{"id":53,"date":"2016-07-18T07:06:47","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T07:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/?p=53"},"modified":"2016-09-27T22:07:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T22:07:51","slug":"greetings-from-arusha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/2016\/07\/18\/greetings-from-arusha\/","title":{"rendered":"Greetings from Arusha!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been in Tanzania for over three weeks now, and it’s been such an incredible, humbling learning experience thus far. The people that I’ve met, the local culture, and the action research process as a whole have challenged me to go out of my comfort zone in positive ways that I never anticipated. I am truly grateful to be here.<\/p>\n

\"Arusha\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We previously spent one week in Babati and another week in Kilimanjaro where we conducted over 100 surveys with Solar Sister customers in various villages. Currently, we are in Arusha for our third field visit. Due to our lack of fluency in Swahili, Fatma as well as Revina and Doreen, our research assistants, have been providing translation. I really enjoy working with them and simply being on a research team of driven, hardworking women. They inspire me!<\/p>\n

\"I

When I first met this Solar Sister Entrepreneur, she said, “Oh! How’s China?” It was great.<\/p><\/div>\n

There are so many observations that have struck me since arriving here. I almost don\u2019t know where to begin! For the sake of time, however, I\u2019ll start with sharing 10 specific thoughts that have been on my mind lately.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A final draft of a survey is never perfect until it\u2019s been tested. After the first week of administering our survey in Babati, we realized that we needed to change a good deal of the ordering, wording, formatting, and content. While our preparation certainly wasn\u2019t useless, it could really only go so far, especially considering our lack of familiarity with local village life and culture.<\/li>\n
  2. Based on the data that we have already gathered, it seems like men tend to use solar for leisure, such as reading magazines or newspapers, whereas women use it for income-generating activities and house chores. While we are unable to draw conclusions at this point, I do think it\u2019s interesting to see that difference emerge in a pattern. Solar also seems to cause female customers in particular not only to feel more respected in their households and communities but also to possess more control over financial decisions.<\/li>\n
  3. As much as I enjoy being here, sometimes I feel a bit isolated because of the lack of community. We travel around a lot, so we are constantly going in and out of villages. In that way, it\u2019s been difficult to develop close and stable relationships with the people that we interact with. I really wish that I could spend more time and establish deeper connections with them.<\/li>\n
  4. Ugali is amazing.<\/li>\n
  5. Many people often think of Africa as a very hot place. In reality, however, Arusha and its surrounding areas are quite chilly during this time of year.<\/li>\n
  6. In the words of Hannah Montana, \u201cEverybody makes mistakes. Everybody has those days. Everybody knows what I\u2019m talking about. Everybody gets that way.\u201d Indeed, she does not lie. These lyrics are especially applicable to the coding process. While checking our data input, Leslie, Alaina, and I found that we each miscoded information. It is best practice to review each other\u2019s work.<\/li>\n
  7. Language is such a powerful skill. I wish that I spent more time learning Swahili during spring quarter so that I could communicate more efficiently while I am here. Even now, I still struggle with remembering the appropriate responses to all the different greetings (e.g., shikamoo, mambo, salama, habari, hujambo, etc.).<\/li>\n
  8. Time here moves so much slower than it does in the Silicon Valley, and I sincerely appreciate the change of pace. We typically wait for an hour to 1.5 hours for food to be served in restaurants, but it teaches us patience and forces us to take much needed breaks when we lack the discipline to do it ourselves.<\/li>\n
  9. Embrace the shilling. And the kilogram. And the kilometer. And military time.<\/li>\n
  10. Never take Wi-Fi, warm water, and vegetables (yes, even vegetables) for granted.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve been in Tanzania for over three weeks now, and it’s been such an incredible, humbling learning experience thus far. The people that I’ve met, the local culture, and the action research process as a whole have challenged me to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1598,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"gutentor_comment":0,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"vsyu","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/author\/vsyu\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"I’ve been in Tanzania for over three weeks now, and it’s been such an incredible, humbling learning experience thus far. The people that I’ve met, the local culture, and the action research process as a whole have challenged me to … Continue reading →","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1598"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/victoriayu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}