Hugs at The Hive

Sunshine and warmth! Real live hugs! Yes, it was wonderful to be back in Tanzania! So wonderful to see good friends again! There is so much to say, but now I want to focus on the Upendo wa Mama women, who were really my main reason for going. It has been such a whirlwind of so much activity, working hard from early until very late, that I hardly know where to begin! I will save some of the adventures for the next post!

It was three weeks of time in Tanzania, but probably six weeks worth of work and 1.5 weeks worth of sleep! But I was able to spend precious time with the women in Mwanza and then in the final week with the group in Dar es Salaam. I can't begin to say how wonderful it was to see them all again ... the shrieks and hugs on the first day were very special! 

Mama Fatuma and Monica working on candles

Mama Laurencia preparing fish for lunch

Mama Rose working on labelling products

Aikande working in the new office

Time for a little hair styling when business was slow!

The Mamas Group in Dar es Salaam

Our family left Tanzania just a week after the opening of The Hive (Beeswax Shop and Honey Centre). There was so much left undone, so much still unknown. And so it was incredibly encouraging to return four months later and see how well they were all doing there! Even in this, the 2020 COVID year, they have not considered giving up and have been able to continue to support themselves from local sales. 

Yes, things are drastically different for them with the collapse of tourism which shut down all their markets to lodges and gift shops in the Serengeti, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam and Arusha and means few visitors to Mwanza. Things are different with the borders closed, making it impossible for products get to Masai Mara or Nairobi and impossible for supplies and materials to get in. Things are different with the effect all this has had on the local economy which has hugely discouraged their entrepreneurial efforts to generate more income. But despite it all, the mamas remain as resilient as they have always had to be as albinism mamas... and they are working hard. And working with them somehow puts things in perspective ... definitely a better view of a bigger picture, which leaves much less room for grumbling!

While I was there, we worked hard together on developing some new beeswax products. Amisadai had been getting some good ideas, and while we all really missed her presence with the group, we were grateful for her ideas! So we now sell a Baobab Cramp Balm, a natural massage balm for period relief. Made with pure beeswax, baobab oil and shea butter with essential oils, it is good for massaging on the abdomen or back! And our new big Kili Climb Bar, a brilliant lotion bar with neem oil, for rock climbers to treat and protect their cut, dried hands. And the new Paw Balm just for dogs and the fun number candles for birthday cakes! We were busy making these and so much more to sell at the craft markets opening up for the first time since COVID hit. 

Number and Birthday Cake candles

Our new doggy treat!

Kili Climb Bars

Honey and Coconut Lotion Bars

We were busy working on improvements to The Hive. We had more tables and shelving made and have just started a Community Table. We wanted to help local artisans and those making specialty foods to be able to market their products and are excited to get people involved. We were also working to see what other services and products we can serve the Mwanza community with. And are making plans for some new community ideas as things open up more. It was fun to back with all that is buzzing at The Hive! 

New shelves in The Hive

Every Saturday while I was there, we had a different Craft Market! First the Mwanza Pasha Fair, then the Isamilo School Charity Fair, and finally, the Artisan Market in Dar es Salaam. So good to see markets in action once again! 

Pasha Craft Fair in Mwanza

Isamilo School Charity Fair

Artisan Market in Dar es Salaam

Finally, if you are in the UK, look out soon for a catalogue page online where you will be able to order some of the Mamas products in time for Christmas! I was able to bring back a selection of products in my rather overloaded suitcase! Let me know if you are interested and we can arrange delivery and payment! We are very grateful for all the support for the these mamas right now! 

A Good Year End!

Before Christmas it was a fantastic, (albeit exhausting!) flurry of activity and also sales for the Upendo wa Mama group! We have so much to be thankful for!

Mama Monika dips candles

Always a laugh in the workshop! 

In the first week of November, there was a Charity Fair at the International School. This was followed by a busy week with Emma, coming for the second time from Trinity Western University in Canada, working on a project aimed at helping mothers of children with albinism. She came with her two professors involved in the project, Barb and Sheryl, and it was wonderful to have them all with us. They are doing such great work and were just so encouraging and loving to all of us.

It was a lovely treat for our whole family having these three!

Sheryl and Barb with us at the Mamas workshop!

The following week both Penina (Upendo wa Mama Chairwoman) and I went to Dar es Salaam to meet with the group there to prepare for the big Artisan Market. Emma, Sheryl and Barb had gone on before us, working at the UTSS office, and it was lovely to meet up with them while I was there!  It was unbearably hot (Penina was struggling with the heat even more than me!) but we survived! We spent two days of preparation at Mama Happy's; on the second day were also joined by Emma, Sheryl and Barb, giving time to the women to share their stories, there heart, their heartache.

The Upendo wa Mama Dar es Salaam Group

With these lovely women who treated me to an amazing dinner on my first evening in Dar!

What a treat!

I can't really seem to put all of those five days into words! Finding Uber taxis who would take me from my little 'guesti' all the way out beyond Pugu is the first challenge at 6:30 in the morning. Then driving for over two hours in crazy traffic. Then working in extreme heat with an oven and gas stove with hot beeswax in a small space with many women. And then when the work is done, unable to find an Uber taxi that will come and pick me up! Both days I ended up traipsing on foot down the dirt road with either Faudhia (the new amazing UTSS staff member!) on the first day or Penina on the second day, from Mama Happy's house with armfuls of materials and products! Getting to the main road and then walking until a daladala (small minibus) passes by … then squeezing (yes, literally, SQUEEZING) in and riding it until we are in "Uberland" once again (nearer the city) and can find an Uber taxi to get back to my guesti. By which time I'm very hot, very hungry and very tired! But at the same time, it is just wonderful working with these women and so encouraging to see them so enthusiastic! And it was particularly wonderful this time to have Penina with us all, and for the first time see a real connection between the two groups!

Cutting beeswraps

Making Lotion Bars

The road back

The day of the Artisan Market, was extremely hot … so hot that we had to change our table as the lack of shade (even as we set up at 8am) was dangerous for the people with albinism (and indeed would have fried my white skin!) and was also was melting all the beeswax! It was a long day, but it was wonderful! The women did so very well. It was the second time the Dar group had sold at a fair and with help from Faudhia, they were amazing! We sold a record amount of products and found new customers and received more orders!

Smiles all round! (and yes, that is sweat my T-shirt is soaked in!)

With Faudhia, our amazing UTSS helper!

Also while we were in Dar es Salaam, Penina gained a granddaughter! There in Dar, her daughter gave birth and Penina was able to go straight to the hospital from Mama Happy's!

The following Saturday, it was the Mwanza Fair … so another crazy week on our return, quickly replenishing stock after the success of Dar which had cleared us out! And then I had three days before leaving for Uganda in which the group had to finish orders going to lodges in Maasai Mara, Kenya and also Zanzibar! Whew!

At the Pasha Craft Fair in Mwanza

When I returned from Uganda, we went to visit Jeni, one of the group who recently had a baby. Yes, there has been the arrival of three babies in our group recently (daughters for Jeni and Zuena and a granddaughter for Penina). All of us piled into the land cruiser and in terrible rainstorm conditions drove over 2 hours out of the city to find her house … which proved harder than we thought and on some rather muddy roads!

But it was lovely to see Jeni and meet her little daughter! We shared chai and cake and then, when I thought we were leaving to return to Mwanza, we actually starting cooking lunch! We stayed to enjoy a meal of rice and chicken together which was lovely! It was a really special time of thanksgiving as we finished our work for what has been an amazing year of growth! We read together Mary's song of praise as the season of advent dawned and we celebrated the joy of birth and the goodness of God to us all! And then we headed back to Mwanza, again in rather torrential rain!

"My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour!"

Cooking lunch at Jeni's

Enjoying lunch together

From the Hive! Kitenge Beeswraps and Beeswax Balms

Before our Zanzibar adventures, things were really moving with the Mamas! The Upendo wa Mama group in Mwanza was working hard to make a record number of beeswax balms, soaps and beeswraps for a friend connected to a Fair Trade Shop in Sweden. They were also busy making many Kitenge Beewraps for the Bees Abroad table at the National Honey Show in the UK. Talk about a hive of activity!

It was wonderful to have Ineke Varcoe come and help us finish off the last things on our last day before boxing up! She (and the members of Harrow Church in London) have been prayerful and practical supporters of our group from the start, and it was lovely to have her with us. She shared chai and English shortbread with us and we continued our delve into Proverbs, finding nuggets of timely and applicable wisdom. 

Products ready to go!

It was a big relief to have the orders completed in the nick of time! I then travelled to the Under the Same office in Dar es Salaam to work with the Upendo wa Mama women's group there. It had been an unusually long time between visits, and it was wonderful to see them all again. It hasn't been easy for them, and I wish I could offer easy answers, but sometime there just aren't any. But I hope I could encourage them to persevere, and together we made progress! We are working to connect their work together with the Mwanza group, as they continue to make beeswraps and soaps and hopefully now more balms. 

Making Coconut Milk Soap

Making Beeswraps

While in Dar, it was great to catch up with Ester, Rahab and Hadijah and others in the office. It was great to go with Ester to VCC a few times and share a meal together. I was able to drop off a visa application for Laura, our new teammate and do some exploring and shopping in the completely crazy Kariakoo market. It was also a really special surprise to find a good friend in Dar at the same time! Amy Dixon and I were able to meet up for lunch and an afternoon of chatting while I was there!

with Amy

And this past weekend it was fantastic to hear reports from Bees Abroad about the National Honey Show! Our Tanzanian Beeswraps were very popular with their unique African prints and soft pliability, and quickly sold out! Demand is now high with a London market asking for an initial one hundred! And they will soon be available for Christmas in the UK through Bees Abroad online!

Now the mamas are busy preparing all these beeswraps and also other products for the Mwanza Christmas Craft Fair. The progress of the group is certainly not without frustrations and problems, but we are continually trusting God to make a way! In the midst of all the work, there is plenty of time to talk and pray which is always so important. Supporting one another in these recent weeks through sickness, family troubles, attempted break-in/attacks is more important than any number of beeswraps we could make. And the good news is that the women are able to take home monthly profits now and it is encouraging to talk about their goals and plans as they save for new home enterprises. And also wonderful to be talking about how we as a group can reach out with the blessings we have received to bless others.

Waggle Dance Honey News

It was great to officially start selling Waggle Dance Honey the other week! The beekeepers in Kayenze and Malya are thrilled with their first real harvest and delighted to have their sales money which they are putting towards getting new hives made in Malya (soon in Kayenze) and getting more suits for the group!

We had the Waggle Dance Honey Day at our house, temporarily converting our house from a home to a shop. It was a fun day, welcoming a steady stream of people from the community! We had the honey table with the variety of different local honeys available. It has been fascinating to see the difference from not only the different villages (about 160 kilometers apart on opposite sides of Mwanza) but even from different hives in the same village. It all depends on what the bees are feeding on. We had some dark honey (which we think must be coming from the bees in the mango trees), some light (probably from the bees in the cotton fields), some runny, and some lovely creamy set honey!

Then we had a table set out with all the Upendo wa Mama beeswax products. They are really producing a lot from the wax they buy and clean now! We had Nyuki Stix (our own version of Wikki Stix), dipped candles and citronella tealights and the new Lotion Bars alongside all the usual beeswax balms and honey soaps. Word is continuing to spread, and this week we had an order from Dar es Salaam, which we were able to send, and soon after it arrived someone else smelled the lotion bars and placed another order. So we are all pretty excited in the Mamas Group!

The Upendo wa Mama Table

The new lotion bars

Kitenge BeesWraps and dipped candles

We also had a table outside complete with our new "Bee Bunting" (yes - a crazy last minute sewing idea!) with Louisa selling honey-sweetened lemonade and iced tea with lots of cake and cookies! We made batches and batches of honey-iced cinnamon buns, about six honey spice loaves and then lemon loaves and other cakes and biscuits! All the money we raised at the Honey Bake Sale went towards purchasing a honey press for the Beekeepers Groups. We are keen to establish a honey processing centre in town which will collect the honey from all the village groups to press, bottle, label and sell! So now we are about £60 on the way to pressing!

Setting up the day before

Ready to go!

In other bee news … Tim and John and I were able to harvest some of the honey from the bottom of our garden at the weekend. Unfortunately Tim managed to get a bee in his bonnet and got stung right on the top of his nose which rather altered his appearance for a few days. But pleased to have the honey! 

Tim with stings

Louisa agreed (for a fee!) to help me process the honey!

John is with the beekeepers in Malya tomorrow and they are keen to get their new hives made and hung! And on Friday, we are going together to a new village, Ngudu, where we are meeting Pastor Willfred who is keen to get a new beekeeper group going with training and hive hanging. So as you can imagine, we are thrilled to see things moving at better pace in the right direction!

And in case you were wondering …. 

What is the WAGGLE DANCE?

The Waggle Dance is a special 'figure-of-eight' dance that is done by the honey bee in its hive. By this, a worker tells the other bees in the colony where it has found a good source of food (nectar). Through the dance, the honey bee can communicate both the direction and distance to the best flowers. The angle from the sun shows direction; the duration of the waggle part of the dance shows the distance. Isn’t this amazing?!

And finally, if you haven't already seen it on other social media, here is a short video of some of this seasons work getting the first waggle dance harvest in!