I live in a movie. #tanzania #zebra

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Taste of Tanzania #tanzania

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Well hello there. Monkeys on the beach. #tanganyika

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Finally made it to Lake #Tanganyika #ilivewhereyouvacation

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Sunny day at the nursery

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Hello from Kigoma, Tanzania!

You can see it is very close to Rwanda

This week I arrived in Kigoma, Tanzania!

 Kigoma is a town of about 100,000 people and is quite far from the next major city, Dar Es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. I actually initially flew into Dar Es Salaam and had to spend the night in the city until I took another plane to Kigoma that runs three times each week.

Kigoma is located on Lake Tanganyika, the second largest lake in the world. Before independence, Tanzania was called Tanganyika, after the lake. I can take a boat to Democratic Republic of Congo, on the other side, and it takes four hours.

I will be working with a nonprofit called Seed Change. Seed Change works to improve farmer yields through better crop breeds and farmer training. They are particularly focused on palm oil which is produced by palm trees. Palm trees are everywhere in Kigoma!

You can learn more about Seed Change's work by clicking here.

Overall, the biggest difference between Tanzania and Rwanda is the prevelance of English. Tanzanian students currently never receive full time English study (as opposed to Rwanda where it starts in late primary school). The main ethnic group in Kigoma speaks Kiha, apparently very close to Kinyarwanda, spoken in Rwanda. However, all Tanzanians speak Swahili and I plan to become proficient in that. Upon arriving, I knew exactly one phrase in Swahili:

But it turns out Hakuna Matata is Kenyan Swahili! Tanzanians say Hakuna Shida. Oh well.

Part of the reason I was particularly interested in moving to Tanzania is because Swahili is the lingua franca of East Africa (compared to Kinyarwanda which is only spoken in Rwanda and Burundi). This is a useful language to learn to work in international development. Language study will be my big priority in my free time over the next months and hopefully will help me meet people and conduct business.

I have only been in Kigoma for 5 days so I am sure I there will be more detailed information to come. Feel free to contact me on whatsapp or by email!