MFIs, Swahili, and Obama

Majorly excited about the rest of the week. Tomorrow I'm going to visit the third recipient of a wheelchair. She currently has an unfitted, imported one so I think it will be very interesting to compare. Today was another research day, and I've identified several more microfinance places (ironically, and fortunately, many in Dar Es Salaam) so I think going to Dar is not only a fun idea (because of weekend plans to go to Zanzibar) but an important one. If we can partner with established microfinace institutions (MFIs), we'll be in much better shape. It's important to realize what you can and cannot do, and what you can delegate. Delegating the training and funding of people in wheelchairs to MFIs with significant experience is far better than trying to throw something together. I've focused primarily on finding places that have ties to Kiva because those loans are funded so quickly (average is less than two days) but may explore other options.

The best part about being here is the interactions with people. Hearing the other perspective on random topics helps to enable understanding on important ones. Moshi, and Tanzania, have significant Muslim and Christian populations, and they mix fairly well. I had lunch with one of the KASI guys today and somehow we got on the topic of the 9/11 attacks and the effects on the average American. The thing I remember most was reading about (and seeing) the discrimination that resulted. One (white) reporter spent a day wearing the Muslim shawl and described the interactions (from not so casual bumping to blatent comments) that she witnessed before people even saw her face. As always, it is vital to remember that one quality doesn't define a person.

I was initially surprised by the interest in American topics. The day Michael Jackson died, several people asked me if I liked his music or was upset. Almost everyone I have a long conversation with asks me about Obama. Unsurprisingly, my KASI friend (and most people here) like Obama, not only because of his Kenya heritage, but because he is trying to improve ties with other nations. (I'm sure this could be debated, but I'm thinking of his address to Muslim nations. Not saying it's perfect - but it's a start.)

Maybe it's just because I don't speak Swahili and don't understand half of what is said around me, but Moshi seems to have very little religious descrepancies. Mosques and churches coexist. Five times a day you can hear the Muslim prayer music (at all hours) and nuns walk around. It's encouraging to see and something I do admire Tanzania for. For better (or "worse" in one respect, more on this later), Tanzania has been relatively peaceful, especially considering its neighbors' history - no genocide, no major civil wars. Ironically, this means that there is less support for the disabled. KASI was the first such non-profit, but similar organizations in Uganda and Kenya expanded much more rapidly because the demand for disabled services post-conflict was much higher. The primary causes of injury are from falling out of trees and vehicle accidents. I couldn't understand why falling out of trees was so common until one of the people I met explained that men of the Chagga tribe take pride in raising goats. They climb trees to get leaves for their goats to eat. It's amazing what you learn that you never would think to ask.

Home Visits: Richard

The second person we visited last Wednesday was Richard, someone who received a small business wheelchair from Tish's project a few years ago. In 2000, Richard fell from a tree (sounds familiar) and injured his T-12 vertebrae. In the past nine years, he has had two wheelchairs - one imported chair, and one locally made. The imported chair lasted from 2000-2003, and he was able to get it through KCMC. In 2003, the problems the wheelchair caused compounded: it was difficult to maneuver, broken, and couldn't go fast because its two front wheels fluttered. One advantage though, was the foldability of the wheelchair.

His second wheelchair that he got in 2003, has lasted these past six years. Yes, the paint is gone and it doesn't look brand new, but he has had relatively little trouble and a much better pay off. In the last six years, he replaced the bearings and got a new front wheel. Not half bad on this terrain. The major disadvantage of the locally made chairs is that that cannot fold up. Richard recommended that Worldwide Mobility should have a "what next?" focus as well, something I completely agree with. He said that once a person gets a wheelchair, he doesn't have a job and sometimes getting a wheelchair only means he can get out of bed in order to beg.

Richard is in front of his store in the picture to the right. It's important to have a plan. I think Tish's small business project would be an excellent companion to Worldwide Mobility. Even if we did not have separate "business" wheelchairs made, it is very important that we can provide people who receive the wheelchairs with some training to help them start a business. Tish's project is building a place for a training school. I think it would be fantastic if we could somehow merge the two projects, taking the best elements from each. From WM, raise money to help a person buy a wheelchair. Through kiva or some other means, acquire capital for small business loans. This would mean that people would need to demonstrate an ability and idea for a business.

While a small business would not apply to children, it is a good idea for adults. It may be important to make further distinctions in the future or stipulate that a child be able to go to school. Perhaps (only if necessary) another donation for school fees? There's a lot to think about...

The Wonders of Slow Internet

Pictures finally up! It took longer than I care to admit, but the pictures are on the post now:

http://empoweringmobility.blogspot.com/2009/06/home-visits.html

Respecting Privacy

Today as I was looking through Kiva microfinance partners in East Africa, I stumbled across a blog by one of the Kiva Fellows on a topic very relevant to Worldwide Mobiliy: the receiver's privacy. The post is thought provoking, and I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Is Kiva respecting the privacy of its borrowers?

Should people in non-ideal conditions sacrifice their privacy for the opportunity to get a loan? Can non-profits fundraise as effectively without showing profiles and creating that donor-donee link?

Travel Advice #3

With so many options, it's difficult to know what to pick. A few of the options and their advantages and disadvantages:

Traveler's checks (American Express) - can be exchanged in any city or at the airport. Rates are better in $50 or $100 denominations. I learned that the hard way. Unfortunately, you pay a fee on both ends. TCs have worse rates than cash (USD$1 is 1200 Tsh in TCs, but is 1300 Tsh for cash - the difference of about $.10 cents adds up when you are exchanging $200 -> $20!), and they cost money to purchase. The huge advantage, though, is that if they are lost or stolen, you can get your money back. Security has a price.

Cash - since you are probably exchanging USD and Euros, and these are very common, you will be able to exchange them at any bank or exchange bureau. A good option. Better rates are available in $50 and $100 denominations than $20. Look around for the best rates. Often vastly different rates will be two doors down from eachother.

ATM - if you're in a large city, this is also a decent option. When withdrawing a large amount of money, this may be the most cost effective. You will pay a fee to your bank and to the ATM, so beware of that. (Usually a few dollars on each end) plus a currency conversion fee (2% at MIT FCU, 5% at Bank of America).

Credit Card - I haven't used this yet in Moshi, but it was very useful in the Amsterdam airport (buying internet time and insurance). If you absolutely don't want to carry around money, this is an option in cities. Visa is the most commonly accepted. Personally, I don't like the insecurity of handing over my card to someone else. It's much easier to make sure you're paying what you think when you are handling bills.

It's important to have a mix to accommodate different situations and try to anticipate which situations you will be in.

It comes down to how much money you want to carry with you, how secure you want it to be, how big your purchases are, and where you are. Big cities, you can get away with a credit card. I would recommend that for only large purchases. For small things, it is cheaper to exchange a larger sum of money and then siphon off how much you need in the local currency bills. That has served me very well in Moshi (a smallish city).

Many hotels will take cash. This has no exchange rate and is a good way to go. Watch out for different prices in the local currency and USD, though. Sometimes the USD amount is significantly more than the price in the local currency. A bit of that would be accounted for in exchange rates, but anything larger than 3% difference is they marking up the price for tourists.

So far my experience has only been in Moshi (large town - lots of small shops, many banks, few large/chain stores), so take the advice with a grain of salt. Once I have been to Kampala and Nairobi, I will update this with more info! =)

Home Visits

The first guy we visited today fell out of a coconut tree in 1993. Since then, he has had three wheelchairs. Pictures of all three of them are below. Notice how the the first two are unfitted and don't accomidate rough terrain. The third is a three wheeled chair - much more stable in bumpy roads. (And there were a LOT of bumpy roads nearby) His most recent one is from March 2009 and is shiny and new looking. His first wheelchair came from KCMC via a program with a Netherlands church. He has one child and lives with his sisters.



He's very fortunate in that since he built his house after his accident, it is accessible in all the rooms. From the back. He can't go through the front because there's a big step, but it's easy access from the back. He likes the new one because he can go longer distances and it handles the rough terrain better. His house is pretty cool; they installed a solar panel for power on the roof.



His primary concern for people who are disabled is that they don't have or know how to manage capital. They definitely need ways to make money. He has been doing decently because he has a plot, and his business partner helps him manage the land.
Every week, they pay 7000 Tsh (USD$5.84) to rent a pump and hire someone to operate it. Pumps cost USD$300-350. I was initially concerned when he said he wanted a loan because if he used the money he saved to pay back the loan, it would take 60+ weeks to repay, and the planting season isn't nearly that long.

The planting/growing season is 2-3 months. Harvest time, however, lasts six months. Each week, they fill 25 bags that sell for 10000 Tsh each

25 * 10000 Tsh * 4 weeks/month * 6 months = 6 000 000 000 Tsh = USD$5000 per year

A portion of which goes to renting the pump. At first glance I was worried because it didn't sound like he would be able to repay the loan in a timely manner. The benefit of not paying $6 per month did not seem to translate into significantly increased earnings.

However, upon further questions, he told me they are currently using only a fraction of the land. His land extended for at least double or triple what was actually planted. The thing holding them back is the price of having the water pump rented. I went and saw, and it's quite significant how much they have left. (He owns up to the far tree line.) It may be unrealistic or inadvisable to cultivate ALL of his land, but it is clear that the opportunity would provide significant increased earnings regardless.



His is the ideal candidate for getting a micro loan. He knows exactly what he needs to expand his business, the expansion will produce much increased profit, but to pay for it out of pocket would be too much.

Hearing his story today made me start thinking about kiva.org. No one here seems to have heard of it. I was talking to Faustina last week and she looked up the website. An eventual goal of Worldwide Mobility should be to enable its wheelchair users to get loans on Kiva. In the mean time, we can attempt to secure micro loans for people who benefit from WM through existing places. Perhaps KASI will become a partner. Faustina definitely seemed interested, so I hope they pursue it further. I think she liked its emphasis on women.

I'll write about the second person we visited that day soon.

Travel Advice #2

Make a budget and set goals for how much you'll have left at different parts of your trip. Make a separate budgets for necessities and for fun stuff. In necessities, there's a lot to consider: lodging, meals, internet, phone. (In fun, there's plenty too! - safari, gifts, etc.) If you're lucky, the hotel might include breakfast or internet in the price. Ask! Books like Lonely Planet give good estimations of prices and list multiple options.

My host told me she saw a pair of travelers getting a hotel once. The management told them one price, and they pulled out their Lonely Planet book and pointed to the real price there, which made the management back down.

Don't be afraid to research things ahead of time, and don't expect to be getting the best price the first time someone says something. A lot of people will sell you something for less than the first price and don't be afraid to walk away. Learning the Swahili numbers helps a lot, because when you can name your price in Swahili, they will give you a better one.

The Plan

*Note: many of the places are described in greater detail in this post.
My meeting with Abdullah last Friday about the plan for what to do with Worldwide Mobility in the next few weeks was great. Here's the flexible schedule (subject to changes & rearrangements):
Monday - work at KASI, make website to fill in the form, make Word Document version. Abdullah will be out, so it's a perfect day to catch up on email and do the web side of the plan.
Tuesday - meet/work with one of the wheelchair technicians at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC), Albert.
Wednesday - Two home visits of current wheelchair users, both in good quality, locally made chairs
Thursday - Work at KCMC, meet with Albert again, the orthopedics department, and the Motivation office
Friday - go to CCBR with Abdullah, after work, go to the KASI Finance Committee meeting.

Monday - travel to Arusha to see Mobility Care, learn their system, etc
Tuesday - visit Njoro workshop
Wednesday - home visit of a current wheelchair user in an unfitted, externally donated chair from the states
Thursday - assessment at CCBR
Friday - meeting with local PAWA people

So there's the rough sketch. I think it's an appropriate mixture of seeing each of the aspects over here and all parts of it are things I definitely would not be able to do from MIT. I'm looking forward to meeting and working with everybody, especially talking with the current wheelchair users. I think it will be very enlightening to compare the experiences of the users in locally fitted vs externally non-fitted wheelchairs.

Definitions

There are a lot of words, names, and acronyms thrown around like you know exactly what I'm talking about, so here's a list:

Places
CCBR - A disability organization where Abdullah works part time. They do assessments of people's disabilities.
KASI - Kilimanjaro Assiciation for the Spinally Injured. The first and only such organization in Africa. They inspired several similar organizations in Uganda and Kenya.
KCMC - Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center. They are the #1 hospital in Tanzania, located in Moshi. There is a wheelchair workshop there that KASI hires to make wheelchairs (KCMC Wheelchair Workshop), and this is where Albert works. Located in Moshi, Tanzania.
Arusha Mobility - one of three wheelchair workshops KASI hires to make wheelchairs. Located in Arusha, Tanzania.
Njoro Wheelchair Workshop - the third wheelchair workshop KASI hires, located near Arusha.

People
Abdullah - my mentor in Tanzania. His website is here: abdullahonwheels.googlepages.com
Albert - wheelchair technician, works at KCMC Wheelchair Workshop
Amos Winter - my mentor at MIT, head of M-Lab

Misc
M-Lab - MIT Mobility Lab, working on several wheelchair related projects and has a class every spring semester
Tigo - a cell phone provider in Tanzania
WC, wc - wheelchair (we're not British)
Zain - a cell phone provider for a large portion of Africa, including Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya

Kiswahili - Swahili
jambo - hello
hamjambo? - how are you (plural)?
kusoma - to study
kutoka - to come from
ni/si - positive/negative present tense form of to be

Kiswahili

Swahili has been consuming my weekend. Since my host mom mostly speaks Swahili and several of the people I come in contact with the most outside of KASI/KCMC speak better Swahili than English, it's definitely a good thing to know. Nothing like a little motivation. I've made some good progress in a week, but I need to practice it more. Listening to CDs and reviewing flashcards can only get you so far. When I do speak to someone in Swahili, I get the distinct impression that even though the words I'm saying may be correct written, my accent is so bad that they don't understand. I'm really feeling for those PhD students leading recitations...

As I'm sitting here, I can hear my host family talking with their cousins. It seems like people all speak at the same time. I have no idea how they understand each other. Sarah's aunt just invited me to come to her place anytime. People seem to just pop into places here without calling or anything.

Still trying to figure out some things, though. Meal times are a little weird. Breakfast is whenever you wake up, which makes sense, but lunch does not seem to be at noon, usually hits around 2pm. Then dinner is somewhere between 6pm and 9pm typically. I guess that's not too weird. Just the lunch thing. And I should be used to varied dinner times (thanks mom). A little flexibility is a good thing.

Travel Advice #1

For travelers who are staying for a long time, even just two weeks, good advice is to get a cell phone in country, or at least a local SIM. I did a lot of research before coming to Tanzania about which phone services to use. While it is possible to get a new SIM card in each country for pretty cheap ($2 or less for cheap ones), since I was traveling to several places, and it was better to have a consistent number, I got a SIM card on the Zain network. (For travelers just in Tanzania, Tigo is good/cheap/easy to find too.) Both Zain and Tigo phone cards are available everywhere in Moshi. When you fill up, the price is on the card, so you don't get ripped off. Everyone knows Zain cards, so it's great. The rates are pretty good (5 cents for a text message in country, 1 Tsh per second calling on the network) and you can call America for roughly what you would pay elsewhere. (~$.50/minute - much better than the $4.99 Verizon wanted to charge me. Other networks have better deals, but it is hard/rare to find something better than $.60/minute).

Even if you don't have a SIM card enabled phone, you can get one for under $40. I was able to get The phone, the SIM card, and put 5000 shillings on the phone for Tsh 46000, about USD$38. Zain.com has a lot of information about the rates for each country. One of the best parts is you can buy the top up cards in each country and just pay at local rates. Zain has an extensive network, making it a great phone for travelers who are crossing a lot of borders. When deciding, I emailed a few Zain representatives to figure out which phones to buy, and they were very helpful.

Mimi nipenda Tanzania!

Hamjambo? Jina langu ni Danielle na mimi nisoma Kiswahili. Mimi nipenda Tanzania! (How are all of you? My name is Danielle, and I am studying Swahili. I love Tanzania!)

Tanzania has been fantastic so far. I'm settling in with my host family, and they are terrific! They're teaching me Swahili. So far I'm pretty terrible/inconsistent, but maybe in a few weeks...

It's impossible to say what has surprised me the most. So many things are different, but so many are the same. There are street vendors everywhere that want to sell you anything you can imagine. (Think New York times 10 and this isn't even the biggest city!) Yesterday I saw a single DVD that claimed to be all of the Lost seasons 1-6. I'm a tad skeptical, but that sort of thing is everywhere. There are lots of people selling shoes, but they'll only put one of each pair out! It makes sense because that way someone can't steal a pair, but it was definitely funny the first time I saw that. People will walk around with baskets and sometime one of their items on their heads. I was surprised the first time I saw a shoe on someone's head.

People here are so nice. Sarah and I went out to town for this spicy fried potato dish. (I know it sounds like French fries, but it was more like potato chunks and no crispy outside.) We were getting gas on the way back, but the car wouldn't start. There was a guy who saw us having trouble and he and his friends roll-started the car. Sarah said she knew him from a carnival or something like that. While it's important to be on your guard and act safely, it's good to remember that many people are nice.

It was great having help with that, but I'm glad I knew how to fix it, thanks to Amos's car breaking at the Yale conference. If we hadn't been as lucky with those guys there, I think I would have been able to help. It's funny what bits of information turn out to be useful. Thanks for breaking your car Amos =P

Tomorrow I'm meeting with Abdullah at KASI - can't wait to really get started!!!