Week 1, June 1--5—First week with Kivulini Women’s Rights Organization:

Mwanza—Day 3: Today was the first day of my internship at Kivulini Women’s Rights Organization, an organization working against domestic violence. This includes violence against children and violence against men, although most often it is focused on violence against women in the household. Kivulini is especially focused on community mobilization and female empowerment. The day before I came to Mwanza there was a torch lighting ceremony in a small town near Mwanza, which included lots and lots of dancing and music. This type of event is typical for Kivulini, which has gained a lot of community recognition and respect. Virtutally everyone I speak to and mention that I am working with Kivulini, knows what Kivulini is and where their office is located.

My day begins at 8:00am, I wait downstairs for Maimuna, the director, and we are driven by another Kivulini staff member about 7 minutes to the office, which is located is the part of town called Isamilo. The drive includes a portion of very bumpy dirt roads. Although the main road in Mwanza is paved, most of the other roads are dirt roads and they are filled with potholes! I am not talking about the average small hole in the street, or even the type of pot holes we try to avoid driving over in the US, I am talking about humungous holes in the road. I have no idea how those holes got there, the road literally looks like a terrain for motor bike stunts. This is actually a place where an SUV or Hummer might be a useful investment. On top of that, the dirt also make my feet extremely dirty, and they are hard to navigate, which would make wearing high heels here a circus act. However, many of the women in Kivulini wear high heels to work. Here, even more than in the US, high heels are certainly a status symbol. Women who wear high heels can affoard to take taxis or have drivers. NGOs in Tanzania (and I’ve heard througt Africa) are amongst the best paid jobs for locals. Even though there is a apparently a lot of tension in international NGOs between locals and people living or visiting from abroad because Westerners are paid much much more than locals, local employees of NGOs make significantly more than other typical positions. Therefore, they are some of the most sought after positions and certainly a status symbol. In some ways this is good, because you get the more educated and qualified people for the NGO positions, but, in other ways this creates a distance between the NGO employees and the general local population because the NGO employees can afford a better standard of living then most of the population. On top of that, even though NGO employees are paid better than most of the population there is still a lot of corruption and stealing going on in NGOs. The corruption isn’t nearly as bad as the government here, but it still occurs regularly. But, I have to say that based on my own personal experience with a certain NGO in the US, there is also a lot of corruption and financial cheating going on in US-based NGOs too. But, somehow, we always seem to view corruption in countries in Africa as much more extreme and offensive than in the US. I think the government here is a much more extreme example of corruption. The legal system seems entirely ineffective because government officials are regularly and openly paid off through bribes (or as an ex-patriot put it, “the government officials take a commission in order to allow anything to get accomplished”).

Interestingly, my first task at Kivulini was a case where the legal system failed to uphold its own laws, but it was somewhat effective despite the presumed attempts of bribery. Because the facts of the case are so horrific, I am going to summarize them. In Tanzania gold mining is a huge industry, and there are many companies that set up gold mining exploration sites in rural areas of Tanzania. One such international company had a site in a very rural area near a village. The security guards who were hired by the mining company and on duty, lured a 13-year old girl into the deserted exploration site they were guarding. Then they forced her on her knees and a dog proceeded to rape her for an hour. The only reason the girl reported the rape to the police is because she was severely injured as a result. Now when she walks through her village and people see a dog, they say to her “oh there is your brother, uncle, etc…” So, the 3 perpetrators at the site were criminally prosecuted, but they only received 20 years in prison. The minimum sentence for rape of a minor is 30 years in prison. Kivulini is looking at the case to determine what the next steps are and how best to protect the interests of the girl. They are thinking about bringing a civil case against the mining company, but there are serious concerns that the company would just pay off the government officials and the case wouldn’t go anywhere. This is also a very interesting case because it begins to highlight some of the many tensions/clashes between the local population and international companies and ex-patriots.

But, what I remember most about the day was the Kivulini staff and their continuous efforts to make me feel welcome and included. During the staff meeting, which is typically in Swahili, the staff both spoke some English and a staff member translated the rest of the meeting into enlgish for me. I also learned that things here are much slower than I am used to, particularly because I am accustomed to the pace of NYC and law school. Here, things are slower, people take time to say hello and make small talk, holding hands, looking at the other person in the eyes when they ask “habari” (how are you). When someone younger says good morning to someone older they say “shikamun” and the response by the older person is “maharaba.” Generally people begin with “mambo” and the response is “poa.” There seem to be endless variations of greetings, a different one for every occasion, time of the day and type of relationship, but they are all for essentially the same purpose. Here, people smile to each other (genuine wide mouthed, bright eyed smiles—not the forced tight lipped smile I often see in NY). People here also have a very different sense of space than I am used to. People are constantly toughing and holding hands. When you shake hands, it is not the quick one hand, two pumps. Here, hand shaking is more like hand holding and there is no time limit, you might continue holding hands the entire 10 minute conversation, and even casual hellos are usually accompanied by a hand shake or hand slap of sorts.

But, all of this also takes patience…something that is not my forte, but I will be forced to learn it here. Not just patience with the 45 minute greetings in the morning, but patience when speaking and explaining things, patience when waiting for something I asked for 2 hours ago and it is just in the other room and patience when waiting for someone to arrive for an appointment. On Wednesday I was supposed to go to another office to observe a follow-up counseling session between a husband and wife who were having issues with domestic violence. The husband was supposed to arrive at 9:00am. The wife and her child arrived right on time, but the Kivulini representative (and I) waited from 9:00am until about 1:00pm for the husband to show up. He never showed…but never did anyone appear impatient or annoyed that he didn’t show up. I don’t think that one single person in NY has this level of patience. This patience and adjustment to a different way of life is something I will have to learn and it will probably serve me well in the future.