Hello!
Now we have visited two villages, Bambi and Tunduni, for evaluation. We have also met the village heads, shehas and intervued them. The life in the villages is fascinating, and it keeps amazing me how patient people are here. Even though the intervues take a long time, now one complains or goes home. Something I and maybe most Finnish people should learn from them. People are in general very pleased with the LIVE-project and sad that it's coming to its end. They also wonder why and I have explained to them that in Finland the development projects usually last for three years.
In the villages I've seen some genious solutions for example for the lightning during the evening (the darkness falls at around six pm). Many people are also engaged in several different livelihoods, and today I saw some beautiful colouring of clothes in the soap making group in Tunduni. Village people have many problems concerning their livelihoods, for example thieves and cows and goats grazing freely and destroying their harvests. Also disease and pests are common in agriculture. The weather conditions may also harm the livelihoods.
It has been sunnier here now and also quite hot, at least in my standards. On the weekend I stepped on a sea urcher while swimming and had to pull the sticks out of my foot all night...
Tutaonana!
Elina
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Greetings from the rainy Zanzibar
Mambo!
I (Elina) arrived in Zanzibar on Friday and I've been trying to get used to the living in here. People are still very friendly and everything is pretty much the same as last year, when I visited Sansibar, but there is still some adaptation I need to do. We (me, Markus and the DCCFF project staff) visited the caves on Sunday 13th with more than 20 tourists from Keski-Suomi. The visit was successful despite the heavy raining we had. The caves are always fascinating to visit. It's been raining a lot in here, yet it's very hot.
We planned the evaluation of the LIVE project I aim to do, and tomorrow I will start going to the village visits together with Tahir and Othman. We will start from Kiwengwa. I will write more as we have visited some of the villages and the livelihood groups.
Tutaonana!
Elina
I (Elina) arrived in Zanzibar on Friday and I've been trying to get used to the living in here. People are still very friendly and everything is pretty much the same as last year, when I visited Sansibar, but there is still some adaptation I need to do. We (me, Markus and the DCCFF project staff) visited the caves on Sunday 13th with more than 20 tourists from Keski-Suomi. The visit was successful despite the heavy raining we had. The caves are always fascinating to visit. It's been raining a lot in here, yet it's very hot.
We planned the evaluation of the LIVE project I aim to do, and tomorrow I will start going to the village visits together with Tahir and Othman. We will start from Kiwengwa. I will write more as we have visited some of the villages and the livelihood groups.
Tutaonana!
Elina
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The village visits are here!
Last week went by being busy with my studies, but we managed to proceed little with the project planning. Last Thursday we had a meeting with Antje, a lady organizing women groups in Matemwe. We were mostly interested about a women group called DADA, which produces food products, like jams, pastas, dried vegetables, sauces, etc from organically grown materials to the urban markets of Zanzibar Town. She kindly promised to share their know-how in drying, packaging and processing of vegetables and provided us with a list of agricultural products that could be sold directly to DADA groups. Besides the actual support, she gave us a good example how thinks can be done sustainably. The range of usable plants and the versatility of already used plants she know was astonishing, not even mentioning her house that got all the required water from the rains and energy from the sun. Talking with her gave us some new creative ideas and made me remember that question of sustainable way of living is not only an issue that needs to be promoted in the Western world, but also elsewhere.
This week, actually today we started the village visits from Bambi and Tunduni. We visited the dairy goat group and two vegetable groups in Bambi. I was sorry to hear that although the goats were able to breed the kids died before growing up. Hopefully this is a problem we can help with the new project. We arranged a meeting in the villages to introduce our new idea, get direct comments from stakeholders, ask about the problems facing food security and list the groups interested in our new project. Luckily Othman translated to me again, but I think he skipped some of the jokes about the weird mzungu :D Majority of the groups were the same we worked in Live project, but I was happy to see there were some new ones also.
There were some obvious differences between the villages. For example in Bambi the demand was for larger projects that would cover the whole community while in Tunduni participants questioned the functionality of group farming and wanted to support individuals. But altogether the problems in food production were quite similar: poor quality of seeds, not enough fertilizers, pests, lack of training, poor tools, etc…
Weird dreams caused by the malaria medication made me little tired today, but hopefully I’m bit more energetic during the field visits tomorrow.
This week, actually today we started the village visits from Bambi and Tunduni. We visited the dairy goat group and two vegetable groups in Bambi. I was sorry to hear that although the goats were able to breed the kids died before growing up. Hopefully this is a problem we can help with the new project. We arranged a meeting in the villages to introduce our new idea, get direct comments from stakeholders, ask about the problems facing food security and list the groups interested in our new project. Luckily Othman translated to me again, but I think he skipped some of the jokes about the weird mzungu :D Majority of the groups were the same we worked in Live project, but I was happy to see there were some new ones also.
There were some obvious differences between the villages. For example in Bambi the demand was for larger projects that would cover the whole community while in Tunduni participants questioned the functionality of group farming and wanted to support individuals. But altogether the problems in food production were quite similar: poor quality of seeds, not enough fertilizers, pests, lack of training, poor tools, etc…
Weird dreams caused by the malaria medication made me little tired today, but hopefully I’m bit more energetic during the field visits tomorrow.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Mambo!
Hello to everyone from rainy Stone Town. The short rains have arrived, but I have problems understanding the word 'short' in the phrase. The rains have neither been short in length or small in amount. I'm Markus (pictures will follow somewhere in the future) and I arrived to Zanzibar last week. I'm here for two months to work with the Live-project and to collect materials for my master thesis.
The first week went by quickly in adjusting, getting things organized and participating a GIS conference. To be honest it was rather absurd situation to participate in a GIS conference in a tropical island, but I can't complain :D This, second week, I have worked with Live-project. Our project is coming to its end and I'm here to take part in the planning of a new project. On Monday I met Tamrini and the others from the Forest department working with Live. We shared some ideas about the new project and planned the fore coming schedule. The new project is dealing with issues of food security, so on Wednesday we had a meeting with the director of Food security department and talked with her about our idea. She gave some new ideas and offered her help for the future.
Yesterday we presented our idea to the Kiwengwa-Pongwe Forest Adviser Committee (or something like that), which included village leaders and other important people from the villages surrounding the forest. In the meeting there were long discussions about how to prevent illegal fuelwood collection and stop people from hunting those small antelope looking creatures. The discussions were long and it seemed like everybody had something to say about every issue, luckily Othman translated to me, otherwise it would have been just three hours of wondering and bewilderness.
Next week we are going to start the village visits, a welcomed change to flooding streets of Stone Town.
Until then,
Markus
The first week went by quickly in adjusting, getting things organized and participating a GIS conference. To be honest it was rather absurd situation to participate in a GIS conference in a tropical island, but I can't complain :D This, second week, I have worked with Live-project. Our project is coming to its end and I'm here to take part in the planning of a new project. On Monday I met Tamrini and the others from the Forest department working with Live. We shared some ideas about the new project and planned the fore coming schedule. The new project is dealing with issues of food security, so on Wednesday we had a meeting with the director of Food security department and talked with her about our idea. She gave some new ideas and offered her help for the future.
Yesterday we presented our idea to the Kiwengwa-Pongwe Forest Adviser Committee (or something like that), which included village leaders and other important people from the villages surrounding the forest. In the meeting there were long discussions about how to prevent illegal fuelwood collection and stop people from hunting those small antelope looking creatures. The discussions were long and it seemed like everybody had something to say about every issue, luckily Othman translated to me, otherwise it would have been just three hours of wondering and bewilderness.
Next week we are going to start the village visits, a welcomed change to flooding streets of Stone Town.
Until then,
Markus
Friday, August 13, 2010
Rain and Ramadan
Sorry for the lack of updates on the blog, this past month has not treated us well. We've been busy taking antibiotics and anti-ameba medication.. A little bit of work too but much of the energy has gone into getting well again. Now we have one more week left in Zanzibar, hopefully we'll stay well!
Although we've been sick, we've also managed to make a bit of progress. The brochures are ready and printed now, next week we'll take one day to go visit some hotels if we have time. We've visited travel agencies and left them with cave brochures, hopefully some tourists take interest and go visit the caves. We've got an estimation after estimation for fixing the road and finally we have something reasonable. We'll try and get things started there next week before we leave. We've also planned and bought materials for new signs at the caves. On Monday we'll go to Kiwengwa, paint the signs and put them in their places. We've also attended some study visits and trainings organised for the livelihood groups. We have the intention of making sure the rest of the study visits and trainings will have set dates before we leave. Also the guides at the caves will get some training: we've been planning on sending them to Jozani for a week to get trained by the guides there. There has been progress on the online promotion as well: TIES published an article on the Mchekeni coral caves that Elina wrote.
Next week is our last one at work and it seems that it's going to be a busy week. Visits to the caves and hopefully some hotels, some work at the office, training on book keeping and business management and then finally a seminar on our and Elina's reports before we leave.
The past few days it has been raining and raining. Ramadan started yesterday and we're trying to get used to the changes it brings along: most of the shops and restaurants aren't open during the day and people aren't supposed to be eating in public. We're interested in seeing what else Ramadan is going to change.
Irene and Kaisa
Although we've been sick, we've also managed to make a bit of progress. The brochures are ready and printed now, next week we'll take one day to go visit some hotels if we have time. We've visited travel agencies and left them with cave brochures, hopefully some tourists take interest and go visit the caves. We've got an estimation after estimation for fixing the road and finally we have something reasonable. We'll try and get things started there next week before we leave. We've also planned and bought materials for new signs at the caves. On Monday we'll go to Kiwengwa, paint the signs and put them in their places. We've also attended some study visits and trainings organised for the livelihood groups. We have the intention of making sure the rest of the study visits and trainings will have set dates before we leave. Also the guides at the caves will get some training: we've been planning on sending them to Jozani for a week to get trained by the guides there. There has been progress on the online promotion as well: TIES published an article on the Mchekeni coral caves that Elina wrote.
Next week is our last one at work and it seems that it's going to be a busy week. Visits to the caves and hopefully some hotels, some work at the office, training on book keeping and business management and then finally a seminar on our and Elina's reports before we leave.
The past few days it has been raining and raining. Ramadan started yesterday and we're trying to get used to the changes it brings along: most of the shops and restaurants aren't open during the day and people aren't supposed to be eating in public. We're interested in seeing what else Ramadan is going to change.
Irene and Kaisa
Monday, July 12, 2010
Work continues..
Last week we have been working mainly with our reports. On Wednesday it was Sabasaba and we got a day off from work. Wednesday was also Elina’s last day in Zanzibar. Ever since we’ve been trying to get used to the life without her, feels odd when she’s not here!
Our reports are coming together a bit by bit, sometimes it’s difficult to continue writing when we haven’t managed to make any progress on other fields of the work. Last week we put together a summary on the trainings and study visits planned for this year and this week we’ll try to come up with some sort of schedule for them. Nora did some GIS magic and created a map of the GPS points we’d collected during the village visits. Everybody at the office seemed very pleased with the map (and everybody definitely saw the map and got their own copy since we had some "challenges" using the printer).
This week we’ll try and get a new estimation for fixing the road to the Kiwengwa caves. The estimation we have now is way beyond the project’s budget. We think for the time being it’s enough to do the minimum to make the road accessible. Later on when there is more money then the road can be fixed properly. On the things to do list for this week are also the brochures. We want to get them printed out (finally) and then discuss the hotel visits to improve the marketing of the products.
Even though last week was easy on the work, we were kept well busy with moving around Stone Town. On Wednesday we moved into a place with a unique cave-like atmosphere. Darkness, moistness, cockroachness.. Yesterday we moved out into a great place with lots of fresh air, open space, a roof terrace, a shower with hot water and a toilet that FLUSHES. We’re also very pleased with our new neighbours from South Africa, Germany, Kenya, Tanzania and Holland.
With the new home we are ready for the work this week!
Irene and Kaisa
Our reports are coming together a bit by bit, sometimes it’s difficult to continue writing when we haven’t managed to make any progress on other fields of the work. Last week we put together a summary on the trainings and study visits planned for this year and this week we’ll try to come up with some sort of schedule for them. Nora did some GIS magic and created a map of the GPS points we’d collected during the village visits. Everybody at the office seemed very pleased with the map (and everybody definitely saw the map and got their own copy since we had some "challenges" using the printer).
This week we’ll try and get a new estimation for fixing the road to the Kiwengwa caves. The estimation we have now is way beyond the project’s budget. We think for the time being it’s enough to do the minimum to make the road accessible. Later on when there is more money then the road can be fixed properly. On the things to do list for this week are also the brochures. We want to get them printed out (finally) and then discuss the hotel visits to improve the marketing of the products.
Even though last week was easy on the work, we were kept well busy with moving around Stone Town. On Wednesday we moved into a place with a unique cave-like atmosphere. Darkness, moistness, cockroachness.. Yesterday we moved out into a great place with lots of fresh air, open space, a roof terrace, a shower with hot water and a toilet that FLUSHES. We’re also very pleased with our new neighbours from South Africa, Germany, Kenya, Tanzania and Holland.
With the new home we are ready for the work this week!
Irene and Kaisa
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
My last day in Zanzibar
Hi all!
Sadly I'm (Elina) heading to Finland tomorrow, and my time in Zanzibar has come to an end. It has been great four weeks and there would still be a lot to be done in the project as well as exploring the beautiful nature in Zanzibar. Hopefully I will get a chance to visit Zanzibar again some day. Working in the project has been very interesting and I have learned a lot. I hope the work we've done has contributed the project, all though one month is not a very long time. Fortunately Kaisa and Irene will stay here for six more weeks and continue with the LIVE-project.
At home I will finish my report and send it to Kaisa, Irene and the staff for the final seminar. Gladly TIES will publish an article on Kiwengwa caves as an ecotourism destination. Last weekend we went to the Prison Island and it was a great experience with the giant tortoises and snorkling to see the coral. Today we are still going to have a last night's dinner and then I start preparing myself for the long journey back home. Tutaonana and stay tuned for updates from Kaisa and Irene!
Elina
Sadly I'm (Elina) heading to Finland tomorrow, and my time in Zanzibar has come to an end. It has been great four weeks and there would still be a lot to be done in the project as well as exploring the beautiful nature in Zanzibar. Hopefully I will get a chance to visit Zanzibar again some day. Working in the project has been very interesting and I have learned a lot. I hope the work we've done has contributed the project, all though one month is not a very long time. Fortunately Kaisa and Irene will stay here for six more weeks and continue with the LIVE-project.
At home I will finish my report and send it to Kaisa, Irene and the staff for the final seminar. Gladly TIES will publish an article on Kiwengwa caves as an ecotourism destination. Last weekend we went to the Prison Island and it was a great experience with the giant tortoises and snorkling to see the coral. Today we are still going to have a last night's dinner and then I start preparing myself for the long journey back home. Tutaonana and stay tuned for updates from Kaisa and Irene!
Elina
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