Zanzibar Pizza!

Setting up the Pizza stand

Zanzibar Pizza Making - in process!

My colleague and I went to Zanzibar last weekend; which was a lot of fun! They have a specialty at the late night food market called "Zanzibar Pizza". It is beef, cheese, egg, mayo in sort of a pastry shell and then fried. Sounds like a gut-bomb to me! I wasn't able to try it as I had already eaten dinner. You can see in the pictures that they take this very seriously!

I was also able to enjoy a beautiful sunset!

My new favorite food - Ethiopian!!

Yesterday I had the best dinner - both food and atmosphere, at Addis in Dar. It is Ethiopian food, which is sort of similar to Indian food. You eat various gravies with a fermented (it is good, just risen) pancake. Pair that with delicious honey wine and top it off with delicious spiced coffee and popcorn. Yum, yum - I will be looking for an Ethiopian Restaurant ASAP when I return.

Kasubi Tombs

Today I went to the Kasubi Tombs, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The tombs are where 4 of the last kings in certain tribes are buried. The descendants (women) from the Kings stay for one month a year at the tomb; then new ones come in. You may think - are there enough descendants to make that work? Well - each of the kings had about 100 children, so it's not a problem!

I also got to met Nicholas, who was my guide. He is quite the entrepreneur! Not only is he a guide for the tombs, but he also owns a soap/shampoo/lotion company and wrote a book (see pic). He also supports his four siblings - from 9 years of age to 20. At 26, that is quite a bit of responsiblity.

Kampala - an African San Francisco?

Kampala is comprised of seven hills, which makes me think of San Francisco. These are some pictures I took in the very early (yes - I am still very jet lagged!) morning of the city.

Flying into Kampala, over Lake Victoria

I flew into Kampala, Uganda last night. It was a beautiful flight in, these are picture of Lake Victoria with the sun going down. Lake Victoria is the world's second largest lake and the source of the River Nile. It also has many islands, which are visible in these photos. Unfortunately I am not that great at taking pictures from the plane!

I am excited to spend time in Uganda, it is very beautiful, hilly and green. Kampala reminds me of San Francisco, it is said to be built on 7 hills. The traffic however - I haven't seen it this bad since Bangkok!

Pictures from a day in the field!

Yesterday we went out to the field to observe the operations of the MFI we are working with. I saw these cute kids coming from school and had to take a picture! After I took this I showed them their picture on my camera and they just loved it, I don't think they have seen a digital camera before.

We met with borrowers that had businesses ranging from a hair salon to chair rentals to chicken broilers (I never thought I would see a small room with 1000 - not exagerating- chickens!

Sad story...

I've gotten quite fond of our taxi driver, Bashir. He has been shuttling us back and forth to our offices daily and yesterday took us all around as we did our field visits. This morning Bashir shared some bad news with us. He had been in the hospital all night with his five month old baby. His son had pneumonia AND malaria. It made me so sad as the likelihood of a baby in the US being faced with those two diseases at the same time I imagine are very small. I am keeping my fingers crossed that he will be ok.