"Mambo!'' "Safi!'' Or, what I'm actually doing in Tanzania

Cliché Alert: This blog entry contains pictures of cute, smiling African children. Eye-rollers and cynics, be advised.

I’m happy to report that, in spite of my last post, I’ve actually managed to accomplish a tiny bit of that elusive thing called Development Practice this summer. Moreover, I’ve figured out how to compress pictures, so even my painfully slow internet connection won’t stop me from showing you what it looks like!

I was brought on to design a school-based hygiene outreach program, a project that lies at the crossing of the education, health, and water sectors (an integrated approach! Jeff Sachs would be so proud.) So, naturally, it’s totally neglected: the water guys build the latrines and the health workers treat diarrhea, but few are taking responsibility to connect the dots in between. In other words, you can build all the toilets you want, but how do you get people to use them?

This might seem obvious at first glance. But there are plenty of examples of things that we know we should do but don’t, even when they are cheap and readily available. Raise your hand if all your light bulbs are high-efficiency fluorescent. If you floss daily. If you eat 3-5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. If you raised your hand for all of these, you’re a better man than I.

In any case, behavior change is a tricky beast. But fortunately, I’ve got a good model to follow: UNICEF's WASH in Schools is a worldwide movement to engage kids in good hygiene and create healthy school environments, through everything from pop songs to mural contests to Global Handwashing Day (October 15th – don’t miss it!) This program is based on the premise that kids learn and adopt behaviors much more readily than adults, who are already ingrained in their habits. It also takes a step further, suggesting that kids can actually be agents of change in their own families (who hasn’t heard of kids getting their parents to start recycling or to quit smoking?) and in their communities.

Sounds easy, right? All I had to do was get a bunch of kids to learn a few catchy songs and diarrhea rates would surely plummet. And Step 1 was done before I got here: MVP’s Water and Sanitation team has already built improved pit latrines and hand washing stations at all seventeen primary schools in the cluster. Enter the “Mambo! Safi!’’ Club: a five-week miniseries of WASH games, skits, songs, and activities to get kids at three primary schools thinking about hygiene in their environment. (“Mambo!’’ “Safi!’’ is Swahili slang meaning, “What’s up?’’ “All clean!’’ Ah! I slay me.) For the last three weeks, two MVP facilitators/superheroes, five very patient primary school teachers, 40-odd kids and I have been testing this thing out.

A few lessons learned so far: first, the infrastructure picture isn’t as rosy as I assumed. The hand washing stations look marvellous, really, until you peek inside and find that they are always empty (even though kids carry buckets of water to school every day). And you can forget about soap, which the teachers tell me is simply unaffordable. The well-engineered cement drainage basin might as well be a sculpture on the school grounds. The latrines are sturdy but dirty, and all I can say is you’d better be packing your own TP.

Second, the kids actually know loads about hygiene already. They brainstormed more critical hand washing times than I could think of, and they knew the names of tons of diarrheal diseases and their transmission paths. They rattled off germ-blocking strategies like sanitation pros: protect boreholes, use a toilet, cover food, boil water. They also tell me that they wash their hands at home, just not at school. To me, that means we’ve got more than hygiene education to do around here.

I’m convinced that just as kids are more inclined to adapt new habits, they are less inclined to accept the status quo. While an adult might say “Soap’s not in the budget,’’ a kid will ask, “Why?’’ (or, even better, “So what?’’) In other words, we can take this a step further: instead of just trying to get kids to wash their hands, we’re trying to get them pissed off when they can’t.

That’s a little tricky, because Tanzanians don’t get pissed off easily. The kids I’m working with are respectful, obedient, peaceful, and often frustratingly shy (a far cry from the sassy, noisy Dominican kids of my teaching past). But they're also very diligent and great at working in teams. It’s hard to picture them storming the Ministry of Education to demand soap, but I think there’s a fighting chance of them eventually pooling laundry soap stubs or appointing a captain to make sure the hand washing buckets get filled. All it takes is a little bit encouragement, and that encouragement is going to need to continue after I leave Tabora in three short weeks. So I’m putting my hope in a lot of different baskets – the MVP team, the primary school teachers, and the kids – to carry this thing forward. I'm also leaving behind a whole stack of Mambo! Safi! Kits - everything a teacher would need to conduct the five-week program at their own school.

Today, we’re launching an interschool poster contest on hand washing and diarrheal disease prevention: winner’s poster gets photocopied and hung at every school and clinic in the cluster. Plan for sustainability: lamination. Hey, it’s a start :)

Week 1: the kids conduct an experiment to see which hand washing method will get their hands the cleanest: a towel, a bucket of still water, running water, or running water and soap. These kids' hands are coated with cooking oil and tea leaves to represent germs.

Week 2: Germ mapping! The kids drew a map of their school, illustrating all the places that germs might be hiding.

Presenting the maps! (I'm a little bit in love with this kid - he's the youngest, tiniest, and most eager and precocious of the whole bunch.)

Next, the kids played Germ Police and set out to the latrines to conduct a hygiene survey: how many are there? Do they all have doors? What's on the floor? Is there water and soap for hand washing?

Investigating at Ilolangulu Primary School

Yep, doesn't smell so hot in there.

Dutifully filling out the surveys

Finishing up back in the classroom...

...and then deciding on the most important hygiene problems facing our school. On Week 5, we'll be voting on one or more of these to take on as a club.


Working with the primary school teachers is both an opportunity and a challenge - they are the ones with the power to keep the sessions going, but the tough part is getting them to believe that the kids (or the teachers) can make a difference!

Week 3: Mapping the journey of a germ from poop to mouth, through flies, fingers, floors and fluids. It's worthy noting here that the Swahili word for germs is "wadudu.'' This keeps me endlessly entertained, though I think I'm the only one who gets the joke...

Hours of low-bandwith picture downloading paid off - the kids were fascinated by the microscope photos of diarrhea-causing germs. After learning about the different categories, we played a fun memory/matching game.

Man plans, Africa laughs

Carrianne warned me on my very first week to remove the words ‘’plan’’ and ‘’expect’’ from my vocabulary. For anyone who has ever met me (or anyone else who is type A, a Myers-Briggs J, or a Budzyna), you know that this is no easy task.

Still, in the interest of keeping my blood pressure at bay, I’ve done a decent job of going with the flow for the first four weeks. With the myriad barriers to accomplishing every small task – no electricity in the office, project vehicle has a flat tire, point person has malaria, and so on – you quickly learn not to get your heckle up too easily. I’ve started to mentally add an hour and a half to any stated meeting time, or to keep things lively, take over-under bets on when things will actually start. (Either technique also works with estimated time of food arrival at almost every restaurant in Tabora).

Somehow, though, I’ve managed to convince myself that as soon as I was working on my OWN project, everything would suddenly work more smoothly. On paper, the after school health club scheme I’ve spent the last few weeks designing looks satisfyingly straightforward. With a five-week schedule chock full of soap bubble experiments, dramatic role plays, mapping exercises, and poster contests, complete with planned hand-off to student leadership, all that stands between me and a brigade of health-promoting youngsters is a teaspoon of buy-in from the primary schools. Oh, and a gaping language divide.

Enter the MVP Education and Community Facilitators – my ticket to the primary schools. A hilarious and fun-loving duo, these guys are well-loved by the community and crucial to the kickoff of my project. I took deep breaths when the driver arrived an hour and a half after we were supposed to leave for our first teacher meeting and I found these two eating potato stew and chicken at Mama Rosa’s across the street. ‘‘We need our stomachs to be strong! No more than ten minutes!’’ they reassured me.

‘’Five!’’ I shouted, half-jokingly, as I left them to their feast.

Happily, with the help of the smooth-talking Community Facilitator who made everything sound much better in Swahili, all three primary schools agreed to take me on. Ilolangulu Primary School immediately picked out a teacher, selected 15 students, and invited me start on Monday - the first day of school after break. I couldn’t believe my ears – was this really going to be that easy?

Spurred on by these successful meetings, I spent the weekend biking around town collecting materials – wash basins, plastic mugs, tea leaves, hand soap, colored pencils, cooking oil. I texted the teachers to confirm the time for Monday. I stayed up till midnight on Sunday typing up the lesson plan in detail so that I could have a co-worker help me translate it into Swahili the next day. And on Monday morning, bursting with adrenaline and plastic-ware, I triumphantly entered the conference room.

Saira was the first to break the news: mandatory all-staff meeting in Ilolangulu – 9:00. No vehicles, no facilitators, no MVP resources at all would be available until the meeting was over. Harried, I ran the lesson plan through Google Translate and printed out the crude translation before the Tabora office closed up. I prayed that the meeting would end before my 12:00 appointment in Mpenge, or at least before 1:00, when the kick-off club meeting was supposed to start in Ilolangulu.

For the next hour and a half, three SUVs shuttled the entire MVP staff from the Tabora office to Ilolangulu. (If you’ve ever played Zoombinis, this maneuver can be likened to trying to get your whole clan across the river on three canoes in the lowest number of moves.) On the second trip, the wazungu squeezed into the chassis of the project ambulance and bungled our way to the village. We waited another hour for the rest of the staff to arrive from various corners of the cluster. At 10:45, the 9:00 meeting began.

When the photocopy of the agenda fell limply onto my lap, my heart sank. Employee contracts, incentive schemes, procurement policies, software updates – everything that did not apply to a summer intern. Early on, the moderator apologized to us, saying he would be conducting the whole meeting in Swahili. We smiled weakly. An hour passed. I dejectedly doodled the nametags I had hoped to design and print that morning.

As the secretary began to read sections of the new employee handbook out loud, I suddenly decided that I, Laura K. Budzyna, was a free agent. I will NOT go with the flow. I have a plastic bag full of markers and cooking oil and COMMUNITY BUY-IN, damnit! I will not be defeated by meeting protocol! I can do sustainable development single-handedly if I have to!

At 11:45, I slipped out of the meeting, school supplies in hand, and walked toward the field office in search of a pikipiki (motorbike) that would take me to Mpenge Primary School. I was lucky enough to come across one of the school administrators, who sent for his son to escort me along the dirt roads to school. I was thrilled – bouncing along the reddish-brown roads, shaded by the mango trees – this was everything field work should be. My meeting at Mpenge went smoothly, and the head teacher escorted me back to Ilolangulu himself. Ha! I’d done it. Piece of cake – who needs a facilitator or an SUV?

I was feeling quite pleased with myself when I arrived at Ilolangulu Primary triumphantly at 1:00. The plan (there’s that word again) was to go over the lesson with the head teacher and the chosen health club advisor (who does not speak much English) an hour before giving our first class. When I arrived, the two teachers greeted me heartily, then told me to wait a moment while they attended an unexpected all-teacher meeting.

For the next two hours, I sat in the schoolyard, leaning against the wall, trying to be as patient as the 200 kids who were also hanging around waiting for their teachers to emerge. At 3:00, I sent a text to both teachers, asking whether we would be better off rescheduling for another day.

Moments later, bless their souls, they both burst out of the meeting. They apologetically hurried me into a classroom that suddenly, inexplicably, was filled with exactly 15 kids, wide-eyed and at attention. Realizing that they wanted me to jump right in, I turned to the teacher and said, ‘’Wait, first we should prepare – we are not ready to teach yet!’’ She helpfully sat me down at the desk, beginning to read the horrendous Google translation as the students watched. My voice got more urgent, ‘’No, I mean, maybe we should talk for 15 or 20 minutes before we invite the students in.’’ Not understanding, she called in the head teacher, who heard my request in English and then promptly herded the children back out. The first teacher and I sat down again, starting to decipher the lesson plan line by line. Worried about time, I tried to rapidly explain the role play, the brainstorm session, and the hand washing contest, and I heard my voice rising in irritation. I wanted to call the head teacher back in to translate, but he was now entertaining the 15 students who were waiting to be called back in.

My phone rang – it was Hannah. ‘’The meeting’s over – all the cars are leaving for Tabora.’’

And just when I thought Tanzanian time could stretch forever, it was up. I apologized to the teachers, promising to call soon to reschedule. I packed up my unused water bins, mugs, tea leaves, and markers, and I climbed back into the ambulance chassis, feeling defeated. I wanted to curse the endless parade of surprise meetings that had thrown off my day. I wanted to curse the hurry-up-and-wait pattern that plagued every small task I tried to accomplish. I spent a good portion of that ride home grumbling and ranting and blowing off steam to my very patient friends, who of course had just suffered 5 hours of HR policy in Swahili.

But as I stewed, I realized that most of my frustration was at myself. In that last frantic back-and-forth to get the lesson started, it became painfully clear that I could not do this alone. My Swahili phrasebook vocabulary was not going to transform students into health promoters or teachers into pro club advisors – I was going to need an advocate from MVP to translate, facilitate, and carry this process forward. What’s more – I shouldn’t do it alone. The urgent, bossy voice I heard myself using in that classroom has absolutely no place here. I’m here and gone in a few short months. This is not my club, and if it were, it would be finished before it started.

In short, my cocky pikipiki escape had veered off course and landed me into a big old puddle of humble.

When I worked in the Dominican Republic, my amazing friend Merrill passed on a quote from one of her favorite professors of development: ‘’If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’’ It’s one of the hardest lessons in this line of work, especially when the meaning of ‘’fast’’ is so frustratingly relative. I’m clearly still trying to learn this one.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with planning. Arguably, you need to plan more, since the x-factors (as my dad calls them) abound. And in a context where I’m stuck at an office with no transportation to the villages on most days, and the teachers are swamped with planning other classes with no internet access, this division of labor makes sense. But without a solid block of time and a bilingual superhero to walk through the lesson in advance, to criticize it, to adjust it, to practice it and to make it ours instead of mine, the plan is nothing more than a pretty vision in my own head.

Speaking of plans, today, I’m supposed to have a meeting at Mbola to confirm a teacher and 15 students for the club, and to spend some qiality time looking through the lesson plan (thankfully being translated into real Swahili as we speak). I received this text from the head teacher last night:

Teacher: How are you my best i’m very sorry because tomorrow i will go Ulimakafu primary school class 7 will sit there region examination. But every thing is okey teacher and club which contain 15 pupils. Have a nice day or NAKUTAKIA SIKU NJEMA.

Me: Hello! Does that mean I should or should not come tomorrow? I would like to at least meet the teacher before Friday.

Teacher: I MEAN YOU SHOULD NO PROBLEM ABOUT THIS IF YOU WILL GO MBOLA YOU WILL OTHER TEACHERS DON’T WORRY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

Sigh, nope. Who knows what will happen this afternoon, whether there will be a vehicle available or a staff member with some time to spare. But I do know that I won’t be taking off into the field again without an advocate by my side. That liberating pikipiki ride through the mango trees is small change compared to a plan that works.

Addendum: Africa laughs at a lot of things: Apple and Amazon, to name a few. With both my overheating MacBook and frozen Kindle resigned to the inside of my suitcase for the remainder of the summer, I have entered a new earth-loving, friendship-appreciating, technology-free zen (the first five minutes of which consisted of crying and spoonfuls of Nutella). Many thanks to the patient people in my life who have listened to all the sob stories before they became funny.