When I first came to Tanzania, the plan was to spend 2 months in language school and the following 8 months conducting research at my field site.  Unfortunately, the illness episode hit and my trip back to the States delayed my well-laid plans because it didn’t make sense to move to Ifakara before I knew if I would be coming back to Tanzania.  But now there is no reason to delay further.  Since I’ve been back, I have been very busy preparing for the move to my field site in Ifakara, a small rural  town southwest of Morogoro.  I will be living there for the remainder of the year and conducting my research with the cervical cancer screening program at the hospital there.  So my days recently have been filled with laundry, buying supplies, visiting favorite places, and saying goodbye to friends.  One of those friends is Ingrid, a German woman who is has been here in Tanzania for three years as a missionary with the Lutheran Church.

A pet project of Ingrid’s has involved working with and supporting a group of craftsman in Morogoro in their bid to rent space for an artists’ co-op where they can sell their work.  Her (and their) work has finally come to fruition and I was excited to see the early stages of the space’s development  before I left.  Some friends and I stopped by the set of spaces the craftsmen have rented in a single story building in town.  The group includes two painters, a fundi who sews cloth goods, a furniture maker, a woodcarver, and a baker.  They have painted the interiors bright beautiful colors and had set up a few displays to showcase their goods.  Currently, the rooms were not stocked, but a small subset of goods had been brought in.  These included a handful of paintings, a very comfortable chair, cloth bags, floor mats, and blankets.  My friend’s new puppy nosed around while we admired the goods and picked out a few things to buy to support the new venture.  We also were able to meet Mama Blasida, the baker who will sell her creations out of one of the storefronts.  It was a great opportunity to share in this blossoming enterprise and on the extremely small chance that any of you ever make it to Morogoro, I would like to recommend that you check out Aminifu Craft Group!