The weeks have begun to run together…I can’t really fathom that 5 weeks have past since I first arrived back in Tanzania.

When reviewing my to do lists and Un-Calendar I see many checks and  scratch throughs and a lot of highlighting, all of which signal that I am making progress…

My visit started with our long-time friend and supporter in country witnessing first hand our work on the ground

As she departed, I moved into some nitty-gritty admin stuff such as interviewing law firms to represent us in Tanzania and also some fun admin some architect meetings for a new project (shh can’t say more now, but more to come soon!), interviewing project management firms for this new project, and visiting the site for the project.

Week two brought me to Nairobi with Ken to meet with Joan and George Hornig. George is a Board member, and he and his wife are long-time supporters of our work.

In week 3, I dove into meetings with government officials to solidify our partnerships on the district level and to expand our work and our reach with some serious collaboration and sharing of resources and influence! This week also brought celebrations in our office because all of our Form 4 graduates received the news that they passed the national exam and will carry on with their studies.

We are so proud of Dickluck, Happy, Nancy, and Richard:

We congratulated some of them with a feast at the new favorite Fig and Olive. This week also continued the theme of collaboration as we legally formalized our partnership with Matonyok Parents Trust, signing a Memorandum of Understanding. This is an important step because, just as we demand transparency and accountability from our partners, we also want to be very clear with them what we promise in return for this.

I kicked off week 4 with the Kilimanjaro Half Marathon. I managed to run my personal best for the race and raised over $2500 on behalf of TFFT.

We also welcomed TFFT’s new DOO, Kelly Albertson, to Tanzania for the first time this week. We have loved having her, sharing the ins and outs, the challenges, and the success stories. After three months of reading about our work and skype meetings, she could finally touch, feel, and understand so much better how our organization operates!

Here she is at happy hour with the team:

Week 5 brought a lot of touching base with all of our current partners, learning about their progress as well as watching Melissa and Uswege run part one of teachers training for Star High School teachers out in Mbuguni, Tanzania. We also got the treat of hosting a Tanzanian Leadership forum for Leadership Wisconsin. Over 20 people had traveled to Tanzania and TFFT was one of their stops. It was a pleasure to hear their stories and share our work with them. Both former and current TFFT country directors (Fratern and Ken) spoke on the panel.

Now I am spending week 6 in Dar es Saalam (the capital) working to create more long term strategic partnerships (and raise money!!) to strengthen TFFT’s work here. I also happened to celebrate St. Patricks Day with my very BRIGHT green trousers! No green beer here but plenty of love over Facebook for one of my beloved holidays!  Two more weeks until I venture back to the US. It’s been a quick and full trip – hope you’ve enjoyed following along