If you read the blogs, both the ‘normal’ one in the business blog here, you'll be fed up with Tanzania and my trip, and I am sorry.
Humour me here though, one more time, because one of thethings I've seen while I've been here, is that business is business everywhere.
It's the same
I'm reminded of the story I may have told here some years ago, about the orthodontist who worked in two different cities in Europe and told me that I didn't understand how dentistry worked where he was. I asked him if he had a Starbucks nearby and a McDonald's. I asked him if they soldRolexes, and he said yes. I told him it was the same.
That metaphor doesn't work for Tanzania, because I haven'tseen a Rolex shop or even a Starbucks, or even even a McDonald's, but what Ihave seen It's people trying to make a living, it's different here because thepoverty is acute, and it is some of the poorest living conditions that you'reever likely to see, but what happens there is opportunity springs up, business arivive.
It may not look like the Westfield centre or a Galleria mallin America, but the essence is exactly the same.
People find a gap.
They find a service that is required by the people aroundthem, and then they set up a business to serve them and to sell, and if they do well, then they stay. Completely bizarrely, the most common business that Ihave identified here, which exists in all manner of shacks and huts and dens arebeauty parlours and hairdressers. People still want to look and feel good, andthey will pay (even if they have so little) to have that.
Food places, obviously, that's a given, but you see the mostbizarre little businesses in the most bizarre little places. It's people tryingto make a living. These are people who understand that no one else will give them a living, and so many, many of them here herd cattle and goats. Particularly the guys that we've passed in the outlying areas, but they will sell a goat and then use the money to buy the things that they want from the people who haveset up the business.
Commerce is commerceis commerce.
As I finished the bike ride today, and I was sitting on a little plank, trying to put some socks on, a young guy called Ally came over to speak to me. He congratulated me on finishing the bike ride, asked me all about it, where I'd been, what I'd done, what I'd seen. I said where I came from, started to talk about Scotland, and we ended up talking about South Africa and the football World Cup there.
He is desperately trying to get a job, he has volunteered asa physiotherapist for nothing and then didn't get taken on. Also, as a tourguide.
He's just sittingaround waiting, trying to find an opportunity. He asked me if I had a business card. I said no, so he asked me to write down my website address for my business so that he could look at it the next time he could get online.
He's trying to find a way to be an entrepreneur. I gave him $20 US dollars, which I had in my pocket, said thank you for the conversation and the information.
That is how the world goes round. Wherever you are, and it continues to go.
Colin Campbell, Chris Barrow, and an intrepid group of dentists will be cycling across the plains of Tanzania from Kilimanjaro in early February 2026. If you would like to support the charity, Bridge to Aid, and this extraordinary challenge, please click here.
Thank you for your generosity
Leave a comment