Inroduction to BRAC

On Thursday I had a meeting with BRAC (they are an enormous NGO with a low profile but a stellar track record which originated in Bangladesh, but now has branches in several countries including Tanzania) about working together since they have strong connections in rural communities and a good track record in helping people gain access to credit.

I was supposed to be at their office at noon, but I couldn't actually leave the GCS office until a couple minutes after 12 and I still needed to travel about 2 miles. I took a bike so that I would be less than an hour late (which many Tanzanians would consider to be still on time). Unfortunately, as I quickly discovered, the road to their office is pretty much directly uphill (much of it at a healthy grade) and I am not in great shape. I got rather lost on the way and my whole journey took an hour and I arrived dripping with sweat.

I had to ask a few people for directions. Most people had no idea what I was talking about. The ones who did would ask "Oh, the place with all the Indians?" I would always say yes, even though I suspected that the employees in question were probably Bangladeshi.

Fortunately, they were still at lunch, so I had time to catch my breath. I greeted the secretary in Kiswahili and she told me that everyone was at lunch. I explained why I was there (in Kiswahili) and gave her a general picture of our work at GCS and she asked me to wait until the director arrived. Then she paused and looked at me and apologetically explained (in Kiswahili) "I'm sorry, the director of the office does not speak Kiswahili, he only speaks English." I laughed and assured her that I can in fact speak some English in addition to my Kiswahili. I was rather flattered.

It was a good meeting with the regional director and we discovered that we had a mutual friend in Bangladesh (well, I only know one man in Bangladesh and he works at BRAC, so it wasn't a huge stretch). Then I hopped on my bike and rode back to the office in ten minutes and I barely had to pedal the whole time. That was a fun ride!