Day 110: Work, Work, Work

"I say unto you that any one who will rise up in the Cause of God at this time shall be filled with the spirit of God, and that He will send His hosts from heaven to help you, and that nothing shall be impossible to you if you have faith. And now I give you a commandment which shall be for a Covenant between you and me: that ye have faith; that your faith be steadfast as a rock that no storms can move, that nothing can disturb, and that it endure through all things even to the end...."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

Since Friday we've had about eight youth and the Secretary of the NSA in our house doing the new Book 5 and learning how to become animators of junior youth groups. I was supposed to take the training with them to make up for the extraordinary portions I missed during the last study circle, but yet again my "work" has been a barrier to that. I've been getting ready for a meeting I'm supposed to have this weekend with the local Spiritual Assembly, Cluster Coordinating Committee, and cluster of Arusha. I've found this to be a real challenge because I don't have access to the same sort of resources that might be available to me in the United States. The larger picture is that I've been thrust into a position that I hardly seem qualified for. As the Secretary of the NTC, I'm expected to not only be knowledgeable about the current Plan (and past Plans) but also give insight and guidance about the direction the community should be taking. A lot of this is in my mind, of course, since no one has come to me and said these things, but I think it's certainly an implied expectation of members of national institutions. And if it's not, then it should be. =P

In addition to various NTC activities, External Affairs has kept me exceptionally busy. We had our first official meeting of the year yesterday and appointed Mitra as the Director of the Office, adding some much needed formality and structure (in my opinion). I'm really pleased that the Office is beginning to expand its role and responsibilities, which I think comes as a result of greater resources at its disposal. Not only am I assisting the Director, but we also have a young lady who just became a lawyer as a part of the office. We just finished up an annual plan that's feasible and achievable and really asserts the office's role in the national administrative structure. I think we'll be able to make a lot of headway this year in educating the public about the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran. Tanzania has a long history of voting against or abstaining on resolutions concerning the human rights situation in Iran because of their close economic ties, so I'm not sure if we'll be able to influence the government to change its vote but we're going to do our best and hopefully make some positive contacts in the government while doing so.

Two projects for the Office have kept me especially busy lately: development of a press kit and a training manual for public relations officers in clusters outside of Dar es Salaam. Both are composed of materials heavily borrowed from similar documents in the United States, but it was a real pain trying to make them locally relevant. I'm satisfied with the press kit, but the training manual is a different story. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the local government and media to make it a completely Tanzanian manual, but I'm hoping that during the "test run" training in Iringa I'll be able to get some feedback from the friends I'll be training so that it can be improved upon before being translated into Swahili. Once I finish the training in Iringa, I don't think I'll be doing any more of it. Iringa, Arusha, and Mwanza are really the only places outside of Dar that have a high enough concentration of Baha'is fluent enough in English for me to be a useful trainer. But I'll at least have a little experience under my belt.

Today, I attended a meeting of the Tanzania InterFaith Forum (TIFF) with Mitra. The organization has been trying to reform itself since before I arrived, so many of our Office discussions have revolved around making adjustments to various draft documents that cross our desk. At this meeting they finally agreed (in theory) to a memorandum which creates an organization which basically functions as an advocacy group to influence the policies of the government on economic, social and cultural issues. It may seem slightly political, but I think it's beyond the realm of those things we're encouraged to stay away from. Already, we're speaking with one of the other members to begin developing a curriculum on moral and character development from a religious perspective to offer to the government to fit into their recent attempts to incorporate religion into the national curriculum. I think if they can follow through with the mandate they've established for themselves then it could really be an effective platform for Faith-Based Organizations and the religions themselves to connect with the government.

I've also been trying to organize venues for a travel teacher to perform at here in Dar. He's a Baha'i Native American hoop dancer (who happens to not be Native American at all) who was taught the hoop dance by Native Americans in Canada, where his family is from. His grandfather was a Knight of Baha'u'llah for the Yukon, and it seems his family has a good relationship with the native people in Canada (otherwise he wouldn't be hoop dancing). Originally, the NTC passed this on to the local Spiritual Assembly of Dar for their consideration, so in turn they appointed a task force composed of NTC members! I originally resigned because I was too busy, but one of the remaining task force members asked me to return because they were uncomfortable with the fact that nothing was happening.

I actually got in a bit of a dispute about this whole issue with Mitra, which was really only raised voices for maybe half a minute. I expressed it was a little unfair for the LSA to just throw the matter back on the NTC, and I resigned not only because I was too busy but because I felt it wasn't assisting the Assembly in creating any institutional capacity if I did their work for them. When I told her that I had agreed to be back on the task force, she thought I was undoing what I had done when I resigned. As with many pioneers (and me, too), she feels that it's important that local people and institutions learn to do the work that needs to be done rather than pass it off to a pioneer, youth year of service person or someone else who isn't "from" here. By continuing to do so, they create a sort of dependency on assistance from the outside. Nevertheless, I didn't feel that it was really good for me to allow them to fall flat on their faces and slap together a half ass program at the last minute at the expense of the poor young man offering his time and services to us. I wish that a lesson could have been taught here because there's a desperate need to build institutional and individual capacity here, and maybe there's still an opportunity for it, but I didn't want it to be at the expense of the travel teacher. That's just rude!

Anyway, we've managed to book performances for him at the American embassy, two local schools, the Baha'i Centre, an Indian temple/hall, and Steers, a popular restaurant downtown. I think we could have done more if we'd had more time but it's still better than nothing. Now the challenge that remains is following up after the performances so we didn't exert effort for nothing. I'm sure the difficulties in planning will pale in comparison to that task. =P