Kyrstie and Carlos share their favorite memories from Tanzania

Better Lives supporters Kyrstie and Carlos visited Tanzania in 2016. They spent time with Lishe Bora and Tupendane and also enjoyed a few of Tanzania’s popular attractions. Kyrstie shares a few highlights their trip:

What is your favorite “fun” memory from Tanzania?

It was on our trip to Tanzania that we found ourselves having breakfast with the most unexpected, fun company! It was early in the morning when we got down into the Ngorongoro Crater while on safari with Simon.  We set up a picnic table next to a lake and had just sat down to eat our delicious breakfast when we noticed bubbles coming to the surface of the lake.  Suddenly numerous massive hippos surfaced just meters away!  Luckily they weren’t as interested in us as we were in them so we spent the morning sipping tea to the sight of these huge creatures cruising along just in front of us.  Simon knew just the spot to take us!

What is your favorite perspective-shifting or learning moment from Tanzania?

In our visit to Tanzania we learned a lot about a part of the world that we really didn’t know too much about before, and it was specifically during our time with Better Lives and its partners that we gained a deeper understanding of local communities and their everyday challenges.

In one such example while visiting one of the school fruit and vegetable gardens, we learned that some of the crops had recently been damaged by unexpected intruders – donkeys!  In order for the school children to continue to have food for breakfast, all the schools created more sturdy fencing for the gardens and lined them with plants that the donkeys don’t like in order to keep them away.

I never would have predicted such things coming in the way of breakfast…

We woke up to the fact that new challenges can present themselves when least expected, even after it seems you’ve planned for everything while creating a solution (companion planting for organic farming pest control, teaching best practices, harvesting schedules, etc.).

We were impressed by the agility, persistence and creative solutions developed to deal with unexpected issues which sometimes happen when trying to achieve community goals.