Sunday July 3, 2011

http://wamamakahawa.wordpress.com/

Went to this coffee shop today with everyone to do some work. The women who own it, hand roast the coffee themselves and it’s all from Tanzania.

One week left today L Hung out at the house in the morning with K, J, and J. We made lists of what Kara and I have to do in our next week before I leave and K’s parents come (and they all go to Arusha and then Zanzibar). Then we went to boona baana and had a good day there. All the boona baana kids (E, S, I, L, A, M, I) plus Brooke and Marco's kids (E, T, M, A, J) were there and some of the community kids (A, A, E, A), so it was good! We told the kids that K and I would be leaving in a week and I was really sad and E wouldn’t let go of me for the rest of the time after she found out.

Tonight after dinner we had a meeting with Cherie to discuss the article she gave us to read about NGO’s and whether they have positive or negative effects on the developing countries. What I got from the article is that NGO’s can be both positive and negative depending on who is running them and what they choose to put their money towards. Some of the larger NGO’s out there end up allocating their money in ways that benefit the company and employees more than the cause they set out to help. This was so evident in my time in Dar because you’d see the houses of people who work for NGO’s and their fancy rides and just wonder where that money came from. On the other hand though there are NGO’s like Boona Baana who are run by passionate people who’s hearts believe in what they are doing. The owners of boona baana do not live luxurious lives, in fact they own a house just down the street from boona baana and most of their money goes towards boona baana and also their own adopted and biological children. This is how NGO’s should be run, therefore it completely depends on who’s in charge and I realize that larger NGO’s need to keep their business going and support their workers but when an employee is taking in a one million dollar a year salary I think there’s been some wrong turns along the way. I’ve learned it’s important to research an NGO’s background before donating money to them to guarantee your money is going where you believe it’s going. I think that a few larger NGO’s have given NGO’s in general a bad rep, but all in all I think that most NGO’s do their part and have positive impacts on the people and communities they help and without them Tanzania and other countries wouldn’t be where they are now.