Let’s hear from our interns!
Every year, the Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair welcomes businesses from around East Africa to share their expertise, products and innovations with the world.
The fair is also known as Saba Saba, referring to Saba Saba Day, a national Tanzanian holiday that takes place each year on July 7th celebrating the foundation of the Tanganyika African National Union.The fair is also known as Saba Saba, referring to Saba Saba Day, a national Tanzanian holiday that takes place each year on July 7th celebrating the foundation of the Tanganyika African National Union.
This year, Ubongo attended Saba Saba for a week of festivities, where we sold our educational content (DVDs) and merchandise (t-shirts, stickers, posters), talked with families who watch our shows, interacted with other businesses and tested our upcoming apps. Several interns who have joined Ubongo this summer went to Saba Saba, here are some reflections from their time:
Nicole Griffin, intern from the University of Texas at Austin
Everyone wants results. Numbers. They want children to recognise every letter, to count reliably, speak multiple languages and become global citizens.
Ubongo is effectively delivering these results. I am surrounded by a diverse, experienced team of people motivated by the dream of an improved life for the children of Sub-Saharan Africa. A life fueled by education. We pass around names of education experts, innovative books on child psychology, documentaries about the lives of these little ones, and the implications of recent research for our show. Education is meticulous, nothing goes unanalyzed, from the way we pronounce a letter sound to the number of times we repeat a number.
But, the most important piece of the puzzle, the only way to bring so much information to such an enormous and young audience, is to enter the world of children. Lala Land is the main setting for Akili’s dreams in our show Akili and Me, with lala meaning “to sleep” in Swahili. At Saba Saba, it was clear that Lala Land is a part of the kids’ worlds. Children ran up to hug Akili, greeting her as a close friend. They pointed at Happy Hippo from far away, eager to finally meet her in person. They giggled at the touch of Bush Baby’s tail, just as fluffy as they imagined. Lala Land is real to them, a safe haven they can enter to learn through fun interactions with their favourite characters.
Neha Sukumar, intern from the University of Texas at Austin
Lala Land is the bridge between current educational research and entertainment. Beyond the reliable, tangible improvements in math and literacy, one of Ubongo’s greatest successes is bringing the philosophy of playful, whimsical learning to East Africa.
We spent a lot of time at Saba Saba selling Ubongo Kids and Akili and Me DVDs, so I was determined to see how the experience would be now that the tables had turned. As a non-local living in Dar, people all around you are constantly trying to sell you knick knacks or local goods. It’s difficult to say no to them, but now that I’ve got a taste of what it’s like to sell things here, I’ve got to say – their job is hard.
I tried selling DVDs to anyone with children, but with my broken Swahili, I wasn’t really getting the point across. After several failed attempts, I decided to take a different approach. It was hard but I started selling… aggressively. I kept yelling, “TATU! TATU!”, which means “3! 3!”, referring to the 3,000 Tanzanian shillings that one DVD costs.
Still, my technique wasn’t quite working, so I did what I do best. I started singing. I sang the Akili and Me theme song and soon enough kids started coming up to me, and then asking their parents to buy the DVDs. I ended up selling 12 copies of Akili and Me and a few more copies of the Ubongo Kids DVDs.
McDavis Ansere, intern from Stanford University
Saba Saba felt surprisingly . . . familiar. I went with our outreach director and another intern. Once we entered the venue, I blended right in but my voice didn’t. We spent the next couple of hours hanging out at the Ubongo booth, testing Ubongo’s new quiz app.
What an interesting time those hours became, sitting at our booth, with parades of family chatter and Tanzanian zeal brushing past every couple of minutes. We would call out to the families by introducing our new app and asking if the kids wanted to check it out.
But we had one small problem. As interns coming from the United States, we couldn’t speak Swahili and had no way of verbal communication. Luckily though, we received a saviour, Michael, a young Tanzanian student working under the same tent. Of course, he spoke fluent Swahili, but he also spoke immaculate English and in a typical Tanzanian fashion, wanted to help us out. He was able to help us sell and test products while humouring us about our childlike excitement at being in Tanzania.
Saba Saba brings people from far and wide for days of exploration and fun. It presents itself as space for fledgeling businesses to showcase their products to a diverse crowd, coming from ranging social-economic backgrounds. This is what I found most beautiful about Saba Saba; the chatter, the laughter, the fabrics, and new products.
We felt the love
By the end of the festival, we sold over 800 DVDs, took hundreds of pictures, and met many children and parents who love what we do. All in all, the enthusiasm the kids showed us during Saba Saba illustrates that the work Ubongo does is impactful and meaningful to many minds across Tanzania. And we vow to keep delivering entertaining and educational content that helps our audiences learn even more!
