Kick it.

I veered from the path of familiarity yesterday and bought some "Kick It" beer from the store instead of the usual Kilimanjaros. With a soccer ball for a logo and "Kick It!" as a name, it just made sense. I am happy to report that Kick It! is a great beer.
Today was a relaxing day. After a busy weekend it was nice to have a day where we did not have to be or go anywhere (sorry Oma if you're reading this, I know we should have gone to church).Yesterday while Jen was helping out at HOPAC, I went on an "Investour." Investours was started by a Harvard student in Mexico and was recently started up here in Dar. The person who started it was fed up with the high interest rates which made the pay back of microloans impossible for many people. The basic idea is that a group of people go on a tour of an area where people have little shops or businesses and then decide which place they want to give money (the tour fee) to. The people at Investours identify people who they know need the money and would benefit from a microloan.  

Yesterday we visited a woman with 8 kids who had a little stand where her and a friend sold charcoal. Charcoal is very important here as over 90% of the people living in Tanzania use it to cook. We sat in her little home/shop on plastic buckets and asked her questions through a translator about her business. We then went for lunch in the market. I had some Tanzanian food that I don't know how to spell but it was very good. After lunch we went to visit a lady who sold peanuts and had a little shop where she sold soap, water and other small things. Each of the woman we met made between 5,000 and 10,000 TSH a day (1,500 TSH = $1 Canadian).

It felt very strange in the meetings as the ladies we were talking with both knew that it was up to a group of people from Canada to decide who would get the microloan. Who am I to decide which lady would receive money? They both work so hard every day and have families to support. Each of them was asking for 300,000TSH which they would pay back in 3 months. The program is amazing, however, having to choose a "winner" is very hard and made me want to go back to both of the women and tell them they both get the money. Our group chose the peanut lady as the charcoal lady had already received a loan recently. The person who does not get the loan is given a class by the Investour people on how to improve business, and if the same person is not "chosen" after 2 tours, they automatically receive a loan. It was great to give the peanut lady her money but as I said earlier, it felt strange to be the one to "choose" and decide which person should get the loan. A cool thing is that we are allowed to stay in touch with the person we chose to give the money too through the Investours office. They said we can even skype with the peanut lady in the future if we want. The tour took us to some very poor areas. A lot of people get sad when they see so many people living in poverty. I just get very angry. Poverty can go suck an egg.
It made it very clear, once again, that Africa is going to impact me a lot more than I am going to impact Africa. Going into the trip I had some big ideas and was confident I would solve world hunger, at least in Africa. Move over, Ghandi. Joel is here to save the day! As it turns out I will not be solving world hunger. Not this week anyways. With so many challenges it is hard to know where to even begin to try help. One thing is for sure: Me and Africa are now officially invested in each other.