My Trip to the Hombolo Village

Written on June 13, 2008 from Dodoma, Tanzania
By Philip Arscott

Today is the first full day back in Dodoma, after spending three days and two nights in the Hombolo Village, about 40 km outside of the city. So much happened while we were there and we got a lot of good work done, so I will start from the beginning.
On Tuesday morning we woke up and had breakfast and tea, before meeting with Richard, Noel and Margaret to finalize the plans for the excursion to the Hombolo Village. Although we got off to later start than we had expected (11:00 instead of 8:30) I was excited to finally get out into the field and begin filming some of the businesses that Village Enterprise Fund’s grants have helped start. The drive took about and hour and a half; first taking the paved highway for 45 minutes then a dirt road the remainder of the way. Since it is the dry season, there is not a whole lot of green vegetation, but there are plenty of shrubs and trees that blanket the countryside. One of the most remarkable views during the drive is the massive boulders, some the size of a two story house that seem so out of place in the arid and relatively flat valleys. While driving down the dirt road to the village, there were families along the route that had little fields of plants and small, mud huts with either grass or mud roofs. We passed one group of men building a house, their quarry of mud bricks being formed in the ground adjacent to the growing building. All along the way people waved to us and we must have been quite a site, one of the few cars passing by with three poorly shaved white men bouncing along, with a cloud of dust and exhaust following us to the village. It was a relief to finally reach Hombolo, as our sweaty and shaken bodies needy a break from the loud roar of the engine, and the terrain that constantly tested the suspension’s capabilities. Noel parked the car next to a little shop, where Richard Nollo, the Volunteer Business Mentor (VBM) of Hombolo, was sitting and waiting patiently for us. We were a little bit late, but it did not seem to bother Richard too much and we set off to being our work.
The first stop was by the dammed lake, to interview a fishing business. Unfortunately they had already completed the morning fishing, and we would have to come back later. The lake is pretty remarkable, created by an Italian government sponsored dam that was built several years ago. There were still the bare stumps of former trees that rose out of the lake, eerily reminding us of the changed landscape. As I later found out, the dam provided sufficient irrigation to files that were miles away from the river, with an intricate system that carried water in cement troughs to the far away fields. After retreating from the lake’s edge, we stopped by a tailor business, ran by a man named Stanley. He and Richard had decided on the name, Beach Front Tailors, since they had a good view of the lake out of the front door. I conducted the interview, which although was fun, did not provide very good material: Richard translating the questions then translating Stanley’s answers took too long; but in the end we got pretty good footage. Stanley had one of his workers go and purchase some sodas for us, a very gracious act that reminded me of how little extra money the villagers had to spare and how thankful they are for the work VEF has done for them. We walked out of the business and back into the dry, hot sun, slightly cooled by the sodas we had enjoyed. Before getting into the car to go to another VEF sponsored business, there was a shy little boy who was scared of the cameras. So I convinced him with some hand motions that it was ok, took a picture and then showed him the result on the LCD screen. He was amazed and the other kids came to have a look, one of them wearing an old “Bay to Breakers” shirt, the San Francisco event that I had taken part of earlier this year for the first time- what are the chances. We finally had to leave them, but the children of the village tended to follow us around and take great interest in our equipment and work.
The next business was a little restaurant run by the Pentagon Mgahawa Group, led by Seche Jonas, a nice woman who carried her baby in a blanket on her back. We changed our interview approach, this time having Richard conduct the entire interview in Swahili while translating the answers, cutting down on the unnecessary time and also giving a much more personal view of the business and how Seche’s life has changed since receiving the grant. While the interview was going on a little boy named Noel became fascinated with Jake’s blue soccer ball, and was rolling around in the dirt and kicking it as hard as he could- giving us all a laugh. Little did Jake know though, that little Noel was going to follow him around constantly for the next two days, barely giving him enough time to think, but giving all of us a lot of entertainment. When the interview was complete, the resulting video was much better than the first interview and although I missed being in front of the camera (not really though) the new format was much better. In this way we conducted two more interviews that afternoon, one that was especially picturesque with a fishing business.
The sun was getting lower in the sky as we approached the lake, and the fishing group went out in their boat to show us how they fished. Their boat was a carved trunk of a tree, about ten feet long and over two feet wide. Richard explained that the boats take a month of carving to complete, which is back breaking work without any power tools. As the fishermen paddled out with their net, the glassy water seemed to be sliced with each row, and the incessant buzzing of insects broken only by the voices of the villagers who had come to see what we were doing. It was a really beautiful view, the heat dropping off as the sun lowered giving a pacific vibe that was vacant while in the busy streets of Dodoma. After completing the catch, which did not consist of any large fish due to the time of day, we set up for the interview, which in hindsight was probably the most scenic of all that we conducted in Hombolo. It ended up being the last interview on that first day, which was nice because we needed to settle into our guest rooms and get some dinner.
For dinner we went to the shop where we first met Richard, sat underneath a wood and grass hut and enjoyed some rice and meat stew. We were all pretty tired, and when we got back to the guest house it did not take much time to settle into bed and fall asleep. In the morning we had breakfast at the same place, consisting of Chapattis (flat bread, much like a tortilla) and tea. For the interviews on Wednesday, we were going out into the fields to meet some of the Pump Project recipients, a program VEF started last year that gave farmers a foot pump called the “Super MoneyMaker Plus Pump” instead of the usual grant, to see if there was any benefit to supply technology to the farmers rather than capital. We did a total of five interviews of pump recipients, and the results were obvious. As I explained before the dam allows for irrigation to reach the far fields, through a series of cement troughs and water locks. Normally the farmers use a pipe method, which is difficult to explain but essentially floods a ditch along the crops, which the farmers then use to water each individual plant. It is a very tedious process and if the water is not deep enough in the troughs, then the method fails. The pump on the other hand, does not need very deep water and pumping it like a “stair master,” the farmers are able to irrigate more land in less time than the pipe method.
The fields we visited were spread out across a valley with mountains in the distance; the fields of corn, sugarcane, onions, tomatoes and grape vines reminding me much of the Central and Napa Valley back home but on a smaller scale. Each of the beneficiaries who we interviewed had at least doubled the fields they could sow and allowed them to harvest more than previously before since the flow of water did not dictate the amount of crops they could plant. The vineyards were particularly beautiful, stretching up to four acres and watered with a single pump. Unlike the industrial size vineyards back home, with automated sprinkler systems and huge plots of land, these grape growers worked on a much smaller scale, but had deep respect for their land and I knew used great care to get a bountiful harvest. There is a winery near the cropland, one that was built by an Italian non-profit organization to provide a place for the grape growers to sell their harvest. Although they have a bit of a monopoly being the only winery in the region, they are very reliant on the farmers for the grapes and hopefully pay them accordingly. We actually got a tour of the little winery, where the guide told us that the demand for the grapes exceeds the supply, so the winery encourages the farmers to expand their fields, while maintaining high quality of course. Although the wine industry is a difficult one to enter, the guide ensured us that the grapes produced in the Hombolo region are very high in quality and thus produce some tasty wine. We will see how the Tanzanian wine industry expands in the coming years. Although it was a bit odd to be in such a modern winery in the middle of the Hombolo region, it is nice to know that the farmers have a place to sell their goods and using the pump provided by VEF has allowed them to make much higher profits than previously before.
We returned to the village after the winery tour, as the sun was setting and some people were closing their shops for the night. Although Hombolo consists of only a few dirt roads, there are many businesses and fruit/vegetable stands that continue selling late into the evening. When we got back to the guest house I was exhausted, spending nearly the entire day outside in the sun, getting footage and meeting the farmers who were so thankful that we had traveled out into the fields to visit them. The night was a little cooler than the prior, and bundled up in a sweater I enjoyed another meal underneath the grass hut. It is a bit difficult to describe the feeling of eating out in the open in the village, with people passing by and the darkness creeping all around us. I felt welcome there however; most of the people were very kind to me and did not give me any sort of negative vibe. The most difficult part of visiting the businesses and passing those who have not received our help is that you wish that there was a way to help the entire village and not just a few beneficiaries, a concept that although good in the mind is very difficult in reality. My major hope is that the children of the beneficiaries that VEF has helped will use their access to education as a means to benefit their village, so as to escape the poverty that appears to be commonplace throughout Hombolo. That night it was a little more difficult to sleep, as I knew that the next day I would be leaving the village and go back to Hombolo and continue with my life, while all those people I had met would remain in the village I so wish to help.
On Thursday we had five more interviews scheduled, and after a breakfast of Chapattis, tea and hard-boiled eggs we were ready to go. One of the beneficiaries we interviewed, Hasia Masudi, who ran a little café called the Kalembo Mgahawa Group, was so lively and such a happy woman that she made me feel so happy that she had been helped by VEF. Her business had recently renovated a little room where her customers could enjoy their breakfast/lunch/dinner, which provided shelter from the sun and dust, but also showed how passionate Hasia was about her business and her wish to expand. The interview went very well, and when we were finished Richard had to explain to some other beneficiaries why he had not gone to their businesses for the interviews. It was rewarding to see all of the other grant recipients so passionate about wanting to show their gratitude towards VEF, but unfortunately there just was not enough time to interview them all. When noon finally came around and it was time to leave, we said goodbye to the woman who had been providing us with food the entire time, Jake bid farewell to the kids who had loved playing soccer with him and we set out along the bumpy road back to Dodoma, a little fearful that we may not have enough fuel to get back.
We made it however and now less than a day since leaving Hombolo; the excursion seems more like a dream were it not for the hours of video that we gathered during our time there. Looking over the film and the completed video that David put together, our work already has results that I hope will give the people back in the U.S. a picture of the lives they are changing through VEF. Whether it being able to afford more than one set of clothes, send their kids to school or eat meat more than once a week, the beneficiaries have showed me a side of VEF that I had been looking for during my time in the U.S. office, and really see the fruits of our labor. I hope that our visits to the other villages are as successful as the trip to Hombolo and that one day I can visit the village again.