Newsletter: March 2008

Dear friends,

Well, it seems I am behind again in my newsletters. So much has gone on since the New Year. So many good things. I am now busy speaking to corporations and embassies looking for funds for our traditional performing arts festival (MaKuYa), helping Tipape deal with school land issues, and continuing to work with the artisans in Mtwara, Tanzania (the focus of this newsletter).

Now that our artisans have proved they could produce well and the demand for ADEA products is growing, I decided that it is time to lead (in some cases, push) the artisans toward greater responsibility and independence. It is time for them to stop "drinking milk" and start "eating meat", to put it in biblical terms.

Thus, we appointed representatives of each of our major divisions: painting (Anthony Mwambe), tailoring (Sarah Ligombaji) and carving (Msuao Tiago). We meet together weekly to discuss most issues of ADEA; involve them in decision-making and problem solving and the processing and filling of orders. Within their own divisions, they are responsible for stock checking, placing orders, gift shop display and quality control. They manage all these things, and I (or Philipo) come in for the final check. It’s not perfect, yet, but I feel I am a part of a larger team, which is very exciting and encouraging to me. This also allows me to focus my energy on improving our products and product information and the refining our buying and selling system.

In an effort to promote individual responsibility, each artisan has been given his or her own order books. Thus, instead of ADEA writing and keeping order books, we are now the client of each individual artisan. They fill out their order book (which they can use for any client they might have, not just ADEA) and we receive a copy of the order. They say they feel more aware and more in tune with the process. We’ve been doing this for three months now, and so far so good.

We’ve also brought on a part time Senior Accountant who has helped us fine-tune our accounting system. Our monthly and annual ledgers are becoming stellar! The addition of this position is a great help - but has put a strain on our monthly budget. We hope with increased sales we will be able to maintain him. We are very happy to welcome Musa Ligombaji (yes, the husband of Sarah).

I have attached, at the end of this newsletter, a lesson I taught through a story, when I was telling the artisans it was time for them to "grow up" and take on more responsibilities and not just lean on me. I said I was feeling like Baba ADEA (In Tanzania you are often called by the name of your child with Father or Mother attached – thus my mom was known here as Baba Douglas). I feel it is time to begin to let them sink or swim and hopefully find out they are able to swim!

This is an exciting time in the ADEA Tanzania office – where artisans are feeling more engaged than ever.

A SPIRITUAL NOTE: I recently rediscovered the book The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom: the story of a Dutch family who help find hiding places for hundreds of Jews and young men during the German occupation of Holland in World War II, nine within their own home. After being exposed by a neighbor to the police, Corrie, her sister Betsy and father were taken to prison, where he died, and then to a concentration camp, where Betsy died. The have a lot to teach about love and selflessness and the struggle of faith. The quote below comes from when Corrie heard her sister in the kitchen and went down to see her. When Corrie returned to her bed she found it covered with shrapnel. Running to her sister she said:

"Betsy, if I hadn’t heard you in the kitchen –"

"But Betsy put a finger on my mouth. ‘Don’t say it Corrie, there are no IFs in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety – Let us pray that we may always know it’."

FIN: I am doing very well, and am excited about how things are progressing here. Thanks again to all of you who support me, and the people (and projects) with whom I am involved – financially, in prayer and with your friendship.

Be blessed!

A LESSON SHARED WITH THE ADEA ARTISANS:

"Baba ADEA"

Once upon a time there lived a baker. This baker was called Baba Mkate (Swahili for bread) because this baker made the finest bread in town. Everyone, who could, bought his bread. Not everyone could because his bread was priced higher than other breads, but if someone could afford to buy it, they did, often many loaves a day. Why did they buy so many, because it tasted special and was always excellent, far above what the other bakers produced and sold in the market. Other bakers tried to copy his bread, but none succeeded. Baba Mkate worked hard, Baba Mkate made a good living for himself and a good name for himself.

Baba Mkate had two boys named "Kila Siku" (Every Day) and " Mara kwa Mara" (Sometimes) – when they reached the age of 15 and 16 Baba Mkate decided it was time to bring his boys into his business and to teach him the secrets of making his special bread since he was getting old, and hoped to leave the business and finish his life in the country. So he shared the secret of his success with his boys: "You see, my sons, the basic ingredients of my bread are just like any other bread, but it is the quality and preparation that makes my bread so special. First the flour: it is important to grind your flour before sunrise. If you wait until after the sunrises the flour becomes warm and heavy. Then the water: I use only rainwater in my bread, because it is free from dirt and other odd tastes, it is always pure and clean, and sweetened by heaven. And lastly the firewood: I collect all the wood I burn for the oven from the river’s edge. Trees that grow away from the river can only grow when there is water, but trees by the river always have the water they need, so the fire it produces is always even and dependable."

And so the boys began their new work. The first duty of every day was to grind the flour in the vinu (a large mortar). Every morning Baba Mkate would pound on the door of his sons’ bedroom two hours before sunrise. Though the boys did not like getting up so early, they liked even less the blows from their father’s cane they would receive if they failed to grind the flour before sunrise. Every afternoon they would be called in from their play to go to make the hour walk to the river to collect firewood. Though they would rather play, they would rather collect wood than to face the cane of their father for not collecting the right wood. And every night they put buckets on the hilltop to collect the nightly rain. It was a hard uphill walk, but not as hard as the heavy swat from their father’s cane they received if they forgot. And so the three of them worked together to continue to produce Baba Mkate’s famous bread.

After several years Baba Mkate felt sick and had to spend the day in bed. That afternoon the boys played as usual but got careless in their football game and played late into the day. When they remembered to collect wood they realized their father had not come to remind them and they were late. They discussed together, "For three years we have collected wood from the river, but honestly, wood is wood. Let us collect wood from the nearby forest, and just say it came from the river". So they did just that. Then they returned to their games and went to sleep happy and exhausted. The next morning the boys were awakened by the rooster’s crow at sunrise. They had always depended on Baba Make to wake them up, but today he was sick in bed. So they quickly dressed and began to work. "What shall we do, today we will not be able to finish grinding the flour before sunrise?" said "Kila Siku". "How much of a difference will it make really, flour is flour" said Mara Kwa Mara, "let’s finish the grinding quickly and make our bread." After grinding they realized they had failed to remember to put out the buckets without father’s reminder. "Where shall we get rain water?" they wondered, "There is a well near by," remembered said Mara Kka Mara "Surely water is water." So they collected water from the well and made the bread, and prepared to take it to market.

By the time they were packed to go, their father was up and feeling well enough to take the bread to market himself. So he bid farewell to his boys and went to the market. Baba found his usual place in the markets and began to lay out his loaves of bread. But, to him, they seemed somehow heavy, and they did not smell as sweet as they should. He was nervous, "what happened while I was sick I bed?" he asked himself. He knew he could not sell this inferior bread to his regular clients, so he quickly packed the loaves back into the bag, apologized to his customers who came faithfully everyday, explaining that something had happened and he couldn’t sell bread that day. He told them how he had been sick for the first time in three years and something must have gone wrong with the boys’ bread preparation. His clients were understanding, though disappointed.

So Baba Mkate quickly returned home and asked the boys what had happened to the bread. "Did you collect wood from the river, water from the rain, and grind the flour before sunrise?" he asked them. "Well dad", they said truthfully, "with out you to remind us to do everything, we somehow forgot." "FORGOT!", Baba said with dismay, "we have done this together for many years and the one day I leave you alone you FORGOT!?" "Besides father," Mara Kwa Mara said "isn’t water just water, and wood just wood, and flour just flour?" "No! They are not all the same!" Baba said in surprise, "Don’t you see that what has allowed us to live as we do is because we are not producing like everyone else – what we produce is special and different! But, sawa ("fine" – said with a sigh), it is true that every day I have been the one to awake you, and to remind you. I have treated you like small children not respecting your ability to behave responsibly as adults. I shall not do that any longer for you are now men."

Today I have sold nothing to my usual clients because I didn’t want them to have a bad impression of our bread. Thus, tonight we shall just eat the common bread you have produced." It was true, Kila Siku and Mara Kwa Mara could see and taste that this bread was different than what they made when Baba was watching.

Late that night Baba Mkate came into the boys’ room. He said, "My sons, you are no longer children but adults. It is time for you to act as adults. I have decided I am getting old and it is time for me to move to our home in the countryside and leave you to keep the bread business. Tomorrow I shall wake you for the last time, and from then on it will be up to you to decide what will happen to our special bread baking tradition."

That next morning after making bread they all went to the market together to sell bread. "Here, my sons, is my booth for selling bread. Today I give it to you. And all my clients, I give them to you as well. You will see that they come and they pay well for our bread." And they saw that it was true. By noon all Baba’s bread was gone, while all other bakers still had bread to sell.

When they returned home, Baba Mkate packed his bag, embraced his sons, and left for the countryside leaving his boys to run the bread business.

"OK, now it is up to us to remember what to do and when -if we want to keep up the business." They said, So Kila Siku returned to the market and bought a clock with a bell to awaken them both in the morning and to remind them when to collect wood and set out pails for water. And the first day everything went as usual, even without Baba to remind them.

As they returned from the market they discussed what they might change about the business, as Baba was very ridged. They decided that in order to give themselves a little more free time, the decided to split up the work.

On that day Mara Kwa Mara would collect the firewood. But had always hated having to walk to the river (actually they both had, but Kila Siku believed it was important), so when it was time to collect wood, he just went as far as the woods, and brought home firewood from there. Kila Siku realized this, but it was too late to collect new wood, so he went along with it. The next day they took their bread to markets. People could see it as baked somehow differently. Since the boys were on their own, they decided to try the "different" bread – but instead of buying 2 and 3 loaves each, they each bought just one. So even by the end of the day they had not sold all the bread. Kila Siku knew why.

The next day it was the duty of Mara Kwa Mara to collect rainwater. He didn’t like climbing the steep hill, so he just put the buckets on the rooftop. But by morning, the buckets were not full because the house was sheltered by trees, plus there were bugs and leaves in the water. He picked out the bugs and leaves and filled the rest of the bucket with well water. Kila Siku realized this, but what could he do? It was time to bake bread. Though the bread was the same size as papa’s, it didn’t smell sweet and the customers could tell, so they each took just one, and they looked at the young men with concern. By noon they had only sold half of their bread, so they decided to lower their price to below the other bread sellers to move their product (and it worked), though they went home poorer than they had in the past.

The next day it was Mara Kwa Mara’s turn to grind the flour, but after he and Kila Siku had awakened to the alarm. Kila Siku went to collect the rainwater, and Mara Kwa Mara fell back asleep. By the time he awoke again the sun was rising. Frustrated, Kila Siku helped him in the grinding to speed things up, hoping that this delay would not spoil the bread – but he knew it would. They took the heavy bread to the market and set it out to sell. Today fewer people came. Some just passed with a look of pity on the boys, others came, but said they would only pay the normal price as their bread had lost it uniqueness that made it so wonderful since Baba Mkate had left. So the brothers sold what they could, at the same low price as everyone else. Many regular customers lamented that Baba Mkate had left and so had his gift for making bread.

Kila Siku knew that the problem was not that Baba Mkate had gone, for what he made was not magic, just the best quality. He also knew that in his heart Mara Kwa Mara was not interested in working as hard as was required to produce Baba Mkate bread. He knew his brother would lie and make excuses rather than do the work properly. Because Kila Siku had dreams of earning good money like his father, he knew that he could no longer work with his brother, though this truth made him sad. Finally Kila Siku said to his brother, Mara Kwa Mara, "Let us do our own bread business. We shall split the house and work separately." And Mara Kwa Mara agreed.

And so it happened, Mara Kwa Mara produced bread that was no more special than anyone else’s bread, and he became poorer, but he was somehow happy playing late with his friends, and sleeping until sunrise (or later). And Kila Siku became the new Baba Mkate, producing the breads that everyone loved. He even came up with creative new breads (some people liked them, others didn’t – but he was always trying). He even began to expand his business as times began to change. Mobile phone’s were invented, and because he had enough money, he bought one, and customers could now make special orders by phone. He bought a sponge mattress for his bed, and bought an English language book so that he could talk to foreign visitors and buyers. His life improved, and he was able save and make plans because as long as what he produced was special and the best, people were willing to buy and to pay more.

In the end, both boys had a choice to do what they wanted to do with what their father taught them. But Kila Siku knew that they could not continue to work together with his brother, as much as he loved him, if he wanted to succeed as his father had. So they each choose a lifestyle they preferred. And they were both happy.