BRAC Tanzania is starting three new departments: agriculture, poultry and livestock, and health. Each branch of BRAC operates somewhat differently. In Bangladesh, both men and women may take out loans for any purpose, but in Tanzania, only women may take out loans and they may only use the money to grow an existing or new business. However, one commonality to all BRAC branches is their phenomenal growth rate. Although BRAC Tanzania started just last year, they are already at 12,000 members!

This morning, we met the branch manager, Libe. She took us to visit two lending groups in the community of Sekei. The instant Libe stood in front of the women, they became quiet. In a society where age is looked to as an indicator of wisdom, I was amazed at the utmost respect Libe receives from the women, though she is quite young. You can tell she is a role model and sister to them all. She knows exactly when to joke and when to be serious, and even though we couldn't understand what she was saying, we almost knew when to nod and when to laugh.

Every week, the BRAC groups meet once for just 15 or 20 minutes to make their payments, but outside these meetings, the women are constantly supporting each other. BRAC does not yet give them formal business classes, but they advise and learn from each other.

In the first group we visited, all the women were still on their first loan (of 100 to 300 thousand shillings) and you could tell they had not been together as long as the second group where three or four women were on their seccond loan (of 600,000 to 1 million shillings). The second group meeting was hosted by Mama Lucy [a quick side note: by Tanzanian naming convention, Lisa would be called Mama Alexi]. Even before BRAC came to Tanzania, Mama Lucy had organized a women's association of about 25 business women that she knew. Although it wasn't much, the relationships they had established made it very easy for BRAC to help them, and now the women are moving on to their second loans much more quickly.

Once the women finished their meeting with Libe, we had an opportunity to ask them questions about their jobs, how they take care of the children, what other loans they'd like to have access to, some of the greatest challenges they face, etc. Among all the women, there was a universal desire for a school loan project so they can send their children to secondary school, and a universal desire for a house loan project...potential areas of expansion for BRAC.

After we'd exhausted all our questions, we shared a bag of sugar and an Olyset net with each of them as a thank you for taking the time out of their busy schedules to talk with us about their work. We were quickly swept up by hugs, smiles, and shouts of "Keeleeleeleeleeleeleeleelee!", a Tanzanian yippee which Charly became quite good at as well :)

Over lunch, Charly took a rest in the hotel as Alex and I ventured out to a local eatery called Milk and Honey. We ate a full meal for a grand total of $5 and were joined at our table by a random businessman who never uttered another word after asking, "Is the seat free?". Aside from our mysterious guest, the meal was uneventful and superbly delicious.

In the afternoon, Tom took Alex and I to a local market where we braved all the "Karibu! Welcome! Looking is for free"s and managed to come out with a few nice goodies for friends and family back home.

At around 7PM, we all came together again for one last dinner at Via Via. After dinner, Charly went back to the hotel, while the youngins (Keely, Alex, Tom, and I) met up at the Masai Camp - a cross between a Dutch family camp ground, a Masai hut, and a club. Alex said it was reminiscent of something you might find at Burning Man. Sitting beneath a tall thatched roofed hut and a beer bottle chandelier, some of us enjoyed Amarula (a Tanzanian drink that is similar to Baileys) while others enjoyed new flavors of Fanta (passion fruit and pineapple). Unfortunately, the pool table was monopolized for the evening, but we enjoyed relaxing and chatting as we leaned back in our huge wooden chairs around a small wooden table with two candles that curved inwards to talk to each other.