I’m sitting in a chair holding several cotton swabs against both arms. I look like I’m cold. Or crazy. Maybe the latter, since I just volunteered to have various bits of polio, yellow fever, hepatitis A, and typhoid injected into my body. The doctor was kind enough to use these super-thin needles – it helps when you’re getting several shots, one after the other. Up next: hep B and measles/mumps/rubella. I’ve decided to skip on the rabies vaccination.
Africa, here I come.
My first project when I joined Google was working on Google Apps. Not long after I started, we signed partnerships with Rwanda and Kenya to provide Google Apps to university students in those countries. I’ve long had an interest in accessibility, not simply for people with disabilities, but also for people who do not have access to the level of infrastructure common in the United States or Europe. I wondered what the user experience of the Web might be like in Sub-Saharan Africa. After speaking with several people, I determined that the only way to really find out was to go there.
As I was investigating our various initiatives in Africa, I discovered that Google.org was supporting a business plan competition in Ghana and Tanzania and was looking for volunteers to act as teachers for their education program, as well as judges. They were looking for Googlers with previous business, development, and finance experience. Having been a finalist in a national business plan competition, and having run a couple of businesses, I applied and was accepted as a Google.org judge and graduation ambassador for Technoserve’s Believe Begin Become business plan competition in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This became my 20% project for the latter half of 2007.
I arrive a few hours after sunset at Julius Nyerere International on the outskirts of Dar. The air is warm and smells faintly of fire somewhere. I really have to pee, so I duck into a restroom just before customs. When I’m done, I’m the last passenger in a room full of bored customs agents. “Where is your form?” I give a shrug – maybe they gave out one on the plane and I missed it. He points me back towards the entrance, where there are stacks of blue forms and little golf pencils. I wander over and begin filling it out. “Come on, come on,” he says. “Where is your passport?” I hand over my passport and the hastily scrawled blue form. “You are here on business?” I nod. He takes my passport with him into a little room full of stern-looking agents. A supervisor takes my passport in hand and nods gravely. They speak for a few moments. Minutes go by and I’m sweating. Finally the supervisor makes little squiggles on the form and the agent returns my passport. “Welcome to Dar. Enjoy your visit.” And with that, I hurry out into the night to find my ride.
I confess to having been somewhat ignorant about Africa. I’ve always been fascinated by cartography, so I’d spent a lot of time going over maps and I felt I was fairly versed in Africa’s geography. Over the years, I’d followed the occasional crisis that made its way into Western media, but my knowledge of history and culture was limited. I picked up several books before my trip and read through each. I highly recommend The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński. The Africans, by David Lamb, is also a good, if slightly dated, book. Africa: A Biography of the Continent, by John Reader is, ahem, thorough. I also picked up The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley, which was more timely, and personal.
I’m chatting with a vendor inside of Kariakoo Market, the largest market in East Africa. Surrounding me are piles and piles of fruits, vegetables, and spices – many of which I’ve never before seen. “A thousand shillings for these passion fruits,” he says. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t bring any money.” “Well, where is your wallet?” “My pockets are empty.” “You are a smart man.” Suddenly, there is a commotion nearby. We make our way out to the street, where the front axle of a car has completely sheared off, leaving the wheel hanging to one side. No one is quite sure what to do. A man wearing fatigues approaches and tries to take control of the situation, but no one pays him much mind. It is unclear if he is an official, or if he just likes to wear camouflage.
I spent three weeks in Tanzania. Most of that time was spent reading through about eighty business plans created by aspiring entrepreneurs from across the country. That number was whittled down from hundreds of applicants over a period of several weeks. Applicants of this smaller group were then provided with classes in business plan creation, entrepreneurship, marketing, and capital so that they might put their best foot forward in the final business plans. Myself and another Google volunteer read every single plan, while representatives from Technoserve and Tanzania’s business community each evaluated a set. After we’d read through each plan, sometimes twice, we collected our top twenty and began the difficult process of selecting the finalists.
Some colleagues and I have walked over to the food court in a shopping center next to the Hotel Sea Cliff. It’s very touristy, and the outdoor food court is lined with several small restaurants – an Indian place, a Chinese place, a Thai place, and a few other places. No Tanzanian place, as far as I could tell. In America, you typically walk up to one of them, place your order, and take your food to your seat. But here you get the sense that the architecture was dictated, but that no one ever quite explained the concept to the Tanzanians.
We sat down at a table and were descended upon by five different waiters with five different menus for each of us. We had twenty menus on the table. There is a certain game to this – it is advantageous for everyone at the table to agree upon a single menu, because it vastly simplifies the dining process, so it pays to decide quickly. Meanwhile, as you are perusing your five menus, a waiter will lean in and say “can I get you something to drink?” Careful! Ordering a drink would almost certainly commit you to a menu. “No, thanks, I’ll wait until I figure out the food I want.” Finally, we settle on a menu. The winning waiter triumphantly steps in, even collecting the menus of the other establishments, while the remaining waiters skulk away dejectedly.
The number of plans submitted to the Believe Begin Become contest was well in excess of Technoserve’s goal. We all agreed that it spoke to the vibrancy of the market, and the new hope that had come to many a would-be entrepreneur. Some of the applicants were applying to expand an existing business, others had a brand new idea. I spent the first two weeks ensconced in my room at the Holiday Inn, pouring over facts and figures, and learning more than I ever thought possible about sisal production, sunflower processing, ship chandling, pineapple wine, fishmeal, and vegetable storage. Many of the plans were agricultural, but there were a surprising number of manufacturing and information services, as well.
I’m strolling through the fish market near downtown Dar es Salaam, picking bits of fish brains out of my hair. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if, when someone is whacking a giant fish with a machete, bits of fish fly about. Just as I think I’ve picked out the last slimy scale, a group of teens run up to me. “Mzungo! Mzungo!” One of them quickly hands his mobile to his friends and stands proudly beside me. Laughing and chatting rapidly in Kiswahili, they snap off a few pictures. I high-five the kid and resume my stroll.
A few weeks after I’d returned home, the winner was announced: Selemani Kinyunyu won for his carbon credit trading business, in which he plans to sell carbon credits to tourists which in turn fund the sequestration of carbon through farming indigenous trees. We didn’t get to meet the entrepreneurs until after we’d made our decisions, to prevent any bias. That was a wise decision, because, having met several of them, including Selemani, it would have made my job even harder. They were such a fantastic group of people. I was deeply impressed by them, and humbled by their perseverance in the face of adverse conditions. Selemani was recently mentioned in an article at Entrepreneur.com.
Rashid ushers me into his van, making sure my luggage is secure. Just before, we were standing in the parking lot of the Zanzibar airport, and he was chatting amiably with all of the other drivers. He has a great mustache and is resplendent wearing his taqiyah cap and white thobe. “Look! That’s me,” he says as he hands me a Zanzibar tourism magazine. Sure enough, there is a picture of him looking exactly as he does now, if a bit younger. Rashid speeds us down the thin road across the island towards Paje, weaving in and out of traffic, dodging cyclists, and avoiding the occasional lorry overflowing with cargo and locals. We stop at the first of three police checkpoints and Rashid chats with the guard for a minute or so, before he waves us through. “They see you and they think about how much the toll ought to be, but I say we’re friends,” he says. It’s clear Rashid knows a taxi driver mind trick or two.
Someone asked me if I was disturbed by the extreme poverty of East Africa. And yes, of course I find it disturbing. But I was not surprised by it. Africa has suffered much, brought on by environment, colonial powers, or internal strife – all of which was revealed in my research. What surprised me was the potential – it was palpable. Everywhere I went – on billboards, in the newspaper, and on the radio – were ads for mobile companies. Mobile technology has risen rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa, like a rocket. And it is still going. When I was a kid growing up in Texas, there were plenty of mom and pop general stores or cafes whose signage was subsidized by Coca-Cola. Indeed, Coke could be found throughout the world, even in the most remote of places. But as I drove around Tanzania and Zanzibar, it wasn’t Coca-Cola, it was Celtel and Vodacom with their logos adorning the small shops.
I’m wandering in the full moonlight across a vast flat of sand one hundred yards from the nominal shoreline in Paje, Zanzibar. The shallow slope of the coast here, coupled with the great swings of the equatorial tide, cause the Indian Ocean to recede hundreds of yards out to the horizon. Boats lilt on the sand, waiting for the ocean’s return. In the distance: palm trees, lights, and music.
“The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say ‘Africa.’ In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.”
– Ryszard Kapuściński
Kapuściński’s observation helps explain, I think, why it has taken me a year to write about my experience. The grand sum of Africa’s history, people, and geography is overwhelming. Each time I began writing about it, I abandoned the effort because I felt I was leaving out too much, and that there was no way my words would do it justice. Even this blog post, as long as it is, leaves out so much of those three weeks. I met incredible people, saw amazing things, and I am honored to have participated. It is an experience I will never forget, and I look forward to returning someday.