Minute Man

Sorry for the lack of posts. Between getting up at 3:00am to watch Canucks games and the roller coaster of emotions with an over time win in game 2 followed by a complete collapse in game 3 I have been feeling tired. But seriously... What the heck happened in game 3?! Oh well, it's only one game. Jennifer is just out at a place where they have fast internet. I am at home preparing for a meeting this afternoon in the city where I will be the official minute taker. I was hoping to just take hours as that seems a little more managable but they really want those minutes.
ex: 1st Hour: People showed up. I cruised the web for Canucks stuff. Some people started talking in Kiawahili.
2nd Hour: Just having a meeting and stuff...
3rd Hour: Meeting over.

Having never taken minutes (at least not for a meeting) I am a little nervous. The Chair Person emailed me this morning and told me he is expecting an official report after. I am also excited as the meeting is about micro finance and housing in Tanzania. These are two things that interest me and I am curious to hear more about them. Land ownership, housing and zoning here is nothing like in Canada. A lot of people just construct "houses" wherever they want on land that is not theirs. In a strange way it seems to "work" for them. I can't wait to add my two-cents as the minute taker. I better warn everyone in advance to expect a lot of me cutting them off with "Woah, woah, woah. Slow down. Can you repeat that last thought? I'm trying to take minutes here so..."
The last couple days we have not gone to our placement at the university as earlier this week we had a discouraging experience there. On Tuesday we were eating lunch at a little out door area they have there when a man from Tanzania came to our table and started talking to us. He asked us where we were from and what we were doing there. We explained that we were from Canada and we were helping PhD students with their research here. When we mentioned that we were helping the PhD students research informal settlements it seemed to upset him a little bit. He told us that Canadians and Americans think informal settlements are a novelty because we don't have them where we are from. He said that he was disappointed that the university was wasting money and other resources on us when the money could have just been given to the people living in the informal settlements because that would have made a bigger difference. We tried to tell him that we came to the university and this is how they told us we would help the most and that it was the PhD students who had chosen the research topics but he did not seem to understand. When I told him I was making maps he told me that the government could accuse me of being a spy. Apparently Canada feels a white person in the middle of a bunch of Tanzanians would blend in seemlessly. He also compared our work to people going into a hospital and studying sick patients but not actually helping them. His closing thought was that we were just undergrad students and that it is backwards for us to be helping PhD students. While I understood a lot of why he felt the way he did it was discouraging to hear these things from an older and educated person. If only it were as easy as staying home in Canada and throwing money at people living in poverty. Unfortunately it is not. Next time I see him I would love to ask him out for a Kili so we can chat some more. I do enjoy hearing people's thoughts and ideas about development - even if I think the person is crazy. Next week we are going out into the field and I am hoping to try map an informal settlement or a small section of one. It is strange to look at exisiting maps here as the areas with informal settlements are just big blank spaces on the map. I am possibly going to be a shorter research paper on the importance of mapping and how it makes everyone feel important if everyone is on the map. Man I love maps. Time to go take some minutes.