It takes two days to get from San Francisco to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, a sprawling metropolis perched on the edge of the crystal-clear, turquoise Indian Ocean, with empty white sand beaches beckoning and so much raw sewage in the water that the gentle waves remail wholly unsplashed in.

After half a day of acclimitizing, the seven-strong Spark delegation of women woke up early the next morning to visit a Village Enterprise Fund (VEF) project, a fabulous nonprofit based in San Francisco and serving East Africa. This is where Jessica Flannery, Kiva.org founder, got her start. I can see why.

We are warmly welcomed to a door-to-door sales business that started with 5 employees in one room and just a $50 grant. Five years later, and another $50 grant, and this is a $65,000 goldmine serving 150 villages via 7 groups.

Why a door-to-door model? With treacherous dirt roads and few people able to own cars, the very best way for villagers to get goods like plates, thermoses, lamps and more is for the stores to come to them.

It is a blistering hot day already at 10 AM. After an hour's bus ride from Dar, we clamber off our seats and head towards a small cement-block house. We can hear excited chanting.

"Hi Guys!" (Call.)

"Hi Guys!" (Resounding Response.)

This is a morning sales meeting. Taking turns, several young men rally the co-ed crowd, pointing to a sales techniques chart on the wall and going over best practices. After a few minutes, the corporate among us delegates, ladies from top law firms and companies, realize that if we had such great sales meetings at home, we'd be way more fired up.

We introduce ourselves. I start out with the now-familiar rallying cry:

"Hi Guys!"

They laugh. They call back, "HI GUYS!" I ask our Village Enterprise Fund rep, Angelina, if any of the women in the room are trainers as well. She translates and several women, one in a cowboy hat, quickly take the floor and rally the others.

The corporate Spark women confirm--this is exactly what they teach their own sales people at home.

The door-to-door sales people leave in a flurry of plastic-wear and mild electronics well packed into ironic bags that tout "Paris!" "London!" "Hawaii!" complete with photos. We are led into the main office where director John Joffrey shows us the books beneath a benevolent picture of the country's president.

The books are meticulous, hand-written into school notebook ledgers. The operation is also a sort of bank that keeps track of workers' earnings and holds them safely, even paying out small interests. John's cell phone suddenly chimes the James Bond theme.

We ask Angelina how the women's husbands feel about them working. She says that at first there was a lot of resistance, until the money started coming in.

Money changes everything, they say. But money only goes so far. It's only the start of something. That hundred dollars was great, but the training, education and committment from VEF that came with it truly encouraged this change.

We Sparkles still have so much more to see and do here, but what a great beginning!