Sunday, September 18, 2005
It has been a good week, a welcome break from the routine. I came to Morogoro along with about 8-9 other PCVs to work with the headquarters staff to plan the 10-week training program for the next group of Trainees. There should be 37 of them, arriving on the 22nd from the USA. We are staying at a Conference Center called WAMO – it really is quite nice. Large attractive grounds, nice buildings, hot water for the showers if you are the first person up in the morning. It is especially welcome to be together with the other volunteers that we rarely see – and also Janna and Kara, who are also from the Lake Region.
There is really a tremendous amount of planning and coordination that goes into planning these training programs. Also, it has evolved into a system that is fundamentally different from the program that greeted my group. The change is for the better. The volunteers immediately meet their local host families, and most of their training takes place in local schools instead of at a central location.
But Morogoro, it turns out, is a center of forestry research. So in addition to participating in the meetings here, I was able to get a lot of background information about eucalyptus trees in Tanzania to help my friend Gunje, near the border with Burundi and Rwanda. A couple of Gerry Hertel’s contacts are here, and I did manage to make contact with them, and they led me to still others. There is a lot of governmental interest in non-fuel forestry products right now, like the extraction of essential oils. Unfortunately, from the reports I have seen this week, the effort is very bureaucratic and basically involves forming committees to assess the potential and set national goals and think about structuring training programs. It will take eons for any of that effort to make something real happen.
It turns out that there are no native eucalyptus trees in Tanzania, they were all introduced here from other areas. However, the UNHCR organized major planting projects along the western border in 1975 because the genocide refugees living in camps were chopping down all the trees they could find for firewood. If we are lucky, we will be able to find UN records to tell us what was planted, where, and how extensively. Also, it raises hope that the species that were planted will prove useful, and not just junk.
I’ve heard that there are three distillers of essential oils in Dar es Salaam. The three of us from the Lake Region have to go back through Dar, and I am thinking that it would be worthwhile to take one extra day to look up the distillers to see their operations and find out what facilities and willingness they have to analyze a number of Eucalyptus samples from the Ngara region.
Meanwhile, while all this is going on, my post-PC plans keep evolving. I began by planning to spend a month in India, a month in China with Matt and his family and a good chunk of time in Seattle with Ellen, and finally a month exploring National Parks and stuff in the USA. But Myrna isn’t happy with all this additional time before we get together again, and really, our reunion has a strong pull for me too. So I dropped the idea for western USA travels; Myrna and I can do that together if we choose, later. Then it turns out that Matt and his family are headed to Italy on December 18 so that truncated the Asia schedule and raises questions about Seattle relative to Christmas.
I’m thinking now that I might spend 3-4 weeks in India and then come straight back to Philadelphia to spend a week getting my feet on the ground and bring Myrna up from Guatemala in time for Christmas. I will miss seeing Matt, Paola and the kids, and Ellen, but at least we did have a good chunk of time together during the safari last month.
But that puts both Myrna and me back in Philadelphia just in time for the coldest part of the year, with bodies that are acclimatized to Africa and Guatemala. Ouch. Or, rather: Brrrrrrrrr.
There is really a tremendous amount of planning and coordination that goes into planning these training programs. Also, it has evolved into a system that is fundamentally different from the program that greeted my group. The change is for the better. The volunteers immediately meet their local host families, and most of their training takes place in local schools instead of at a central location.
But Morogoro, it turns out, is a center of forestry research. So in addition to participating in the meetings here, I was able to get a lot of background information about eucalyptus trees in Tanzania to help my friend Gunje, near the border with Burundi and Rwanda. A couple of Gerry Hertel’s contacts are here, and I did manage to make contact with them, and they led me to still others. There is a lot of governmental interest in non-fuel forestry products right now, like the extraction of essential oils. Unfortunately, from the reports I have seen this week, the effort is very bureaucratic and basically involves forming committees to assess the potential and set national goals and think about structuring training programs. It will take eons for any of that effort to make something real happen.
It turns out that there are no native eucalyptus trees in Tanzania, they were all introduced here from other areas. However, the UNHCR organized major planting projects along the western border in 1975 because the genocide refugees living in camps were chopping down all the trees they could find for firewood. If we are lucky, we will be able to find UN records to tell us what was planted, where, and how extensively. Also, it raises hope that the species that were planted will prove useful, and not just junk.
I’ve heard that there are three distillers of essential oils in Dar es Salaam. The three of us from the Lake Region have to go back through Dar, and I am thinking that it would be worthwhile to take one extra day to look up the distillers to see their operations and find out what facilities and willingness they have to analyze a number of Eucalyptus samples from the Ngara region.
Meanwhile, while all this is going on, my post-PC plans keep evolving. I began by planning to spend a month in India, a month in China with Matt and his family and a good chunk of time in Seattle with Ellen, and finally a month exploring National Parks and stuff in the USA. But Myrna isn’t happy with all this additional time before we get together again, and really, our reunion has a strong pull for me too. So I dropped the idea for western USA travels; Myrna and I can do that together if we choose, later. Then it turns out that Matt and his family are headed to Italy on December 18 so that truncated the Asia schedule and raises questions about Seattle relative to Christmas.
I’m thinking now that I might spend 3-4 weeks in India and then come straight back to Philadelphia to spend a week getting my feet on the ground and bring Myrna up from Guatemala in time for Christmas. I will miss seeing Matt, Paola and the kids, and Ellen, but at least we did have a good chunk of time together during the safari last month.
But that puts both Myrna and me back in Philadelphia just in time for the coldest part of the year, with bodies that are acclimatized to Africa and Guatemala. Ouch. Or, rather: Brrrrrrrrr.
