My first 10 days in Dar and my experience with UWT

I arrived in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania from Boston, Massachusetts, USA on the 23^rd of June 2009. Officially I came to Tanzania to conduct leadership training workshops for young women who are enrolled at universities across the country. Initially, I was to conduct these workshops in partnership with Umoja wa Wanawake Tanzania (UWT). Unfortunately, UWT did not want to take part in this initiative, after knowing that I did not have a basket of money to shower them with. The UWT Principal Secretary (PS) started giving me excuses that UWT will not work with me, because I don’t have an authorization from the UWT committee … and the next committee meeting will be held in the mid August. The secretary went on further to suggest that I should apply for funds from USAID to sponsor/fund the workshops that I were planning to conduct on July 2009. This made me question PS’s reasoning, I wondered if she had any idea about budgeting. I would expect a PS to know that any organization usually sets an annual budget a year or months before it starts being implemented or used (the chances that I was going to get the money to use for setting up the workshops were very minimal). This situation made me realize how hard it is to do anything educational and fruitful to my people. The country has changed; people want instant rewards or gratification. The PS was not thinking of the long-term rewards for the country and UWT as a whole. She was mainly thinking of her-self and what she was going to get at that time (monetary rewards). Therefore, I left UWT and started to find ways to do and organize the workshops at universities on my own.