Stories from the Field: Return to Tanzania
by Caleb Meeks, Director of Innovation
May 26, 2022
The nighttime lights rushed up to greet us as the plane touched down in Dar es Salaam. After 7 years away, I was returning to Tanzania, a country I once called home. As I stepped from the plane, a strange peace washed over me. I made my way to immigration and put my long-unused Swahili through its paces. The language came to me slowly at first, but soon it returned with fluid familiarity. Some things really are just like riding a bike.
At the airport entrance I was welcomed back by a happy band of Tanzanian friends. Though tired from my 2 a.m. arrival, everyone was in high spirits as they shuttled me and Philipo to our guest house. Philipo is Flint’s in-country coordinator for Tanzania, and we had been working closely (albeit remotely) for the last eight months. After months of digital communication, we were both eager to work together in-person. But we both decided that work could wait until morning. After all, it was almost 3 a.m.
The next morning, Phillipo and I immediately got to work on the most pressing task at hand: finding Caleb’s favorite Tanzanian breakfast of chicken soup with lime and peppers! After finding and devouring our delicious breakfast, we were joined by another of our Tanzanian colleagues, Imani. We had never met in-person before, but we quickly discovered we have a lot in common. The three of us had a wonderful time sharing our life stories and journeys.
The rest of my time in Tanzania was spent in meetings with community and organization leaders. First up was an affable man named Kinyonga. Kinyonga (whose family name literally translates to “chameleon”) is all smiles as he greets me and tells me about his organization.
Kinyonga is one of the leaders for Open Door for Development Strategies (ODS). The organization collaborates with village savings-and-loan groups and programs to support schooling for vulnerable children in southern Tanzania. My main job was to listen and identify opportunities for synergy. ODS has established an exceptional network of savings clubs. They also expressed interest in helping Flint develop tools to capture video for reporting and fundraising. Did I mention that Kinyonga is also a videographer? Many exciting opportunities to explore!
After ODS, my meetings were mainly with the TDMM leaders involved in our agricultural and practical business programs. It’s amazing how meeting face-to-face makes all the difference! For the last year, the pandemic had forced us to exclusively meet digitally and we had all felt the distance. Finally being able to meet in person allowed our humanity and personalities to really shine through. We made great progress in adapting our trainings and communications systems to better serve them in the future. Out of those meetings, we gained not only an improved plan for our programs in Tanzania but also the beginnings of strong relational bonds between myself and our partners.
Some of those upcoming improvements include:
Additional mindset trainings to proceed our practical business skills training. This will be developed in partnership with TDMM staff.
A followup coaching program in which Flint will equip TDMM members to become coaches for training attendees in their local communities. In addition to enhancing entrepreneurship skills at a low implementation cost, this also helps TDMM further other strategic ministry goals.
We will produce testimonial and business case-study videos to be shown at trainings as real life examples.
Our meeting time was packed and, despite having taken two very full days, I still felt we were only half way through the planning process.
The second half of my trip was to take me to Rwanda. Philipo and Imani were to join me and learn agricultural best practices from Flint’s Conservation Agriculture staff in Rwanda. But, PLOT TWIST, I tested positive for Covid.
It quickly became clear that Rwanda wasn’t going to happen. We needed a new plan. TDMM leadership was quick to call in favors and assist me during my (unexpectedly) extended stay in Tanzania. Luckily, I was asymptomatic. From what we could gather, my lack of symptoms meant I could leave the country after 5-days of quarantine and with a doctor’s note.
Instead of wandering listlessly through my quarantine hotel room, Philipo and I decided to fill our extra days with safely social-distanced meetings between ourselves and one of the TDMM leaders. The planning and decisions that came out of those meetings were some of the most vital from the entire trip.
In the end, my quarantine proved to be a blessing. Not only did we develop our programs to new degrees, but our partnerships flourished into bonds of friendship. My TDMM hosts did so much to welcome and support me during the difficulties of my trip. I truly felt cared for like a brother.