A Day in the Life in the Millennium Village of Mbola, Tanzania, with Walter Willet After a weekend in Zanzibar, we caught a small plane to Tabora. The rains had just come the week before to the western part of Tanzania, and boy did they come with a vengeance... Tabora was our jumping off point to the Millennium Village of Mbola, where Jess and the Spicer were paying a site visit. Walter Willet (the preeminent nutritionist and author of Eat, Drink and Be Healthy) met us too. The usual disclaimer applies here in that I don't work for the Millennium Villages in an official capacity, and these photos and observations are strictly my own point of view as a casual observer. It was an honor to be able to tag along with Jess and co. on this trip, to get a glimpse into the every day lives of these villagers in rural Tanzania and see the progress they have been making. It was especially interesting to be in the company of Walt Willet (who riddled the villagers and us with questions like, "why do we spit out watermelon seeds?") We did the usual things you do on a site visit: visited a school, a school kitchen, a clinic, a maize storage place, a food processing facility with a woman's group, and he and Jess sat down and talked to a few typical households about their eating habits. Sure beats being a tourist if you ask me. If you are interested in supporting the work that the Millennium Villages project does here and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, you can do so through Millennium Promise or the facebook cause. Here's a video and some photos from our visit. Tomorrow Jess leaves back to Nairobi, and I'm headed south by rail, boat and however else to meet up with her next week in Malawi. Should be interesting... Onward into the "Heart of Darkness." |