After the excitement of being in England over Christmas, Victoria and I have both well and truly settled back into the pace of life in Dodoma. The surroundings are still green and flourishing because of the heavy rains experienced since November, and the maize in the fields has grown to at least 6 feet tall.
This fortnight we secured the use of a Landcruiser 4x4 vehicle, so STT is now mobile again. The vehicle belongs to the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS), who has lent it to us for a whole year! This means we can make headway on our monitoring and evaluation programme, and Justin’s contact and mycorrhiza support with the villages can increase. We can now also have better communication with villages and DODEA are able to use the vehicle for their own monitoring and implementation needs. I have had to relearn the ins and outs of manual transmission and driving a pick-up, but it is all good experience!
During talks with the RAS in November, we invited him to visit some of our project villages so that we could demonstrate our work. This week, Justin, Victoria, and I made two village visits to select the best quality DODEA villages for both elements of the intervention – stoves and trees. Two Project Officers from DODEA accompanied us on these visits: Mr Sudda (stoves element) and Mr Bendera (tree-planting element). The villages selected for the RAS visit were Nghome, Manhumbulu and Nghulabi.
During the visit to Manhumbulu, Victoria interviewed a project beneficiary family for the STT newsletter. The family uses the Lorena stove and has planted tree-seedlings around their plot of land. Mr Sudda helped with the translation into Kiswahili and Kigogo, and the interview proved very insightful. We look forward to its publication in the next edition of the STT newsletter, which Justin will translate into Swahili so that the family can receive their own copy.
Due to heavy rains, the roads on the way to Nghome were flooded in patches, leaving huge pools of water where the road once was. The learning curve was a steep one, especially when our vehicle became stuck in one of these pools for 2 hours! Thankfully, teachers from the school we had just visited came to help, by digging a channel which would drain the water away, while the students were busy trying to push us out. Other news from the STT office is the recent establishment of the STT Monitoring and Evaluation programme, which is scheduled to begin in a week’s time. This will ensure that the targets of the STT intervention are being met on the ground and will also mean that STT has a stronger presence in the villages.
That is all for this fortnight’s blog, so until next time!
Catherine.
