I woke to animal noises, lots of them, outside my canvas cabin & when I looked out of the mosquito screen I could see the sun rising, tangerine behind the dust & cooking fires on the Masai steppe. An exciting way to start the day! After breakfast at the lodge we loaded into the safari car & headed for Tanangire National Park, about a half hour's drive.
Tanangire is an amazing place! The brochure states that it covers 2840 sq. km, which makes it the 5th largest park in Tanzania. It also informs that this park 'is home to more African elephants per square kilometer than anywhere else in the world'. There certainly were a LOT of elephants: elephants in groups, elephants alone, old ones, young ones, nursing babies, groups of females, groups of young bachelors. But we also saw impalas, baboons & other monkeys, gnu (lots of them), zebras, buffalo, ostriches, giraffes, warthogs, dik-diks, even a few lions, & a number of other species whose identity escapes me at the moment. The place was alive, crawling, fluid with wildlife. It was incredible.
Our guide had brought along a boxed lunch for each of us & I pondered, as I nibbled at a bun, just WHY it is so amazing to see African wildlife? Why, exactly, is this such a 'once in a lifetime' sort of experience? Partly, I'm thinking, it's because stories about these animals have spellbound us from childhood; picture books of lions & zebras have held for us the very quintessence of the exotic. Another reason may be related to the sheer volume of mammals you can see. In a place like Tanangire you see hundreds of animals altogether, a herd of gnu intermixed with a herd of zebra, down at the river with giraffes, baboons running alongside, elephants in the water bathing. We do seem to feel an affinity for other mammals & in the animalscapes of Tanangire, there is a lot of affinity to feel.
The only way the day could have been more marvellous is if we were feeling up to it. Both Doug & I were hit with some sort of intestinal bug (the usual thing) which made the travel uneasy, weakened our appetites, & sapped our energies. Doug has a cold on top of that.
So here we are at the end of the day, staying at the Bougainvillea Safari Lodge just outside the gates of Ngorogoro National park. At 1800 m altitude, it is very cool when the sun goes down & even with my fleece vest on, I'm shivering a little. No heater in the room of course but I do see an extra blanket as an option. The Bougainvillia lodge is ok, all basic needs are met, but nothing like the wonder of our place last night. Supper is included & it's ready now but I'm not sure I'm hungry enough to check it out. It's awfully early but the bed sure looks good...
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Tanzania 2011, Day 7
I'm sitting here in a structure & I'm not quite sure what to call it. It's about the size of a generous garage, the walls are made of some sort of heavy canvas, but the structure is supported by timbers, floored in concrete, & all in all it has a cabin-like feel to it. I suppose if I had to define it I'd call it a canvas cabin -- but that in no way conveys the sheer opulence of the accommodation. For one thing, it is clean; squeeky squeeky clean, not even a stain on anything. The main room contains 3 double-sized beds made up with European-style generous white linens. The bathroom has plush towels & the room is fitted with thoughtful additions like flashlights, kleenex, & an area magazine. It's not until you notice the mosquito netting & the can of heavy-duty bug spray that you realize you're not in North America anymore.
The guest book here on my desk says that the 'Tarangire Lodge is set in Acacia woodland & looks out on a seasonal floodplain with the Tarangire National Park on the southern boundary.' Sure enough, but if I read that ahead of time in the brochure I truly would not know what to expect. What, for example, is a 'canvas lodge'? We drove through some pretty rough bush & past a lot of very primitive Masai mud houses to get here & our expectations sunk lower as we drove along. But this place is probably the most luxurious we've experienced on our trip so far. Not even the Southern Sun in Dar can match this!
After 3 & 1/2 days of very intense work in Dodoma, this feels like a wonderful reward. We started our day like the others, breakfast at the New Dodoma hotel then off to MRI to start the workshops around 9:30. But our delivery was hampered by a very slow internet connection (might as well have been down altogether) & it was a challenge to keep the class going when it was taking more than 5 minutes between clicks from one webpage to another. Eventually we wrapped it up & presented each student with his/her certificate. There followed the inevitable picture-taking session, each student with the certificate, then pictures of the whole class together. Of course, pictures of the 'whole class' had to be taken & re-taken because people who had drifted out of the classroom (this *is* the last day before their semester starts, they really are busy) were drifting back in & wanted of course to have a photo that included them too. So it took a while.
Finally, after many good byes, hugs & handshakes, we left MRI & headed back to the hotel to begin the next stage of our adventure. I think I mentioned that Doug had arranged a 2-day safari to the Arusha-Ngorogoro area & our driver/organizer had arranged to meet us back at the New Dodoma by 11:30 or so. He wanted to get an early get-away because he really didn't want to be driving in the dark (totally understandable, given Tanzanian highways). Everything went as planned except for one thing: we needed gas. Did I mention that Tanzania is facing a serious fuel shortage right now? There have even been some riots in Dar requiring police action. It wasn't quite like that in Dodoma but even there, gas stations were short of fuel (the BP stations had all closed) & line ups for gas were long. We have grown accustomed to Tanzanians being very easy-going & laid back but NOT, it appears, when they are threatened with no fuel. Short tempers, armed & helmeted police, angry drivers, people attempting to jump the queue... Our driver, Kanuth, tried 4 different gas stations before finally returning to the first to wait for gas.
It's a bit of a worry, actually. If the country runs out of gas or the riots get out of hand, how will we return to Dar on Monday? I don't want to miss my flight...
But the worry can wait. Tonight I am staying at a most wonderful 'lodge', a clean bed in a canvas room, after a meal of very good food & cold beer. An added bonus: wildlife. When we signed in here, the reception fellow told us not to be too worried if we heard strange noises; that our Masai security guys would warn us if an elephant wandered too near. Right, I thought to myself; & a full-grown moose could theoretically wander into my back yard in Cranbrook. Tourist hype & it's just not all that likely. So I was genuinely surprised when I heard a strange noise nearby while drinking a beer by the campfire outside the dining tent, & turned around to see a family of elephants move past, shadowy figures barely 50 meters away. And even as I type this I can hear unfamiliar animals just at the edge of the bush outside my cabin. And the moon is full over the Masai steppe just outside the door & the whole thing really is the once-in-a-lifetime experience we had hoped (but not quite expected) it would be.
The world really is awesome.
The guest book here on my desk says that the 'Tarangire Lodge is set in Acacia woodland & looks out on a seasonal floodplain with the Tarangire National Park on the southern boundary.' Sure enough, but if I read that ahead of time in the brochure I truly would not know what to expect. What, for example, is a 'canvas lodge'? We drove through some pretty rough bush & past a lot of very primitive Masai mud houses to get here & our expectations sunk lower as we drove along. But this place is probably the most luxurious we've experienced on our trip so far. Not even the Southern Sun in Dar can match this!
After 3 & 1/2 days of very intense work in Dodoma, this feels like a wonderful reward. We started our day like the others, breakfast at the New Dodoma hotel then off to MRI to start the workshops around 9:30. But our delivery was hampered by a very slow internet connection (might as well have been down altogether) & it was a challenge to keep the class going when it was taking more than 5 minutes between clicks from one webpage to another. Eventually we wrapped it up & presented each student with his/her certificate. There followed the inevitable picture-taking session, each student with the certificate, then pictures of the whole class together. Of course, pictures of the 'whole class' had to be taken & re-taken because people who had drifted out of the classroom (this *is* the last day before their semester starts, they really are busy) were drifting back in & wanted of course to have a photo that included them too. So it took a while.
Finally, after many good byes, hugs & handshakes, we left MRI & headed back to the hotel to begin the next stage of our adventure. I think I mentioned that Doug had arranged a 2-day safari to the Arusha-Ngorogoro area & our driver/organizer had arranged to meet us back at the New Dodoma by 11:30 or so. He wanted to get an early get-away because he really didn't want to be driving in the dark (totally understandable, given Tanzanian highways). Everything went as planned except for one thing: we needed gas. Did I mention that Tanzania is facing a serious fuel shortage right now? There have even been some riots in Dar requiring police action. It wasn't quite like that in Dodoma but even there, gas stations were short of fuel (the BP stations had all closed) & line ups for gas were long. We have grown accustomed to Tanzanians being very easy-going & laid back but NOT, it appears, when they are threatened with no fuel. Short tempers, armed & helmeted police, angry drivers, people attempting to jump the queue... Our driver, Kanuth, tried 4 different gas stations before finally returning to the first to wait for gas.
It's a bit of a worry, actually. If the country runs out of gas or the riots get out of hand, how will we return to Dar on Monday? I don't want to miss my flight...
But the worry can wait. Tonight I am staying at a most wonderful 'lodge', a clean bed in a canvas room, after a meal of very good food & cold beer. An added bonus: wildlife. When we signed in here, the reception fellow told us not to be too worried if we heard strange noises; that our Masai security guys would warn us if an elephant wandered too near. Right, I thought to myself; & a full-grown moose could theoretically wander into my back yard in Cranbrook. Tourist hype & it's just not all that likely. So I was genuinely surprised when I heard a strange noise nearby while drinking a beer by the campfire outside the dining tent, & turned around to see a family of elephants move past, shadowy figures barely 50 meters away. And even as I type this I can hear unfamiliar animals just at the edge of the bush outside my cabin. And the moon is full over the Masai steppe just outside the door & the whole thing really is the once-in-a-lifetime experience we had hoped (but not quite expected) it would be.
The world really is awesome.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tanzania 2011, Day 6
Another long & very busy day & I'm tired from the teaching. We have a wonderful little group, although they are extremely busy because this is the week right before classes start for them. We understand the situation completely; it's the same for us just before the semester begins. So we are sympathetic when they have to rush out of class for something or other or when they seem to come & go in & out of the classroom.
We were able to log them into our library databases today, to access our academic journals that are available in digital formats. Their excitement at being able to do this was hard to miss. They fully understand the value of good, up-to-date professional resources and so once they saw how the search functions worked it was hard to tear them away or to move on to the next topic. Our consultancy this year is so short & it's frustrating not to be able to delve more deeply into topics of interest. All we can do is to show them what's available, talk about the potential for educational online resources, & then leave them with sufficient links & ideas to get them started. Perhaps that's the preferable way to do development work anyway.
Outside of work, much of our day was spent struggling with money. I know I wrote about this in my blog last year but it's worth mentioning again; you just can't BELIEVE how complicated it is to work between North American & Tanzanian money systems! The problem (if you can frame it that way) is that we have signed up for a 2-day safari of the Ngorogoro crater. One of our overseas intern students is stationed in Dar es Salaam & she recommended a fellow named Kanuth who does these safari trips on a casual basis. The trip, including all transportation, accommodations, meals, park fees, guide, etc. etc. would cost us each a little over $1000 calculated in US funds. I know it's a lot of money but really, when would I ever get this chance again? And besides, our transportation back to Dar, our hotel fees & meals would come fairly close to that for the 3 days in total that we will be travelling. So we agreed.
So that part is fairly straightforward, but this is where the complications begin. Kanuth wanted half of the money deposited into his bank account ahead of time, & the rest of it to be paid in cash when he arrived. All in Tanzanian funds, of course. This is a bit challenging because the exchange rates between Canadian, American, & Tanzanian currencies vary from day to day so calculating what we owed him was a moving target. It would have been fairly convenient if we had been able to transfer funds into his account but (as we found out) this is not so easy if you don't have a Tanzanian bank account. A further complication -- & this is the main one -- is that the largest bill in the Tanzanian currency system is a 10,000 shilling note. Sounds like a lot of money but it's barely worth $7 in Canadian funds. Bank machines will not let you withdraw more than 400,000 TSH (about $250 CDN) at any one time. So you have to withdraw a batch of 400,000 & then another & another. But if you try to make several large withdrawals in quick succession, your bank card provider computer gets suspicious & freezes your account for a time. Why not just pay with Visa, you ask? Ha! Very, very few places accept credit cards or even debit cards for that matter. It's pretty much a cash-only society & it's designed for people who usually deal in very small amounts.
We did manage to each withdraw more than one million shillings & it was a heady feeling to be a millionaire, if only in Tanzanian currency. My purse, stuffed fat with Tanzanian bills, bulged out suspiciously & was noticeably heavier to carry. Anyway, we had to each max out our cards for several 24 hour periods & will have to go out early again tomorrow to get some more.
So tomorrow, assuming we are able to secure a wheelbarrow-load of Tanzanian money, we will head out on a trip to Ngorogoro & then the town of Arusha. It sounds like our accommodations will be somewhat primitive for the next couple of days so I don't expect I'll be able to get online to post. But I'll keep notes & post as soon as I can.
It's almost midnight; more work tomorrow, so I'm heading for bed.
We were able to log them into our library databases today, to access our academic journals that are available in digital formats. Their excitement at being able to do this was hard to miss. They fully understand the value of good, up-to-date professional resources and so once they saw how the search functions worked it was hard to tear them away or to move on to the next topic. Our consultancy this year is so short & it's frustrating not to be able to delve more deeply into topics of interest. All we can do is to show them what's available, talk about the potential for educational online resources, & then leave them with sufficient links & ideas to get them started. Perhaps that's the preferable way to do development work anyway.
Outside of work, much of our day was spent struggling with money. I know I wrote about this in my blog last year but it's worth mentioning again; you just can't BELIEVE how complicated it is to work between North American & Tanzanian money systems! The problem (if you can frame it that way) is that we have signed up for a 2-day safari of the Ngorogoro crater. One of our overseas intern students is stationed in Dar es Salaam & she recommended a fellow named Kanuth who does these safari trips on a casual basis. The trip, including all transportation, accommodations, meals, park fees, guide, etc. etc. would cost us each a little over $1000 calculated in US funds. I know it's a lot of money but really, when would I ever get this chance again? And besides, our transportation back to Dar, our hotel fees & meals would come fairly close to that for the 3 days in total that we will be travelling. So we agreed.
So that part is fairly straightforward, but this is where the complications begin. Kanuth wanted half of the money deposited into his bank account ahead of time, & the rest of it to be paid in cash when he arrived. All in Tanzanian funds, of course. This is a bit challenging because the exchange rates between Canadian, American, & Tanzanian currencies vary from day to day so calculating what we owed him was a moving target. It would have been fairly convenient if we had been able to transfer funds into his account but (as we found out) this is not so easy if you don't have a Tanzanian bank account. A further complication -- & this is the main one -- is that the largest bill in the Tanzanian currency system is a 10,000 shilling note. Sounds like a lot of money but it's barely worth $7 in Canadian funds. Bank machines will not let you withdraw more than 400,000 TSH (about $250 CDN) at any one time. So you have to withdraw a batch of 400,000 & then another & another. But if you try to make several large withdrawals in quick succession, your bank card provider computer gets suspicious & freezes your account for a time. Why not just pay with Visa, you ask? Ha! Very, very few places accept credit cards or even debit cards for that matter. It's pretty much a cash-only society & it's designed for people who usually deal in very small amounts.
We did manage to each withdraw more than one million shillings & it was a heady feeling to be a millionaire, if only in Tanzanian currency. My purse, stuffed fat with Tanzanian bills, bulged out suspiciously & was noticeably heavier to carry. Anyway, we had to each max out our cards for several 24 hour periods & will have to go out early again tomorrow to get some more.
So tomorrow, assuming we are able to secure a wheelbarrow-load of Tanzanian money, we will head out on a trip to Ngorogoro & then the town of Arusha. It sounds like our accommodations will be somewhat primitive for the next couple of days so I don't expect I'll be able to get online to post. But I'll keep notes & post as soon as I can.
It's almost midnight; more work tomorrow, so I'm heading for bed.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Tanzania 2011, Day 5
We just got back from supper, another memorable experience at Chako ni Chako. To be honest, the evening didn't quite start out on the right foot. This afternoon while we were working our host (The Principal) advised us to be at Chako ni Chako around 7:30 tonight for dinner. He asked if we would be comfortable walking to the cafe or would we prefer to be picked up? But this time we knew (sort of) where to find Chako ni Chako & we knew it wasn't more than a kilomoter from the hotel. And because we're both walking addicts, we agreed to meet everybody there rather than accept a ride.
We didn't feel nearly so adventurous when 7:20 came & it was dark (REALLY dark) outside & we were tired to begin with. But a deal is a deal so we headed out. It's surprising to experience just how much we have come to expect streetlights in Canada: when they're not there, the world is surprisingly dark & a bit intimidating. We walked along the railroad street, expecting that when we reached the main drag things would be brighter. They weren't: there are no streetlights there either. So we hugged the side of the road, moved pretty quickly, & attempted to dodge the throngs of other people who were either hanging out on the main street or attempting to get somewhere. Shadowy figures seemed to appear out of nowhere, giving very few options about where to walk. Basically you walk along the side of the road, squeezed between the full sidewalk of semi-visible other people and the street of maniacal drivers swooshing past.
But we made it to the Chako ni Chako bar by 7:45 & started looking around for our colleagues. There didn't seem to be anybody there so we hesitated at a corner of the outside cafe, wondering if perhaps we had misunderstood the date or time, when suddenly we heard a voice call out to us & saw one of the MRI guys sitting at a table on the other side of the street. There followed an interesting conversation: "Is this Chako ni Chako?" "Yes." "But it looks like the Chako ni Chako cafe is situated on the other side of the street." "Well, actually this whole area is called "Chako ni Chako" now, not just the cafe." "What is this place called?" "It's Saturday." "I thought it was Wednesday today." "No, Saturday is the name of this bar." Sort of a classic sitcom set up & the humour was definitely not wasted on our Tanzanian colleagues..
Anyway, evenutally we had a half-dozen or so of the MRI group with us, all happily eating kuku nyoma (extremely barbecued chicken) & some sort of barbecued or roasted plantains. And drinking wonderful Tanzanian beer (for the Christians) or soda pop (for the Muslims). Because this was after sundown, our Muslim colleagues were able to join us in the meal. It is an indescribable pleasure to sit outside under night skies with unfamiliar constellations, eating & drinking with comrades, watching the people go by & talking about a wide variety of things. I get a sense -- I don't feel it all that often -- that there is nowhere I'd rather be & nothing else I'd rather be doing.
The day was much better work-wise, too. I took Doug's advice & used a consciously slower pace, purposefully NOT getting all worked up when the internet loaded at a painfully slow rate or (even worse) crashed all together. We looked at digtial library sources & I can't help communicating my excitement at the potenial for fully-open educational resources to change the world.
I'm falling asleep; time to post this (even in draft format) & head for bed.
We didn't feel nearly so adventurous when 7:20 came & it was dark (REALLY dark) outside & we were tired to begin with. But a deal is a deal so we headed out. It's surprising to experience just how much we have come to expect streetlights in Canada: when they're not there, the world is surprisingly dark & a bit intimidating. We walked along the railroad street, expecting that when we reached the main drag things would be brighter. They weren't: there are no streetlights there either. So we hugged the side of the road, moved pretty quickly, & attempted to dodge the throngs of other people who were either hanging out on the main street or attempting to get somewhere. Shadowy figures seemed to appear out of nowhere, giving very few options about where to walk. Basically you walk along the side of the road, squeezed between the full sidewalk of semi-visible other people and the street of maniacal drivers swooshing past.
But we made it to the Chako ni Chako bar by 7:45 & started looking around for our colleagues. There didn't seem to be anybody there so we hesitated at a corner of the outside cafe, wondering if perhaps we had misunderstood the date or time, when suddenly we heard a voice call out to us & saw one of the MRI guys sitting at a table on the other side of the street. There followed an interesting conversation: "Is this Chako ni Chako?" "Yes." "But it looks like the Chako ni Chako cafe is situated on the other side of the street." "Well, actually this whole area is called "Chako ni Chako" now, not just the cafe." "What is this place called?" "It's Saturday." "I thought it was Wednesday today." "No, Saturday is the name of this bar." Sort of a classic sitcom set up & the humour was definitely not wasted on our Tanzanian colleagues..
Anyway, evenutally we had a half-dozen or so of the MRI group with us, all happily eating kuku nyoma (extremely barbecued chicken) & some sort of barbecued or roasted plantains. And drinking wonderful Tanzanian beer (for the Christians) or soda pop (for the Muslims). Because this was after sundown, our Muslim colleagues were able to join us in the meal. It is an indescribable pleasure to sit outside under night skies with unfamiliar constellations, eating & drinking with comrades, watching the people go by & talking about a wide variety of things. I get a sense -- I don't feel it all that often -- that there is nowhere I'd rather be & nothing else I'd rather be doing.
The day was much better work-wise, too. I took Doug's advice & used a consciously slower pace, purposefully NOT getting all worked up when the internet loaded at a painfully slow rate or (even worse) crashed all together. We looked at digtial library sources & I can't help communicating my excitement at the potenial for fully-open educational resources to change the world.
I'm falling asleep; time to post this (even in draft format) & head for bed.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Tanzania 2011, Day 4
I am writing this while desperately trying NOT to scratch my poor itchy legs. Yesterday afternoon sometime (probably while wandering the market) something was biting my legs & I didn't notice until later when the damage was done. I think it's fleas. So now I have 30+ bites on each leg & am plastered with bug dope to prevent any more. But honestly, I think it's a losing battle.
It was a long & frustrating day. We have been invited back to the Mineral Resources Institute, this time to help them learn about 4 topics:
* digital library: how feasible is this?
* setting up a computer lab
* locating IT training & resources, increasing capacity in this area
* e-learning: how to get started?
Anyway, every one of the topics deals specifically with locating & using internet resources so of course we need access to the internet to teach these topics. We were assured before we arrived that the teachers we're working with would have internet access & technically this was true. When we arrived at the Institute this morning they did indeed have a little room nicely set up with 9 or 10 laptops, all plugged in & hooked up to an internet connection via an amazing spiderweb of cables & cords. It was a bit challenging -- although kind of fun -- to navigate around the room without getting snarled in the cables running every which way. Trying to navigate the internet was not nearly so fun. We only had a little bandwidth to begin with & when split 10 ways it made for a very slow connection indeed. The frustration of trying to demonstrate things while having to wait a full minute between clicks just about drove me crazy. Nevertheless, we got through the day & during our debriefing walk afterwards, Doug pointed out that my frustration really was out of place since a slow, slow connection was the daily reality for our teacher-students, they were used to it, & anything they learned from us would have to be adapted to work within that parameter. Made sense. So tomorrow we will try a slower pace, let the teachers work through things at whatever pace is realisitic, & relax.
What else? It really was great to be back at MRI, reconnecting with people we hadn't seen in a year. MRI is a small place so we had come to recognize every secretary, every teacher, & they all remembered us with lots of hugs & handshaking. At noon, the Institute principal took us all out to another outdoor cafe which offered a generous lunch, buffet-style. We sat on the plastic chairs under the trees & talked with a very interesting teacher who has just returned from a year's study in northern Sweden. I ate ugali (the East African maize paste which I have come to like), well-roasted tilapia pieces, & some kind of stewed okra & cabbage. A very thin cat, calico coloured, waited patiently under my chair until I dropped some fish skin onto the sand beside her. She ate the fish, delicately avoiding the lumps of sand, & when she was done looked up with a silent mew before heading for the next table.
It was a long & frustrating day. We have been invited back to the Mineral Resources Institute, this time to help them learn about 4 topics:
* digital library: how feasible is this?
* setting up a computer lab
* locating IT training & resources, increasing capacity in this area
* e-learning: how to get started?
Anyway, every one of the topics deals specifically with locating & using internet resources so of course we need access to the internet to teach these topics. We were assured before we arrived that the teachers we're working with would have internet access & technically this was true. When we arrived at the Institute this morning they did indeed have a little room nicely set up with 9 or 10 laptops, all plugged in & hooked up to an internet connection via an amazing spiderweb of cables & cords. It was a bit challenging -- although kind of fun -- to navigate around the room without getting snarled in the cables running every which way. Trying to navigate the internet was not nearly so fun. We only had a little bandwidth to begin with & when split 10 ways it made for a very slow connection indeed. The frustration of trying to demonstrate things while having to wait a full minute between clicks just about drove me crazy. Nevertheless, we got through the day & during our debriefing walk afterwards, Doug pointed out that my frustration really was out of place since a slow, slow connection was the daily reality for our teacher-students, they were used to it, & anything they learned from us would have to be adapted to work within that parameter. Made sense. So tomorrow we will try a slower pace, let the teachers work through things at whatever pace is realisitic, & relax.
What else? It really was great to be back at MRI, reconnecting with people we hadn't seen in a year. MRI is a small place so we had come to recognize every secretary, every teacher, & they all remembered us with lots of hugs & handshaking. At noon, the Institute principal took us all out to another outdoor cafe which offered a generous lunch, buffet-style. We sat on the plastic chairs under the trees & talked with a very interesting teacher who has just returned from a year's study in northern Sweden. I ate ugali (the East African maize paste which I have come to like), well-roasted tilapia pieces, & some kind of stewed okra & cabbage. A very thin cat, calico coloured, waited patiently under my chair until I dropped some fish skin onto the sand beside her. She ate the fish, delicately avoiding the lumps of sand, & when she was done looked up with a silent mew before heading for the next table.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Tanzania 2011, Day 3
It was another day of travel, this time all on land, from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma. Without any stops or major delays the trip can be as short as 6 hours & our trip today wasn't much over that. In some ways the drive was almost leisurely! Partly this was because today is some sort of national holiday in Tanzania so the traffic was unusually light. And partly because our driver, Vincent, has some sort of professional driving designation and even when hitting speeds of 150 kph on the straight stretches we didn't feel the same adrenalin overload. Then too, we're just more accustomed to Tanzanian road life this time & less likely to panic when passing a long transport truck on a hill while narrowly squeezing back into our lane between an oncoming bus & an old man pedalling a bicycle loaded with sticks.
So we arrived safely in Dodoma around 3:30 pm, & are glad to be back. After the sticky damp heat of Dar, Dodoma feels cool & dry. The day temperature should be around 23 all week & tonight it's even a bit on the cool side. Mercifully, the air is dry enough to actually DRY things, unlike Dar where no matter how early you hang up your freshly laundered undies, they are still a bit damp by morning.
We had been booked into the St. Gaspar convention centre, a rather nice place outside of town. However, we were able to get our reservations switched to the New Dodoma hotel, the same place we stayed for most of our visit last year. The New Dodoma is not terribly fancy but it's strategically located across from the railway station & pretty much right downtown so we have somewhere to walk after work without feeling too isolated from what's going on. So the first thing we did after dumping our suitcases was to find our way to the market & wander around for an hour or so, getting pleasantly lost until a friendly young lady led us back to the main street.
One very pleasant addition to the hotel facilities this year is wifi! For only 5000 Tanzanian shillings per day (about $3 Canadian) we can have internet access anywhere in the hotel area all day. It should let me connect more easily, as long as the work schedule permits.
Speaking of work, I still have materials to prepare for tomorrow. This will be challenging because I am feeling sleepy & I am only an armlength away from my bed, ready with the mosquito net pulled down & looking very enticing.
So we arrived safely in Dodoma around 3:30 pm, & are glad to be back. After the sticky damp heat of Dar, Dodoma feels cool & dry. The day temperature should be around 23 all week & tonight it's even a bit on the cool side. Mercifully, the air is dry enough to actually DRY things, unlike Dar where no matter how early you hang up your freshly laundered undies, they are still a bit damp by morning.
We had been booked into the St. Gaspar convention centre, a rather nice place outside of town. However, we were able to get our reservations switched to the New Dodoma hotel, the same place we stayed for most of our visit last year. The New Dodoma is not terribly fancy but it's strategically located across from the railway station & pretty much right downtown so we have somewhere to walk after work without feeling too isolated from what's going on. So the first thing we did after dumping our suitcases was to find our way to the market & wander around for an hour or so, getting pleasantly lost until a friendly young lady led us back to the main street.
One very pleasant addition to the hotel facilities this year is wifi! For only 5000 Tanzanian shillings per day (about $3 Canadian) we can have internet access anywhere in the hotel area all day. It should let me connect more easily, as long as the work schedule permits.
Speaking of work, I still have materials to prepare for tomorrow. This will be challenging because I am feeling sleepy & I am only an armlength away from my bed, ready with the mosquito net pulled down & looking very enticing.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Tanzania 2011, Day 2
A day in Dar. We needed this; a little more time to recover from jet lag & the general wear-&-tear of travelling. We spent the day as productively as we could given our journey fatigue & limpness from the heat. First we did some housekeeping chores like getting the mobile phone working (& it *does* work!) & obtaining some Tanzanian currency. We needed a good wad of money because our driver tomorrow will expect to be paid in cash, to the equivalent of $500 US. This is a bit challenging because the largest Tanzanian bill is barely worth $7 so it takes a lot of them to make such a substantial sum. The bank machine made so much noise dispensing all the bills that at first I thought it must be broken. But no, eventually we got the money we needed & the next challenge was hiding the massive wad in wallet or pocket or purse such that it could be transported discretely back to the hotel safe.
We spent most of the rest of the day just trying to stay awake. We walked around the block & along the waterfront, we mapped out the work ahead, we reacquainted ourselves with Tanzanian beer. By 7:30 we'd had enough; we gave up the pretense of alertness & retired to our rooms. So here I am tapping out a short blog post just because I am in the habit & it does help me focus on the moment.
Probably the most interesting part of the day was our dawdle on the beach. We went out late in the afternoon for a second visit to the bank machine because the machine's withdrawal limit wouldn't allow us to take out enough to cover our costs at one time. So we headed back for the machine, a short block from the hotel, & since it felt so nice to be outside with a bit of a breeze we decided to just keep on walking for a little while. We found ourselves back on the beach & because we were feeling so dopey we decided to just sit for a while & enjoy the cool.
We were by no means the only ones to find the beach such a marvellous place to hang out. The beach is huge & it slopes very gradually so at low tide it forms a massive tide flat. Low-lying parts create saucers of warm water, wonderful areas for young children to play & for women to wade. (The women seem never to go swimming.) Older women walk stooped over along the high tide mark, picking shells & adding them carefully to a gunny sack to sort through & sell later. Many men sit on the sea-wall, no doubt watching the women go by, but we also saw several young men doing amazing calesthics or gymnastics in the sand. I watched one young guy do a full backflip off the seawall onto the beach below. Two entire wedding parties were on the beach to our left, having photos taken, while the flower girls & bridesmaids worked energetically to keep the bride's train out of the sand. From a distance we heard a band approaching & it turned out to be some sort of religious group, with one man preaching loudly & the others responding with the occassional enthusiastic 'hallelujah!' & 'amen!' Vendors moved slowly up & down the beach, balancing plastic basins on their heads filled with cold drinks or hot corn-on-the-cob or beach balls. A vendor on bicycle sold ice cream. A muslim couple chatted quietly on the wall beside us while their children played in the sand, no doubt trying to stave off hunger pains in that long last hour before sunset (this is Ramadan after all).All in all it was a very pleasant hour for us, too, watching the activity, listening to the waves, enjoying the relative cool of the ocean breeze. But we knew for safety's sake we'd have to get the money before dark so we dragged ourselves back onto the road & continued on our way.
Tomorrow we must be up relatively early because our driver will be meeting us at 8:30 to take us to Dodoma. It would be nice if we could doze in the car on the way but given the adrenalin involved in Tanzanian road travel, I expect that's unlikely.
Tanzania 2011, Day 1
I'm sitting here in my room at the Southern Sun Hotel and although Dar es Salaam sits at sea level not far south of the equator, I can't help shivering a little. The shivering is no doubt a result of sitting 9+ hours on an overly air conditioned airplane followed by a 20 minute ride in an overly air conditioned taxi, followed by an aggressively air conditioned hotel room. Perhaps the tiredness doesn't help either. So just as soon as the bellhop left I found the air conditioning controls, turned the temperature dial up & the fan down and waited for things to warm up a bit. When they didn't, of course I started looking for the heater. No heater, no heater whatsoever anywhere in the room...
Ah. Of course, with a location like this, who (besides me) needs a heater?
So instead I have made myself a cup of tea & wrapped a big bath towel around my shoulders & gradually I am warming up a little.
This is my second time in Tanzania & because I was here just a year ago, things don't seem nearly so strange nor exotic this time. The the city scent, the right-hand drive, the traffic congestion, the swahili signs, music out on the sidewalk outside my window, even the bellhops at the hotel all seem vaguely familiar. Our work, however, will be different this time: last year we were conducting some fairly straightforward workshops related to competency-based training & curriculum development, while this year's assignment is related to the establishment of digital libraries, computer labs, and distance learning. At this point it's still rather vague so we must plan without a plan & feel our way around until we understand the specifics.
But not tonight; after 20 hours of solid flying we are TIRED. I had hoped to get on the internet tonight to simply check email & post this entry before heading for bed but I don't think that's going to work. The wifi indicator shows a strong signal but the laptop can't do anything beyond telling me that there's 'little or no connectivity'. I should have guessed when the hotel staff gave me the internet access information & I noticed that the wifi password is "Pole" (swahili word for 'slow').
So I will have a quick shower (a HOT one), pull up all the covers & climb into bed.
Ah. Of course, with a location like this, who (besides me) needs a heater?
So instead I have made myself a cup of tea & wrapped a big bath towel around my shoulders & gradually I am warming up a little.
This is my second time in Tanzania & because I was here just a year ago, things don't seem nearly so strange nor exotic this time. The the city scent, the right-hand drive, the traffic congestion, the swahili signs, music out on the sidewalk outside my window, even the bellhops at the hotel all seem vaguely familiar. Our work, however, will be different this time: last year we were conducting some fairly straightforward workshops related to competency-based training & curriculum development, while this year's assignment is related to the establishment of digital libraries, computer labs, and distance learning. At this point it's still rather vague so we must plan without a plan & feel our way around until we understand the specifics.
But not tonight; after 20 hours of solid flying we are TIRED. I had hoped to get on the internet tonight to simply check email & post this entry before heading for bed but I don't think that's going to work. The wifi indicator shows a strong signal but the laptop can't do anything beyond telling me that there's 'little or no connectivity'. I should have guessed when the hotel staff gave me the internet access information & I noticed that the wifi password is "Pole" (swahili word for 'slow').
So I will have a quick shower (a HOT one), pull up all the covers & climb into bed.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Tanzania, Day 16
re: August 1, 2010
Finally, internet access again! I am writing this after the fact; from my mother-in-law's apartment in Barrie Ontario & very far removed (in so many ways) from the streets of Dar es Salaam.
We spent our last day in Tanzania just killing time. The four members of our 'Team Tanzania' met for breakfast & since on Sundays the hotel's complimentary breakfast/brunch lasts until 1 pm we all decided it made sense to just sit & basically eat our way right through from breakfast to lunch. Greg & Brian were heading off for Mikumi & I suspect that our stories about the truck stop food -- really the only food available en route -- had made them nervous about having to stop & eat along the way. Eventually, however, we couldn't eat any more so decided to stretch our legs before the Mikumi ride appeared at 12:30. We did a large walk around the block, shortcutting through the cancer clinic & then past the President's property (which is massive) before Greg & Brian had to turn around to catch their ride. Doug & I, since we are both compulsive walkers, decided to continue.
It seemed a sensible thing at the time. The sun was pleasant, the street scenery was interesting, & we knew we would be confined to sitting for the next day or more. But after a half hour in the noonday tropical sunlight in a busy third world megacity (what were we thinking??) we were ready to return. Somehow we missed a turn on the way back & ended up walking a circuitous route along Ocean Road. At any rate, by the time we found our way back to the hotel we were both overheated & feeling a bit lousy. Such a state did make it easier to just sit still & wait out the afternoon, however. At 6 pm we checked out, had a quick supper, & caught a taxi to the airport.
Dar es Salaam's airport is not so bad as these things go but it is not like anything in Europe. When we arrived, it seemed that the airport was not open yet (how can a city airport be 'not open'?) so along with everyone else, we waited outside for an hour or so. Once the airport opened we went through a security check (just to get in the door), then got our boarding passes, & headed for the gate. It seems that there are only 6 gates for Dar es Salaam's airport; this for a city with a population of 5 million. Compare this with Amsterdam's Schiphol airport: 165 gates for a population of less than 1 million. Of course, Schiphol is a transportation hub while Dar es Salaam is not but still, the contrast is quite striking.
That's about it, really. We left the ground just before midnight & headed home. After 9 hours in the air to Amsterdam, a 7.5 hour wait at Schiphol, & another 8+ hours to Toronto... here I am. It is a good thing that long-distance travel is like childbirth in terms of forgetting the pain. In such travel you wait, you wait some more, you climb into a gigantic airplane & squeeze yourself into a seat between strangers, you identify with (but not necessarily enjoy) the travel misery of countless young children, you eat lousy food, etc. etc. & arrive at your destination jet-lagged & sleep deprived, your mouth feeling like caulking compound & you wonder: why? Why on earth did I volunteer for this??! But after a night's sleep (it really *is* easier travelling east to west) you feel ecstatic about the experience, keen to drive your relatives crazy with travel stories, & already nostalgic to do it again.
Finally, internet access again! I am writing this after the fact; from my mother-in-law's apartment in Barrie Ontario & very far removed (in so many ways) from the streets of Dar es Salaam.
We spent our last day in Tanzania just killing time. The four members of our 'Team Tanzania' met for breakfast & since on Sundays the hotel's complimentary breakfast/brunch lasts until 1 pm we all decided it made sense to just sit & basically eat our way right through from breakfast to lunch. Greg & Brian were heading off for Mikumi & I suspect that our stories about the truck stop food -- really the only food available en route -- had made them nervous about having to stop & eat along the way. Eventually, however, we couldn't eat any more so decided to stretch our legs before the Mikumi ride appeared at 12:30. We did a large walk around the block, shortcutting through the cancer clinic & then past the President's property (which is massive) before Greg & Brian had to turn around to catch their ride. Doug & I, since we are both compulsive walkers, decided to continue.
It seemed a sensible thing at the time. The sun was pleasant, the street scenery was interesting, & we knew we would be confined to sitting for the next day or more. But after a half hour in the noonday tropical sunlight in a busy third world megacity (what were we thinking??) we were ready to return. Somehow we missed a turn on the way back & ended up walking a circuitous route along Ocean Road. At any rate, by the time we found our way back to the hotel we were both overheated & feeling a bit lousy. Such a state did make it easier to just sit still & wait out the afternoon, however. At 6 pm we checked out, had a quick supper, & caught a taxi to the airport.
Dar es Salaam's airport is not so bad as these things go but it is not like anything in Europe. When we arrived, it seemed that the airport was not open yet (how can a city airport be 'not open'?) so along with everyone else, we waited outside for an hour or so. Once the airport opened we went through a security check (just to get in the door), then got our boarding passes, & headed for the gate. It seems that there are only 6 gates for Dar es Salaam's airport; this for a city with a population of 5 million. Compare this with Amsterdam's Schiphol airport: 165 gates for a population of less than 1 million. Of course, Schiphol is a transportation hub while Dar es Salaam is not but still, the contrast is quite striking.
That's about it, really. We left the ground just before midnight & headed home. After 9 hours in the air to Amsterdam, a 7.5 hour wait at Schiphol, & another 8+ hours to Toronto... here I am. It is a good thing that long-distance travel is like childbirth in terms of forgetting the pain. In such travel you wait, you wait some more, you climb into a gigantic airplane & squeeze yourself into a seat between strangers, you identify with (but not necessarily enjoy) the travel misery of countless young children, you eat lousy food, etc. etc. & arrive at your destination jet-lagged & sleep deprived, your mouth feeling like caulking compound & you wonder: why? Why on earth did I volunteer for this??! But after a night's sleep (it really *is* easier travelling east to west) you feel ecstatic about the experience, keen to drive your relatives crazy with travel stories, & already nostalgic to do it again.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tanzania, Day 15
July 31, 2010
Today was an out-&-out holiday. We got up late, lingered through breakfast, & then got a taxi out to the Slipway market. The Slipway was the touristy spot that Doug & I visited in Dar es Salaam 2 weeks ago when we first arrived in the country. This time, however, the 4 of us took advantage of the market only long enough to use the washrooms, & then headed out to the end of the breakwater where we purchased tickets for a boat trip out to Bongoyo Island.
Most people have heard about Zanzibar, that exotic island off the coast of Tanzania. When Tanganika sought independence from Great Britain in 1961, it joined together with Zanibar & the 2 names combined to create 'Tanzania.' Doug & I had hoped to take a ferry over to Zanzibar this weekend but there was a pre-election referendum vote today & political unrest was expected so all foreigners were advised to stay away.
But many people are not aware that there are many other islands off the coast of Tanzania & Bongoyo is one of the smaller (& closer) of these. For 25,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $20 in Canadian funds) you can purchase a ticket which includes the boat fare there & back plus the admission to the marine wildlife reserve which encompasses the whole island.
The boat ride involves a 30-40 ride in a small passengers-only ferry over a little patch of the Indian Ocean. You get a marvellous ocean-side view of Dar es Salaam as well as a look at the extravagant homes all along the waterfront. This is the part of town where the diplomats live & their homes are about as far removed from the typical Tanzanian mud hut as can be imagined. On our way out to the island we passed by yachts anchored out from the diplomat homes, Arabic sailing dhows, & dugout canoes like elongated wooden clogs from which people were fishing.
Eventually we pulled up on the island, a genuine tropical paradise. Bongoyo appears to be about a kilometer long & half a kilometer wide, covered in trees & criss-crossed by a couple of walking trails. Only one end of the island is 'developed' (if you can call it that), with a few grass beach-huts for shade, a thatched dining shelter, & some outhouses. The beach is like something out of an in-flight magazine: white sand, blue blue water, just a bit of surf. No jellyfish, no sharks. When you walk up on the beach the caretakers come out to greet you, confirm that you have an admission ticket, & then take your orders for food. The menu is pretty simple: fish, prawns, chips, beer.
And so that's how we spent the day. We swam, we dried off, we ate, we drank, we swam some more. We talked about the tourist industry in Tanzania, the bad reputation of Dar es Salaam (somewhat deserved) & how day-trips like Bongoyo Island could be better marketed. We walked around a bit & looked in the small tide pool just beyond the dining shelter in which 50+ eels (might have been morays) swirled around like something conjured up by a snake-charmer.
At most I suppose there were 30 of us on the island when the last boat of the day arrived at 4:30 to take us back. It was a long ride back because we were fighting wind & whitecap waves all the way; skin tingled with so much exposure to salt & sun.
And now we're back, showered, supper over, in for the night. Tomorrow Greg & Brian will head to Mikumi park for the night & Doug & I will start the long trip home.
Today was an out-&-out holiday. We got up late, lingered through breakfast, & then got a taxi out to the Slipway market. The Slipway was the touristy spot that Doug & I visited in Dar es Salaam 2 weeks ago when we first arrived in the country. This time, however, the 4 of us took advantage of the market only long enough to use the washrooms, & then headed out to the end of the breakwater where we purchased tickets for a boat trip out to Bongoyo Island.
Most people have heard about Zanzibar, that exotic island off the coast of Tanzania. When Tanganika sought independence from Great Britain in 1961, it joined together with Zanibar & the 2 names combined to create 'Tanzania.' Doug & I had hoped to take a ferry over to Zanzibar this weekend but there was a pre-election referendum vote today & political unrest was expected so all foreigners were advised to stay away.
But many people are not aware that there are many other islands off the coast of Tanzania & Bongoyo is one of the smaller (& closer) of these. For 25,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $20 in Canadian funds) you can purchase a ticket which includes the boat fare there & back plus the admission to the marine wildlife reserve which encompasses the whole island.
The boat ride involves a 30-40 ride in a small passengers-only ferry over a little patch of the Indian Ocean. You get a marvellous ocean-side view of Dar es Salaam as well as a look at the extravagant homes all along the waterfront. This is the part of town where the diplomats live & their homes are about as far removed from the typical Tanzanian mud hut as can be imagined. On our way out to the island we passed by yachts anchored out from the diplomat homes, Arabic sailing dhows, & dugout canoes like elongated wooden clogs from which people were fishing.
Eventually we pulled up on the island, a genuine tropical paradise. Bongoyo appears to be about a kilometer long & half a kilometer wide, covered in trees & criss-crossed by a couple of walking trails. Only one end of the island is 'developed' (if you can call it that), with a few grass beach-huts for shade, a thatched dining shelter, & some outhouses. The beach is like something out of an in-flight magazine: white sand, blue blue water, just a bit of surf. No jellyfish, no sharks. When you walk up on the beach the caretakers come out to greet you, confirm that you have an admission ticket, & then take your orders for food. The menu is pretty simple: fish, prawns, chips, beer.
And so that's how we spent the day. We swam, we dried off, we ate, we drank, we swam some more. We talked about the tourist industry in Tanzania, the bad reputation of Dar es Salaam (somewhat deserved) & how day-trips like Bongoyo Island could be better marketed. We walked around a bit & looked in the small tide pool just beyond the dining shelter in which 50+ eels (might have been morays) swirled around like something conjured up by a snake-charmer.
At most I suppose there were 30 of us on the island when the last boat of the day arrived at 4:30 to take us back. It was a long ride back because we were fighting wind & whitecap waves all the way; skin tingled with so much exposure to salt & sun.
And now we're back, showered, supper over, in for the night. Tomorrow Greg & Brian will head to Mikumi park for the night & Doug & I will start the long trip home.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Tanzania, Day 14
July 30, 2010
Today I woke up promptly at 7 am, long enough to remember that this was a day off but that I might as well get up anyway since I was wide awake. The next thing I knew it was 9:30. So I ended up getting a wonderful sleep & I sure feel better for it.
We took our time over breakfast & then decided to explore a bit. The Botanical Gardens border on our hotel; the staff only have to unlock a gate behind the swimming pool & you are in the gardens. We were on the other side of the gate for barely a minute when we were intercepted by a young man. He introduced himself, explained that he was a student from the horticultural college in Morogoro, & proceeded to show us around. He showed us the huge cashew tree, over 150 years old & planted by the Germans when they were running the country. He pointed out the peacocks & the spider monkeys. And he showed us the mahogany tree & the cement enclosure where in previous days people were kept just before getting shipped to the Middle East to be sold as slaves. He explained that he was a Burundian, a refugee, who had witnessed the massacre of his father during the terrible genocide there. His mother, he said, hadn't been the same since & one of his brothers disappeared at that time & hasn't been seen to this day. He explained how he had malaria & had to rush to the hospital only 2 nights ago for emergency IV treatment but that he lacked the money to pay for essential follow-up medication. Could we help him with a donation?... Ah yes, the ask. At this point, I confess, the impact of his entire story vanished like a puff of smoke; I wasn't even sure if the cashew & mahogany trees were real (probably they were). We told him that we weren't carrying any money & in fact had to return to the hotel to meet some friends.
Poverty & desperation change peoples' behaviour; there's no doubt about that. As mzugus (white foreigners) we stand out vividly & are immediately subjected to racial profiling, as being immeasurably rich & either stingy or gullible. It is disappointing to feel used but it's just the way things are & the way things are likely to be for the immediate future, anyway.
The peacocks & the monkeys are real, however. The peacocks fly over the fence from the botanical gardens onto the patio of the hotel where people are drinking beer. The waiters serve nice little bowls of curry-roasted cashews with the drinks & no doubt the peacocks have figured this out. They strut around very boldly & I don't doubt they'd eat cashews right from your hand but I never saw anybody try it. Their beaks are intimidating. And the monkeys are also quite aggressive. We were warned to keep our windows closed at the hotel because if you leave them open the monkeys may come in & apparently they can make quite a mess.
Later, we took a taxi to the Misutu market to buy some spices. We had been told that that's where the spice market was (Zanzibar -- spice capital of the world -- is so close) but it seems we were misinformed or at least misunderstood. The Misutu market did have quite a variety of food items, especially vegetables, fruits, rice, beans, & chickens. We looked & looked, up & down every little nook & cranny & we did see plenty of stuff, including a woman who was busy at the back beheading the chickens. But we only saw a few people selling spices in pre-packaged plastic bags at set prices. Not quite what we were hoping for but we bought some anyway.
Visiting the market is a high-adrenaline experience. Misutu market is so noisy & crowded that it makes the market at Dodoma look like a Japanese garden in comparison. Everybody is hungry for business & as a mzugu you are a prey species. Your only option is to walk around presenting a composure of confidence & serenity (the last 2 things you feel). Otherwise, you WILL be vulnerable.
The rest of the day was pretty laid back. We ate, we drank, we walked along the beach beside Ocean Street, we waited for Greg & Brian to finish work & then we ate & drank some more. Tomorrow we are heading for the little island & (maybe!) a chance to swim in the Indian Ocean.
Today I woke up promptly at 7 am, long enough to remember that this was a day off but that I might as well get up anyway since I was wide awake. The next thing I knew it was 9:30. So I ended up getting a wonderful sleep & I sure feel better for it.
We took our time over breakfast & then decided to explore a bit. The Botanical Gardens border on our hotel; the staff only have to unlock a gate behind the swimming pool & you are in the gardens. We were on the other side of the gate for barely a minute when we were intercepted by a young man. He introduced himself, explained that he was a student from the horticultural college in Morogoro, & proceeded to show us around. He showed us the huge cashew tree, over 150 years old & planted by the Germans when they were running the country. He pointed out the peacocks & the spider monkeys. And he showed us the mahogany tree & the cement enclosure where in previous days people were kept just before getting shipped to the Middle East to be sold as slaves. He explained that he was a Burundian, a refugee, who had witnessed the massacre of his father during the terrible genocide there. His mother, he said, hadn't been the same since & one of his brothers disappeared at that time & hasn't been seen to this day. He explained how he had malaria & had to rush to the hospital only 2 nights ago for emergency IV treatment but that he lacked the money to pay for essential follow-up medication. Could we help him with a donation?... Ah yes, the ask. At this point, I confess, the impact of his entire story vanished like a puff of smoke; I wasn't even sure if the cashew & mahogany trees were real (probably they were). We told him that we weren't carrying any money & in fact had to return to the hotel to meet some friends.
Poverty & desperation change peoples' behaviour; there's no doubt about that. As mzugus (white foreigners) we stand out vividly & are immediately subjected to racial profiling, as being immeasurably rich & either stingy or gullible. It is disappointing to feel used but it's just the way things are & the way things are likely to be for the immediate future, anyway.
The peacocks & the monkeys are real, however. The peacocks fly over the fence from the botanical gardens onto the patio of the hotel where people are drinking beer. The waiters serve nice little bowls of curry-roasted cashews with the drinks & no doubt the peacocks have figured this out. They strut around very boldly & I don't doubt they'd eat cashews right from your hand but I never saw anybody try it. Their beaks are intimidating. And the monkeys are also quite aggressive. We were warned to keep our windows closed at the hotel because if you leave them open the monkeys may come in & apparently they can make quite a mess.
Later, we took a taxi to the Misutu market to buy some spices. We had been told that that's where the spice market was (Zanzibar -- spice capital of the world -- is so close) but it seems we were misinformed or at least misunderstood. The Misutu market did have quite a variety of food items, especially vegetables, fruits, rice, beans, & chickens. We looked & looked, up & down every little nook & cranny & we did see plenty of stuff, including a woman who was busy at the back beheading the chickens. But we only saw a few people selling spices in pre-packaged plastic bags at set prices. Not quite what we were hoping for but we bought some anyway.
Visiting the market is a high-adrenaline experience. Misutu market is so noisy & crowded that it makes the market at Dodoma look like a Japanese garden in comparison. Everybody is hungry for business & as a mzugu you are a prey species. Your only option is to walk around presenting a composure of confidence & serenity (the last 2 things you feel). Otherwise, you WILL be vulnerable.
The rest of the day was pretty laid back. We ate, we drank, we walked along the beach beside Ocean Street, we waited for Greg & Brian to finish work & then we ate & drank some more. Tomorrow we are heading for the little island & (maybe!) a chance to swim in the Indian Ocean.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tanzania, Day 13
July 29, 2010
It was a long & listless day. I had another full blown attack on my digestive system last night & it lasted pretty much all day today. Lousy sleep. This morning I took a bunch of pills to quiet things down & headed off to the National College of Tourism (NCT) with Brian & Greg.
The NCT is in another part of town so it took us at least half an hour of navigating through gridlocked traffic to get there. I don't know how the drivers maintain their sanity. They must be the most patient people in the world. Dar es Salaam is a huge city: the population is anywhere between 3 & 6 million, depending on whom you ask. Really, when you drive through it for a while & see how many people there are, & the variety of permanent, semi-permanent & questionable sorts of dwellings, you start to appreciate just how difficult it would be to get an accurate census here.
NCT is somewhat more upscale than the MRI setup in Dodoma. The offices are better furnished, there are computers in the computer lab, & the grounds are somewhat landscaped. The college has been involved in 2 main streams of instruction: 1) tourism & guiding, & 2) hospitality, food & beverage. The French government, as part of its foreign aid program, is building a fantastic new campus to house the hospitality programs & when the new building is complete, these older buildings can be used to expand the tourism & guiding programs. But for now the 2 programs are housed together.
We spent the morning listening to Brian & Greg's presentation about advisory committees (which was really very good & elicited some great discussion). For lunch, the hospitality students served us a great meal & in the afternoon we got a tour of the under-construction hospitality campus. The generosity of the French government is quite amazing: the building is 3 stories high & when it is finished it should be a training facility whose quality will match anything we've got in Canada. I could go on at length about it but that would make me sound far more energetic than I was. In fact, I felt like a limp dishrag all day, partly because of the intestines, partly because I was reluctant to eat much of anything, partly because Dar es Salaam is just so darn hot & humid. And this, they say, is their cool season!
In the evening, though, I felt a little better & we all went out for supper. This is one of the perks of travelling with tourism professionals: they know how to track down the best hotel deals & they are not afraid to seek out good cuisine or interesting sidelines. Our supper tonight was in a wonderful Thai restaurant on the top floor of the New Africa hotel where we got a great view of the Dar es Salaam waterfront, watching the lights of the harbour ferry come & go.
So it looks like we will be in for a fun & restful couple of days before we leave & we are more than ready for that.
It was a long & listless day. I had another full blown attack on my digestive system last night & it lasted pretty much all day today. Lousy sleep. This morning I took a bunch of pills to quiet things down & headed off to the National College of Tourism (NCT) with Brian & Greg.
The NCT is in another part of town so it took us at least half an hour of navigating through gridlocked traffic to get there. I don't know how the drivers maintain their sanity. They must be the most patient people in the world. Dar es Salaam is a huge city: the population is anywhere between 3 & 6 million, depending on whom you ask. Really, when you drive through it for a while & see how many people there are, & the variety of permanent, semi-permanent & questionable sorts of dwellings, you start to appreciate just how difficult it would be to get an accurate census here.
NCT is somewhat more upscale than the MRI setup in Dodoma. The offices are better furnished, there are computers in the computer lab, & the grounds are somewhat landscaped. The college has been involved in 2 main streams of instruction: 1) tourism & guiding, & 2) hospitality, food & beverage. The French government, as part of its foreign aid program, is building a fantastic new campus to house the hospitality programs & when the new building is complete, these older buildings can be used to expand the tourism & guiding programs. But for now the 2 programs are housed together.
We spent the morning listening to Brian & Greg's presentation about advisory committees (which was really very good & elicited some great discussion). For lunch, the hospitality students served us a great meal & in the afternoon we got a tour of the under-construction hospitality campus. The generosity of the French government is quite amazing: the building is 3 stories high & when it is finished it should be a training facility whose quality will match anything we've got in Canada. I could go on at length about it but that would make me sound far more energetic than I was. In fact, I felt like a limp dishrag all day, partly because of the intestines, partly because I was reluctant to eat much of anything, partly because Dar es Salaam is just so darn hot & humid. And this, they say, is their cool season!
In the evening, though, I felt a little better & we all went out for supper. This is one of the perks of travelling with tourism professionals: they know how to track down the best hotel deals & they are not afraid to seek out good cuisine or interesting sidelines. Our supper tonight was in a wonderful Thai restaurant on the top floor of the New Africa hotel where we got a great view of the Dar es Salaam waterfront, watching the lights of the harbour ferry come & go.
So it looks like we will be in for a fun & restful couple of days before we leave & we are more than ready for that.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tanzania, Day12
July 28, 2010
I am flying without a net tonight; i.e. typing this up 'live' on the internet without first doing it offline in Notepad. This is because (yes!!) we survived the drive from Dodoma to Dar es Salaam & are situated in a fancy hotel with wireless internet access. Actually the wireless internet signal registers as 'excellent' so I know I have a wonderful connection but still there is a very significant lag in my browsing so I just KNOW I am being hit with a serious computer virus. Oh well. As with the intestinal infection, I'll deal with it later.
We left Dodoma right on schedule at 10 am with no significant hitches. We were up at the usual time (relatively early) because we had to find a bank machine somewhere in Dodoma that worked. Tanzanian money is seriously devalued, the largest bill denomination is 10,000 Tanzanian shillings which is about $7.50 in Canadian funds. So when you withdraw a couple of hundred dollars worth of funds you end up with a huge wad of bills. What this means is that the ATM's are constantly running out of bills & everybody who has been waiting in line for the past half hour has to scatter to some other ATM & start the wait all over again. But we were lucky this time & on our first try were able to withdraw enough funds to pay our hotel bill. Everything is paid in cash in Dodoma.
And the long drive to Dar es Salaam was relatively uneventful. Maybe it's because the traffic seemed a little lighter; maybe it's just because our nerves have been conditioned to the high-adrenaline high-risk reality of Tanzanian driving but it just didn't seem so bad as our trip to Mikumi on Saturday. We stopped for lunch at the same place as on our way up & it was great.
Dar es Salaam has a very serious traffic congestion problem so we spent the last hour just trying to get into the city. It's amazing that there's not road rage here even though the traffic gets absolutely gridlocked. At any rate, we arrived at the Southern Sun hotel just after 5 pm & bid our fond farewells to our hosts.
We were supposed to be booked into the Holiday Inn in Dar es Salaam but Greg & Brian, our COTR colleagues who are working at the Tourism College project here, had other ideas. It is a fantastic bonus when you are travelling to have friends in the tourism business. They either know -- or have friends who know -- all the right places to stay & to eat. So our reservations were switched to the Southern Sun which is a cut above the Holiday Inn, run by Africans, & a quantum improvement over the New Dodoma hotel: definitely not down to our usual standards. It was also wonderful just to connect with Greg & Brian & compare notes about how the project is going so far.
So now we have been wined & dined & dispersed to our various rooms because we have to be up early (again) in order to be ready to leave here by 8 am. We will go with Brian & Greg to the National Tourism College & get a tour of the new training hotel being built by the French & attend a presentation by Brian about Advisory Committees & generally be supportive. With that in mind, I really should get to bed because it's almost midnight.
I am flying without a net tonight; i.e. typing this up 'live' on the internet without first doing it offline in Notepad. This is because (yes!!) we survived the drive from Dodoma to Dar es Salaam & are situated in a fancy hotel with wireless internet access. Actually the wireless internet signal registers as 'excellent' so I know I have a wonderful connection but still there is a very significant lag in my browsing so I just KNOW I am being hit with a serious computer virus. Oh well. As with the intestinal infection, I'll deal with it later.
We left Dodoma right on schedule at 10 am with no significant hitches. We were up at the usual time (relatively early) because we had to find a bank machine somewhere in Dodoma that worked. Tanzanian money is seriously devalued, the largest bill denomination is 10,000 Tanzanian shillings which is about $7.50 in Canadian funds. So when you withdraw a couple of hundred dollars worth of funds you end up with a huge wad of bills. What this means is that the ATM's are constantly running out of bills & everybody who has been waiting in line for the past half hour has to scatter to some other ATM & start the wait all over again. But we were lucky this time & on our first try were able to withdraw enough funds to pay our hotel bill. Everything is paid in cash in Dodoma.
And the long drive to Dar es Salaam was relatively uneventful. Maybe it's because the traffic seemed a little lighter; maybe it's just because our nerves have been conditioned to the high-adrenaline high-risk reality of Tanzanian driving but it just didn't seem so bad as our trip to Mikumi on Saturday. We stopped for lunch at the same place as on our way up & it was great.
Dar es Salaam has a very serious traffic congestion problem so we spent the last hour just trying to get into the city. It's amazing that there's not road rage here even though the traffic gets absolutely gridlocked. At any rate, we arrived at the Southern Sun hotel just after 5 pm & bid our fond farewells to our hosts.
We were supposed to be booked into the Holiday Inn in Dar es Salaam but Greg & Brian, our COTR colleagues who are working at the Tourism College project here, had other ideas. It is a fantastic bonus when you are travelling to have friends in the tourism business. They either know -- or have friends who know -- all the right places to stay & to eat. So our reservations were switched to the Southern Sun which is a cut above the Holiday Inn, run by Africans, & a quantum improvement over the New Dodoma hotel: definitely not down to our usual standards. It was also wonderful just to connect with Greg & Brian & compare notes about how the project is going so far.
So now we have been wined & dined & dispersed to our various rooms because we have to be up early (again) in order to be ready to leave here by 8 am. We will go with Brian & Greg to the National Tourism College & get a tour of the new training hotel being built by the French & attend a presentation by Brian about Advisory Committees & generally be supportive. With that in mind, I really should get to bed because it's almost midnight.
Tanzania, Day 11
July 27, 2010
It was our last day at MRI today so we had a lot of wrapping-up to do. I started off with a presentation about assessment, using Bloom's Taxonomy to expand your assessment strategies etc. After tea, Selemani requested more information about how we manage our Advisory Committees so Doug gave a presentation about that. We both did an overall review & reflection on the days of training. And we followed that with the usual anonymous evaluation form, then presented the Certificates of Training for everybody, the photographs (individual & group), hand-shaking etc. Then we got into perhaps the most important part of it: where to go for lunch. Doug & I had invited everybody, "our treat this time" & asked them to suggest a place. The group settled on a traditional eating establishment we hadn't yet visited (New Green cafe? something like that) & away we went.
The New Green cafe is situated in the downtown area of Dodoma. It seems to be owned by a couple who employ several kids (perhaps their own?) to wait on tables. The tables are outside, under trees, along the side of the street, & the cooking facilities for the cafe are in a location diagonally across the street. So you order your lunch from among the half-dozen or so possibilities & after a little while the kids carry your food across the street, dodging traffic. Good thing the street is not so busy.
The food was pretty good this time. Tanzania does not have what I would call a 'cuisine' but there are some tasty items. It seems that the most national dish is called 'Nyama choma'which translates as 'burnt meat'. Oh, surely they must mean 'barbecued meat' I thought when I first heard that but no: 'burnt meat' is more accurate. You are brought a dish piled high with almost-burnt bits of meat & you just eat away at the pile. You also get some condiments: limes, salt, some tomato or chili sauce, & a bit of fresh relish of some sort.
However the New Green Cafe was not a nyama choma sort of place so I was able to get some fish with ugali. Not bad, really. The fish looks totally gross when you first get it -- it seems to be just the huge burned head of a tilapia -- but in fact if you dig around a little you discover that there's lots of meat on the piece & it's tasty.
But you do not even start to eat before you wash your hands. Tanzanians wait until the food has just arrived & then they get up & wash hands. Every place -- even the lowliest & grimiest -- has handwashing facilities. Sometimes, as in the New Green Cafe, it is just a bucket with water & a little dish of soap powder. Because both Doug & I have been dealing with intestinal upset ever since we got here, regardless of whether we eat carefully or not, we have decided that the Tanzanians may have a point & we have started to follow the handwashing custom as well. Really, in this environment you just have no idea where you are picking up the germs. Washing your hands AFTER you handle the menu starts to make sense.
A lot of the food is eaten with your hands. The ugali (a sort of stiff porridge made from various kinds of flour; I think I mentioned it before) is pulled off into walnut-sized pieces & rolled in your fingers until it forms a ball & then it's dipped in whatever sauce came with your food. Pleasantly bland & filling. And then you just rip the fish apart with your hands & eat it bit by bit. French fries, however, are usually eaten with a fork. Go figure.
After eating, you get up & wash your hands again, which makes good sense after you have grubbed around digging out fish bones from greasy flesh for half an hour. Then you sit back & order another beer & wait for the bill.
We waited & waited for the bill. It turned out that the kids waiting on us were not that proficient with math & because we had a large group in our party, with plenty of engineers who had ordered quite a bit of beer, it was very difficult to calculate exactly how much had been ordered. Overall, it took us about 1 hour to eat & 1.5 hours to total the bill & get a receipt.
while they were struggling with the receipt, we had time to relax under the trees & drink & talk & watch the street life. I lost track of how many street vendors visited us, selling CDs, clothes, shoes, toothpaste, jewellry. A young woman wearing a t-shirt saying 'Jesus will do it AGAIN' stayed for a while & chanted prayers in Swahili. "She has a mental condition", one of our group told us, "and she can get aggressive at times." Hm, interesting; but she did not get aggressive this time & eventually moved on.
In the crowds of people coming & going, it took me a while to notice the street children. First there was a girl of maybe 12 or 13, leaning against a tree just at the edge of our group, watching us remotely. She was not begging; I'm not sure what she wanted. And I didn't notice until Selemani pointed it out to me that she was 5 or 6 months pregnant. "This is a common problem in Dodoma," he commented.
She drifted off into the crowd but suddenly there were 2 young boys sitting at the vacated table next to us. They would have been 10 or 12 or so & they stood out because they were dirty (most children in Tanzania seem to be very well looked after). They eyed our food & put out their hands to beg once or twice but members of our group spoke something & they retreated back to the table. Evenutally the New Green kids came to clear our table & they moved our plates over to the neighbouring table while they discussed the bill with us (at great length). Immediately the boys started going through our leftovers, looking for chicken bones with meat left on them & other bits. The one fellow had a bag & was trying to drain the baked beans into it but a woman in our crowd got up & took a spoon to help him collect the food more efficiently.
It was interesting to see how the street children were treated. Their begging behaviour was not encouraged or even tolerated but they were not yelled at or talked about at our table. Members of our group were willing to help them get some food & even the cafe owners turned a blind eye to their scavenging. On the whole I would have to say that they were treated more compassionately than I have seen street people treated in Canada.
The bill, when it came, had to be added up by half a dozen people & the total came out differently each time, partly because the engineers at some of the tables kept on ordering more beer (!). Finally Doug got so frustrated waiting for the total that he rounded it up (generously) just to cover the sum whatever it might be. The New Green staff was so grateful for the tip that they had to thank him at length & then they coaxed him to have his picture taken with their kids.
Things do take time.
But now the day is done & tomorrow we head for Dar es Salaam. Another 7 hours of death-defying travel on the highways of Tanzania. Wish me luck...
It was our last day at MRI today so we had a lot of wrapping-up to do. I started off with a presentation about assessment, using Bloom's Taxonomy to expand your assessment strategies etc. After tea, Selemani requested more information about how we manage our Advisory Committees so Doug gave a presentation about that. We both did an overall review & reflection on the days of training. And we followed that with the usual anonymous evaluation form, then presented the Certificates of Training for everybody, the photographs (individual & group), hand-shaking etc. Then we got into perhaps the most important part of it: where to go for lunch. Doug & I had invited everybody, "our treat this time" & asked them to suggest a place. The group settled on a traditional eating establishment we hadn't yet visited (New Green cafe? something like that) & away we went.
The New Green cafe is situated in the downtown area of Dodoma. It seems to be owned by a couple who employ several kids (perhaps their own?) to wait on tables. The tables are outside, under trees, along the side of the street, & the cooking facilities for the cafe are in a location diagonally across the street. So you order your lunch from among the half-dozen or so possibilities & after a little while the kids carry your food across the street, dodging traffic. Good thing the street is not so busy.
The food was pretty good this time. Tanzania does not have what I would call a 'cuisine' but there are some tasty items. It seems that the most national dish is called 'Nyama choma'which translates as 'burnt meat'. Oh, surely they must mean 'barbecued meat' I thought when I first heard that but no: 'burnt meat' is more accurate. You are brought a dish piled high with almost-burnt bits of meat & you just eat away at the pile. You also get some condiments: limes, salt, some tomato or chili sauce, & a bit of fresh relish of some sort.
However the New Green Cafe was not a nyama choma sort of place so I was able to get some fish with ugali. Not bad, really. The fish looks totally gross when you first get it -- it seems to be just the huge burned head of a tilapia -- but in fact if you dig around a little you discover that there's lots of meat on the piece & it's tasty.
But you do not even start to eat before you wash your hands. Tanzanians wait until the food has just arrived & then they get up & wash hands. Every place -- even the lowliest & grimiest -- has handwashing facilities. Sometimes, as in the New Green Cafe, it is just a bucket with water & a little dish of soap powder. Because both Doug & I have been dealing with intestinal upset ever since we got here, regardless of whether we eat carefully or not, we have decided that the Tanzanians may have a point & we have started to follow the handwashing custom as well. Really, in this environment you just have no idea where you are picking up the germs. Washing your hands AFTER you handle the menu starts to make sense.
A lot of the food is eaten with your hands. The ugali (a sort of stiff porridge made from various kinds of flour; I think I mentioned it before) is pulled off into walnut-sized pieces & rolled in your fingers until it forms a ball & then it's dipped in whatever sauce came with your food. Pleasantly bland & filling. And then you just rip the fish apart with your hands & eat it bit by bit. French fries, however, are usually eaten with a fork. Go figure.
After eating, you get up & wash your hands again, which makes good sense after you have grubbed around digging out fish bones from greasy flesh for half an hour. Then you sit back & order another beer & wait for the bill.
We waited & waited for the bill. It turned out that the kids waiting on us were not that proficient with math & because we had a large group in our party, with plenty of engineers who had ordered quite a bit of beer, it was very difficult to calculate exactly how much had been ordered. Overall, it took us about 1 hour to eat & 1.5 hours to total the bill & get a receipt.
while they were struggling with the receipt, we had time to relax under the trees & drink & talk & watch the street life. I lost track of how many street vendors visited us, selling CDs, clothes, shoes, toothpaste, jewellry. A young woman wearing a t-shirt saying 'Jesus will do it AGAIN' stayed for a while & chanted prayers in Swahili. "She has a mental condition", one of our group told us, "and she can get aggressive at times." Hm, interesting; but she did not get aggressive this time & eventually moved on.
In the crowds of people coming & going, it took me a while to notice the street children. First there was a girl of maybe 12 or 13, leaning against a tree just at the edge of our group, watching us remotely. She was not begging; I'm not sure what she wanted. And I didn't notice until Selemani pointed it out to me that she was 5 or 6 months pregnant. "This is a common problem in Dodoma," he commented.
She drifted off into the crowd but suddenly there were 2 young boys sitting at the vacated table next to us. They would have been 10 or 12 or so & they stood out because they were dirty (most children in Tanzania seem to be very well looked after). They eyed our food & put out their hands to beg once or twice but members of our group spoke something & they retreated back to the table. Evenutally the New Green kids came to clear our table & they moved our plates over to the neighbouring table while they discussed the bill with us (at great length). Immediately the boys started going through our leftovers, looking for chicken bones with meat left on them & other bits. The one fellow had a bag & was trying to drain the baked beans into it but a woman in our crowd got up & took a spoon to help him collect the food more efficiently.
It was interesting to see how the street children were treated. Their begging behaviour was not encouraged or even tolerated but they were not yelled at or talked about at our table. Members of our group were willing to help them get some food & even the cafe owners turned a blind eye to their scavenging. On the whole I would have to say that they were treated more compassionately than I have seen street people treated in Canada.
The bill, when it came, had to be added up by half a dozen people & the total came out differently each time, partly because the engineers at some of the tables kept on ordering more beer (!). Finally Doug got so frustrated waiting for the total that he rounded it up (generously) just to cover the sum whatever it might be. The New Green staff was so grateful for the tip that they had to thank him at length & then they coaxed him to have his picture taken with their kids.
Things do take time.
But now the day is done & tomorrow we head for Dar es Salaam. Another 7 hours of death-defying travel on the highways of Tanzania. Wish me luck...
Tanzania, Day 10
July 26, 2010
Tonight is a busy night. Tomorrow is our last day at MRI & we have a lot to prepare: 2 presentations plus certificates + evaluation forms. It is 10 pm already & I'm only about halfway through my share of the responsibilities so I'll cut this short. Try to, anyway.
Mr. Ndabazi had said that lesson planning was a problem for the tutors so we gave a presentation this morning on that topic. I gave a (rather dull) presentation about long-term (semester-wide) lesson planning & Doug presented an interesting exercise involving the planning & delivery of a short-term lesson. It is hard to explain but it involves separating the class into groups, supplying them with an elastic band, pieces of string, & some household objects (a water bottle, soap box, piece of chalk etc.) which they have to build into a tower using only the elastic band manoevered by pieces of string. All without talking. The lesson objective is to learn about the importance of communication when working as a team. It was a lot of fun (we couldn't forbid them to laugh!) & I think at least some of them got the objective, too.
After tea, we all went for a tour of the GST. We are so accustomed in Canada to kind of snarl whenever we hear that acronym but in Tanzania it means something quite different: Geological Survey of Tanzania. The GST is quite a big outfit by Tanzanian standards, with 65 employees. Many of the employees are former MRI students so it is like Old Home Week when MRI staff visit. We met the heads of the various departments, saw where they developed the geological maps of Tanzania, & toured the various labs in which rock samples are analyzed in a number of ways. Some of the equipment was very old & not working any more but some appeared to be relatively up-to-date & well-used. The GST was established in 1925 by the colonial government & some of the old maps are still labelled 'Tanganika'. I can remember learning that exotic name in my earliest school years & it still seems so amazing that here I am, staring that name back on a wall in a geological survey room in post-colonial Tanzania.
As an aside -- it is hard to believe just how POLITE Tanzanians are. For example, when we were introduced to the CEO of the GST, he spent about 15 minutes greeting us before escorting us out of his office. At this point I thought the tour was beginning, but no; we were led to a side room with couches & a TV & an administrative assistant brought in pop & water, followed by little saucers of locally roasted cashews. So we sat some more & introduced ourselves, one by one, & talked pleasantries for another 20 minutes at least. Relationship-building is very important & it takes time. And every time you meet someone new, there are the long, warm 3-step handshakes, the greetings etc. And when you leave there's the exchange of 'asante' (thank you), 'karibu' (you're welcome), sometimes followed by 'asante sana' (thanks a lot) & 'karibu sana' (you're MOST welcome) etc. And when you see someone you know, like at work the next morning, there are many different greetings possible & each one has a different proper response. Our Tanzanian colleagues have been trying to teach us the correct forms but so far we have only mastered the really easy ones & we need steady coaching on the others.
The train was in town today! I didn't see it but we certainly heard the whistle all through town today. Next time I am here I am certainly going to see what's involved in getting a train ride
-- Wait a minute; did I say this was going to be a short post? Ah, wishful thinking, I guess. But enough is enough for now.
Tonight is a busy night. Tomorrow is our last day at MRI & we have a lot to prepare: 2 presentations plus certificates + evaluation forms. It is 10 pm already & I'm only about halfway through my share of the responsibilities so I'll cut this short. Try to, anyway.
Mr. Ndabazi had said that lesson planning was a problem for the tutors so we gave a presentation this morning on that topic. I gave a (rather dull) presentation about long-term (semester-wide) lesson planning & Doug presented an interesting exercise involving the planning & delivery of a short-term lesson. It is hard to explain but it involves separating the class into groups, supplying them with an elastic band, pieces of string, & some household objects (a water bottle, soap box, piece of chalk etc.) which they have to build into a tower using only the elastic band manoevered by pieces of string. All without talking. The lesson objective is to learn about the importance of communication when working as a team. It was a lot of fun (we couldn't forbid them to laugh!) & I think at least some of them got the objective, too.
After tea, we all went for a tour of the GST. We are so accustomed in Canada to kind of snarl whenever we hear that acronym but in Tanzania it means something quite different: Geological Survey of Tanzania. The GST is quite a big outfit by Tanzanian standards, with 65 employees. Many of the employees are former MRI students so it is like Old Home Week when MRI staff visit. We met the heads of the various departments, saw where they developed the geological maps of Tanzania, & toured the various labs in which rock samples are analyzed in a number of ways. Some of the equipment was very old & not working any more but some appeared to be relatively up-to-date & well-used. The GST was established in 1925 by the colonial government & some of the old maps are still labelled 'Tanganika'. I can remember learning that exotic name in my earliest school years & it still seems so amazing that here I am, staring that name back on a wall in a geological survey room in post-colonial Tanzania.
As an aside -- it is hard to believe just how POLITE Tanzanians are. For example, when we were introduced to the CEO of the GST, he spent about 15 minutes greeting us before escorting us out of his office. At this point I thought the tour was beginning, but no; we were led to a side room with couches & a TV & an administrative assistant brought in pop & water, followed by little saucers of locally roasted cashews. So we sat some more & introduced ourselves, one by one, & talked pleasantries for another 20 minutes at least. Relationship-building is very important & it takes time. And every time you meet someone new, there are the long, warm 3-step handshakes, the greetings etc. And when you leave there's the exchange of 'asante' (thank you), 'karibu' (you're welcome), sometimes followed by 'asante sana' (thanks a lot) & 'karibu sana' (you're MOST welcome) etc. And when you see someone you know, like at work the next morning, there are many different greetings possible & each one has a different proper response. Our Tanzanian colleagues have been trying to teach us the correct forms but so far we have only mastered the really easy ones & we need steady coaching on the others.
The train was in town today! I didn't see it but we certainly heard the whistle all through town today. Next time I am here I am certainly going to see what's involved in getting a train ride
-- Wait a minute; did I say this was going to be a short post? Ah, wishful thinking, I guess. But enough is enough for now.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Tanzania, Day 9
July25, 2010
It is a 'memorial' day for Tanzanians today. They remember countrypeople who fought in WW2 (I guess they were Tanganikans then, or maybe British citizens). And they also remember the Tanzanians who fought against Idi Amin's Ugandan army in 1971. But for us, it was just Sunday & a very, very welcome day off.
We got up late, lingered over breakfast, spent some time reviewing the work completed & the work left to do, came up with a rough game plan for the days ahead, & then headed out to the market. Dodoma has a great market -- large, sprawling & busy. We had a couple of shopping goals in mind. Doug was looking for some material for Anne, who wants to make some cushion covers. I was looking for dental floss, & we were both looking for packages of Kilamanjaro tea (which comes in a beautiful little box & makes a very nice cup of tea besides). We wandered up & down the little alleyways, dodging motorcycles & negotiating with the entrepreneurs. During the couple of hours in which we browsed, I saw only two other Caucasians the whole time. You get accustomed to being stared at but for the most part the market people were polite & not overly aggressive with marketing. We did find some great fabric (too much choice, really) & we found the tea but nobody seemed to carry anything that looked like dental floss.
It actually felt hot during midday so we wandered back to the hotel to rest & enjoy a cold beer. Thinking about it... we really haven't been outside during the middle part of the day; we have been inside, working, with some degree of airconditioning in our classroom. On the whole, the weather in Dodoma region -- during this 'winter' dry season anyway -- is just lovely. It hasn't rained since we've been here & they tell us it won't rain, period, until November. The evenings are cool & we sleep with blankets pulled up. Mornings & evenings are very pleasant, with temperatures in the low 20's. It is sunny for the most part, & often breezy.
By 7 pm we were both pooped. I decided to get some photocopies for our workshop tomorrow & then spend some quality time on the internet. I went into the internet cafe & the young woman there assured me that she could photocopy my handout. 15 copies, 16 pages each... She had to print each page & then print the reverse side manually, so it took a while. By the time she was ready to log me into the internet terminal, only 15 minutes remained for the internet cafe to be open. Why couldn't she have logged me in at the beginning? And why does the internet cafe close an hour early tonight?? Do I sound just a touch frustrated & whiny...???
It's probably just as well; I still have my presentation to plan for tomorrow & given the fatigue, really should get an early night.
It is a 'memorial' day for Tanzanians today. They remember countrypeople who fought in WW2 (I guess they were Tanganikans then, or maybe British citizens). And they also remember the Tanzanians who fought against Idi Amin's Ugandan army in 1971. But for us, it was just Sunday & a very, very welcome day off.
We got up late, lingered over breakfast, spent some time reviewing the work completed & the work left to do, came up with a rough game plan for the days ahead, & then headed out to the market. Dodoma has a great market -- large, sprawling & busy. We had a couple of shopping goals in mind. Doug was looking for some material for Anne, who wants to make some cushion covers. I was looking for dental floss, & we were both looking for packages of Kilamanjaro tea (which comes in a beautiful little box & makes a very nice cup of tea besides). We wandered up & down the little alleyways, dodging motorcycles & negotiating with the entrepreneurs. During the couple of hours in which we browsed, I saw only two other Caucasians the whole time. You get accustomed to being stared at but for the most part the market people were polite & not overly aggressive with marketing. We did find some great fabric (too much choice, really) & we found the tea but nobody seemed to carry anything that looked like dental floss.
It actually felt hot during midday so we wandered back to the hotel to rest & enjoy a cold beer. Thinking about it... we really haven't been outside during the middle part of the day; we have been inside, working, with some degree of airconditioning in our classroom. On the whole, the weather in Dodoma region -- during this 'winter' dry season anyway -- is just lovely. It hasn't rained since we've been here & they tell us it won't rain, period, until November. The evenings are cool & we sleep with blankets pulled up. Mornings & evenings are very pleasant, with temperatures in the low 20's. It is sunny for the most part, & often breezy.
By 7 pm we were both pooped. I decided to get some photocopies for our workshop tomorrow & then spend some quality time on the internet. I went into the internet cafe & the young woman there assured me that she could photocopy my handout. 15 copies, 16 pages each... She had to print each page & then print the reverse side manually, so it took a while. By the time she was ready to log me into the internet terminal, only 15 minutes remained for the internet cafe to be open. Why couldn't she have logged me in at the beginning? And why does the internet cafe close an hour early tonight?? Do I sound just a touch frustrated & whiny...???
It's probably just as well; I still have my presentation to plan for tomorrow & given the fatigue, really should get an early night.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Tanzania, Day 8
July 24, 2010
Well, dear reader, if you have been following this blog so far you will know that we were scheduled to go to Mikumi today. And if you just want the we-did-this & we-saw-that account, I'll give it to you straight: yes, we did indeed get to Mikumi National Park & it was very good. Highly recommended & you really should see it if ever you are in the neighbourhood. It's easy to find: all you do is start at Dar es Salaam (perhaps the hardest part if you are starting from Canada), head north to Morogoro, then turn west & follow the Iringi road until you enter the park. And we did see lots of animals! There were elephants, zebras, giraffes, buffalo, wildebeest, jackals, & countless beautiful gazelles. We even saw a hippopotamus in the watering hole. We didn't see the lion but someone else did just the day before.
No, the real safari on this trip was the drive. It was a unique experience. No; 'unique' doesn't capture it at all -- it was TERRIFYING. We got back to the hotel 45 minutes ago & even though it's after midnight I know I might as well forget about sleeping until the adrenalin is out of my system.
It's not that our driver was reckless or incapable: I think he is really very, very good. And it's not that the roads are so bad: both the highways from Dodoma to Morogoro and from Morogoro to Mikumi are well-paved, with centre-lines & even a bit of a shoulder all the way along. It's just the nature of driving in Tanzania. There is no speed limit on the open road. You can go as fast as your car can handle & your nerves can sustain. We travelled for much of the distance between 120 & 140 km but for a couple of white knuckling sections it was more like 160 km/hr. And it's not like we Canadians don't speed along too when we've got the highway to ourselves... but in Tanzania they drive like that, tailgating about 2 m behind the vehicle ahead. It is so bad at night that when the truck ahead of you (most of the vehicles on the road are trucks) slows down suddenly, the light from his brake-lights almost blinds you.
The tailgating is pretty amazing. It is sort of institutionalized. The drivers communicate to each other in some rather complex ways using turn indicators & high-beam headlights. I'm not sure I've completely figured it out but it seems that if the vehicle ahead of you (usually it's a truck & you're following it so closely you can't see anything beyond the back of the truck) can see that it would be unsafe for you to pass, he flashes his right-side turn indicator. When the coast is clear ahead, he flashes his left (keep in mind that traffic drives on the left side in Tanzania). This system is, howevever, not 100% reliable. They also flash their high-beams at each other -- just for a second or 2 each time -- in some meaningful way but whether it's to communicate some clear message or just to keep each other awake on the road, I'm not sure.
Driving in Tanzania is 'close' in many ways, not just tailgating. You dash along at these crazy speeds with people right next to you on all sides. We sped past schoolchildren on bicycles, entrepreneurs hawking bananas & cashew nuts, herds of cattle, truck drivers changing tires, little kids playing at the side of the road, & old ladies hobbling across the street -- all within centimeters. Several times we passed one vehicle with another coming in the opposite direction & pulled back into our lane between them with the most marginal clearances.
The only real & effective speed control are the 'bumps'. These are great lumps of ashphalt forming a sort of raised sidewalk across the highway in the downtown core (if you can call it that) of every little village. The bump is flanked in each direction with a series of 3 narrower bumps which remind you -- both by noise & by violent vibration inside the vehicle -- that the bump is imminent. And so, thank God, we did slow down enough for a short distance in each village to see details of village life. There are endless stalls selling mobile phone cards, plastic pails & basins in every colour, mattresses. There are the less-formal merchants selling from their baskets of tomatoes, bags of rice & beans, second-hand clothes on hangers, huge bags of charcoal for cooking fires, loosely-contained chickens.
So it's an adventure. But now I'm falling asleep (1:30 am) so I'll sign this off...
Well, dear reader, if you have been following this blog so far you will know that we were scheduled to go to Mikumi today. And if you just want the we-did-this & we-saw-that account, I'll give it to you straight: yes, we did indeed get to Mikumi National Park & it was very good. Highly recommended & you really should see it if ever you are in the neighbourhood. It's easy to find: all you do is start at Dar es Salaam (perhaps the hardest part if you are starting from Canada), head north to Morogoro, then turn west & follow the Iringi road until you enter the park. And we did see lots of animals! There were elephants, zebras, giraffes, buffalo, wildebeest, jackals, & countless beautiful gazelles. We even saw a hippopotamus in the watering hole. We didn't see the lion but someone else did just the day before.
No, the real safari on this trip was the drive. It was a unique experience. No; 'unique' doesn't capture it at all -- it was TERRIFYING. We got back to the hotel 45 minutes ago & even though it's after midnight I know I might as well forget about sleeping until the adrenalin is out of my system.
It's not that our driver was reckless or incapable: I think he is really very, very good. And it's not that the roads are so bad: both the highways from Dodoma to Morogoro and from Morogoro to Mikumi are well-paved, with centre-lines & even a bit of a shoulder all the way along. It's just the nature of driving in Tanzania. There is no speed limit on the open road. You can go as fast as your car can handle & your nerves can sustain. We travelled for much of the distance between 120 & 140 km but for a couple of white knuckling sections it was more like 160 km/hr. And it's not like we Canadians don't speed along too when we've got the highway to ourselves... but in Tanzania they drive like that, tailgating about 2 m behind the vehicle ahead. It is so bad at night that when the truck ahead of you (most of the vehicles on the road are trucks) slows down suddenly, the light from his brake-lights almost blinds you.
The tailgating is pretty amazing. It is sort of institutionalized. The drivers communicate to each other in some rather complex ways using turn indicators & high-beam headlights. I'm not sure I've completely figured it out but it seems that if the vehicle ahead of you (usually it's a truck & you're following it so closely you can't see anything beyond the back of the truck) can see that it would be unsafe for you to pass, he flashes his right-side turn indicator. When the coast is clear ahead, he flashes his left (keep in mind that traffic drives on the left side in Tanzania). This system is, howevever, not 100% reliable. They also flash their high-beams at each other -- just for a second or 2 each time -- in some meaningful way but whether it's to communicate some clear message or just to keep each other awake on the road, I'm not sure.
Driving in Tanzania is 'close' in many ways, not just tailgating. You dash along at these crazy speeds with people right next to you on all sides. We sped past schoolchildren on bicycles, entrepreneurs hawking bananas & cashew nuts, herds of cattle, truck drivers changing tires, little kids playing at the side of the road, & old ladies hobbling across the street -- all within centimeters. Several times we passed one vehicle with another coming in the opposite direction & pulled back into our lane between them with the most marginal clearances.
The only real & effective speed control are the 'bumps'. These are great lumps of ashphalt forming a sort of raised sidewalk across the highway in the downtown core (if you can call it that) of every little village. The bump is flanked in each direction with a series of 3 narrower bumps which remind you -- both by noise & by violent vibration inside the vehicle -- that the bump is imminent. And so, thank God, we did slow down enough for a short distance in each village to see details of village life. There are endless stalls selling mobile phone cards, plastic pails & basins in every colour, mattresses. There are the less-formal merchants selling from their baskets of tomatoes, bags of rice & beans, second-hand clothes on hangers, huge bags of charcoal for cooking fires, loosely-contained chickens.
So it's an adventure. But now I'm falling asleep (1:30 am) so I'll sign this off...
Tanzania, Day 7
July 23, 2010
I have been sitting here for 10 minutes, staring at the computer screen, examining my fingernails, contemplating the pattern on the carpet (is it a fleur de lis?). Not hard to guess that it is the end of a busy day at the end of a very full week.
For those of you who are educators & interested in this sort of thing: our workshop lessons went more or less as planned. We started with a discussion of gap analysis, of using the occupational profile to identify gaps in program curriculum. We did a rough gap analysis comparing the DACUM charts they made yesterday with the modules (courses) they deliver at level 6. After tea-break, we looked at assessing prior learning (PLAR) & how that might work for MRI. Actually, the larger question is IF that might work for them since the government regulation of curriculum is, in some ways, much more restrictive than it is for us. You'd think PLAR would be a great idea: after all, Tanzania is desperate for skilled labour & a prior learning recognition program enables already-competent people to be fast-tracked for credentialling. But things will have to change at the national level before MRI can implement such a program of their own.
And we talked a bit about rubrics & about teaching strategies & that ran us into (again) what teaching strategy do you use to teach about complicated equipment when there is no equipment to teach with? And I talked a bit about using a good rubric to enable assessment by a non-educator on the worksite & I talked a bit about the Jamaican bobsled team who learned how to do Olympic bobsledding without snow. But it all sounds a bit lame, I admit.
And then we ALL went for lunch, our treat this time. We were taken to Jicama, which is sort of along the same lines as Chako ni Chako but this time with pork. The menu at Jicama is very simple: dishes of barbecued or roasted pork pieces, a few semi-dried, roasted plaintains, & dishes of raw vegetable relish. Hm. For a vegetarian such as myself with a fragile North American digestive system it is not a lot of choice. But I was able to nibble on the plantains (which were good) & even gnaw away at a couple of pork pieces. And they bring you beer. You sit outside at tables covered with plastic tablecloths, under giant spreading locust trees, listen to African music (Congo music but sung in Swahili for some reason) & you shout to each other above the sound of the music & have a wonderful time.
Now we are done the post-workday debriefing session, a little walk around the block during the 5 minutes between dusk & full night, a little supper, a half-hour of internet time just before closing.
Tomorrow we head for Mikumi National Park! Should be good.
I have been sitting here for 10 minutes, staring at the computer screen, examining my fingernails, contemplating the pattern on the carpet (is it a fleur de lis?). Not hard to guess that it is the end of a busy day at the end of a very full week.
For those of you who are educators & interested in this sort of thing: our workshop lessons went more or less as planned. We started with a discussion of gap analysis, of using the occupational profile to identify gaps in program curriculum. We did a rough gap analysis comparing the DACUM charts they made yesterday with the modules (courses) they deliver at level 6. After tea-break, we looked at assessing prior learning (PLAR) & how that might work for MRI. Actually, the larger question is IF that might work for them since the government regulation of curriculum is, in some ways, much more restrictive than it is for us. You'd think PLAR would be a great idea: after all, Tanzania is desperate for skilled labour & a prior learning recognition program enables already-competent people to be fast-tracked for credentialling. But things will have to change at the national level before MRI can implement such a program of their own.
And we talked a bit about rubrics & about teaching strategies & that ran us into (again) what teaching strategy do you use to teach about complicated equipment when there is no equipment to teach with? And I talked a bit about using a good rubric to enable assessment by a non-educator on the worksite & I talked a bit about the Jamaican bobsled team who learned how to do Olympic bobsledding without snow. But it all sounds a bit lame, I admit.
And then we ALL went for lunch, our treat this time. We were taken to Jicama, which is sort of along the same lines as Chako ni Chako but this time with pork. The menu at Jicama is very simple: dishes of barbecued or roasted pork pieces, a few semi-dried, roasted plaintains, & dishes of raw vegetable relish. Hm. For a vegetarian such as myself with a fragile North American digestive system it is not a lot of choice. But I was able to nibble on the plantains (which were good) & even gnaw away at a couple of pork pieces. And they bring you beer. You sit outside at tables covered with plastic tablecloths, under giant spreading locust trees, listen to African music (Congo music but sung in Swahili for some reason) & you shout to each other above the sound of the music & have a wonderful time.
Now we are done the post-workday debriefing session, a little walk around the block during the 5 minutes between dusk & full night, a little supper, a half-hour of internet time just before closing.
Tomorrow we head for Mikumi National Park! Should be good.
Tanzania, Day 6
July 22 2010
Another busy day, made doubly so because of the energetic activity of my intestines. Really, I thought the Dukoral medication was supposed to take care of this sort of thing. Maybe it mostly is.
Today in the workshops we worked in earnest on the occupational analyses, using DACUM. At first we tried an informal example (coming up with an occupational profile for a football/soccer player), thinking this would be a fun sort of warm-up. But our students didn't seem at all familiar with the working life of a professional athlete. After the tea-break we moved into the main event, designing a detailed occupational analysis for the positions they are preparing their students for (yes; bad sentence construction there, I know). With this activity, our group moved forward quickly & worked hard & long. They were so reluctant to leave it before finishing that we took an extra 15 minutes into the lunch break to work.
We went back to the St. Gaspar Convention Centre for lunch, a place we have frequented several times this week. I believe that our host, who is extremely hospitable, is thinking that because this location is a 'western' sort of establishment it will be more familiar for us. It's the facility that the Tanzanian NGO's use for conferences etc. But the service is amazingly slow. There were 6 staff waiting on our little group of 7; nobody else in the entire huge restaurant & yet it took an hour to get the food & they mixed up one of the orders.
Oh well; never mind: we weren't that hungry anyway (thanks to intestines) & besides the late start & long wait made for a very short afternoon session by the time we arrived back at the Institute.
Afterwards, we went back to the market to pick up my Tanzanian outfit. Amazing! The blouse was completed (even lined) & it fits like a second skin. In fact it is maybe a bit too tight but the centre back seam is generous enough to give me room to let it out. Doug had Anne's measurements so they will have hers ready tomorrow. The fabrics in the tailoring area of the market are beautiful; there is quite a bit more variety than we saw in Nyeri, in Kenya.
So it was very much a sort of we-went-here & we-did-this sort of day. Not much else to tell. We did our post-workshop de-brief, had a bite of supper (intestines quiet by this time) & even managed to get on the internet for an hour.
And now I have one more workshop session to prepare before bed.
Another busy day, made doubly so because of the energetic activity of my intestines. Really, I thought the Dukoral medication was supposed to take care of this sort of thing. Maybe it mostly is.
Today in the workshops we worked in earnest on the occupational analyses, using DACUM. At first we tried an informal example (coming up with an occupational profile for a football/soccer player), thinking this would be a fun sort of warm-up. But our students didn't seem at all familiar with the working life of a professional athlete. After the tea-break we moved into the main event, designing a detailed occupational analysis for the positions they are preparing their students for (yes; bad sentence construction there, I know). With this activity, our group moved forward quickly & worked hard & long. They were so reluctant to leave it before finishing that we took an extra 15 minutes into the lunch break to work.
We went back to the St. Gaspar Convention Centre for lunch, a place we have frequented several times this week. I believe that our host, who is extremely hospitable, is thinking that because this location is a 'western' sort of establishment it will be more familiar for us. It's the facility that the Tanzanian NGO's use for conferences etc. But the service is amazingly slow. There were 6 staff waiting on our little group of 7; nobody else in the entire huge restaurant & yet it took an hour to get the food & they mixed up one of the orders.
Oh well; never mind: we weren't that hungry anyway (thanks to intestines) & besides the late start & long wait made for a very short afternoon session by the time we arrived back at the Institute.
Afterwards, we went back to the market to pick up my Tanzanian outfit. Amazing! The blouse was completed (even lined) & it fits like a second skin. In fact it is maybe a bit too tight but the centre back seam is generous enough to give me room to let it out. Doug had Anne's measurements so they will have hers ready tomorrow. The fabrics in the tailoring area of the market are beautiful; there is quite a bit more variety than we saw in Nyeri, in Kenya.
So it was very much a sort of we-went-here & we-did-this sort of day. Not much else to tell. We did our post-workshop de-brief, had a bite of supper (intestines quiet by this time) & even managed to get on the internet for an hour.
And now I have one more workshop session to prepare before bed.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tanzania, Day 5
July 21, 2010
A busy day & I am tired already. Let's see if I can make this short.
The big news is that we shifted our address today to the New Dodoma Hotel. We did it before even starting for work, just took all our bags from the Twiga & drove straight to the New Dodoma & booked rooms. This feels like a very positive move.
It was a full day at MRI. We made presentations about Labour Market Information & Occupational Profiles, showing how things are done in Canada. It is still hard to get feedback from the group & when they do provide an answer to a question (usually after MUCH prompting) the voice is so quiet & the accent so intense that it is hard to understand the contribution. It is obviously a cultural response to the classroom environment because during tea-times & at lunch etc. the group is EXTREMELY friendly, open, talkative, & volume is not a problem. Even the accent seems easier to understand!
We also talked about DACUM processes, using expert workers to come up with accurate occupational processes; and then spent some time working with Bloom's Taxonomy. (Based on their evaluation notes from yesterday, this was a topic that they clearly wanted to know more about).
One topic that keeps coming up is the need for up-to-date mining equipment that their students can use for training. You can't miss the frustration in their voices. I feel frustrated along with them. So we talked about getting donations of equipment (remote but possible, I suppose), using simulations, & focussing on the most difficult micro-task of using the tool. Stuff like that.
One happy little development is that I am going to have a lovely Tanzanian dress!! Doug happened to complement one of the women today on her beautiful traditional dress & I agreed with him. Before I knew it, she had offered to arrange a visit to a tailor so I could get one made. So right after work we went to the market, shopped for material, & then arranged with a tailor to sew the dress. It is not really a dress: it is a well-tailored blouse ('blusi') with a piece of cloth wrapped around the waist for the skirt & another piece of fabric wrapped into a turban on the head. It really does look terrific. I went crazy looking at the fabric which is heavier than kanga fabric (this stuff is called kangeri I think) & of higher quality. Doug liked the idea so much he is ordering a similar garment for his wife. Mine will be ready tomorrow!
We were dropped off at the New Dodoma hotel to settle in. This place is just great. There are THREE restaurants, a bar, and an internet cafe (the internet actually works) with printing & photocopy facilities. Tonight I had enough time only to locate a resource for our presentation tomorrow but soon I should be able to get online, send a quick email to let friends know I am alive, & upload this blog.
Still later (I did say it was a busy day!) we were picked up for supper. Supper was at the Chako ni Chako, a locally famous spot where even the President visits when he is in town. It is nothing much to look at: a long & modest sidewalk cafe, but it is one of those perfected combinations of food & social life that just works. You sit at plastic tables on a dusty sidewalk & the waiters bring you plates heaped with roast chicken (kuku choma). The chickens have obviously been free-range because the meat is very very chewy. It is a very simple menu: roast chicken pieces with salt & chili sauce for dipping, & limes to squeeze on if you like. They bring you pop or beer & occasionally roasted plantains too. Delicious. Another waiter comes around with a pitcher of warm water & a plastic basin & pours water over your hands so you can clean before eating. Starving cats weave under the tables looking for scraps. People drift in & out off the sidewalk & there is such an atmosphere of colleagiality and good humour. It seemed almost our entire MRI crowd was there. Chako ni Chako apparently translates as 'yours is yours' & it means something like 'you only have what you have.'
Of course, I am paying for it now; my intestines are a mess. I do hope I am not kept awake all night but even if I am, it will have been worth it.
A busy day & I am tired already. Let's see if I can make this short.
The big news is that we shifted our address today to the New Dodoma Hotel. We did it before even starting for work, just took all our bags from the Twiga & drove straight to the New Dodoma & booked rooms. This feels like a very positive move.
It was a full day at MRI. We made presentations about Labour Market Information & Occupational Profiles, showing how things are done in Canada. It is still hard to get feedback from the group & when they do provide an answer to a question (usually after MUCH prompting) the voice is so quiet & the accent so intense that it is hard to understand the contribution. It is obviously a cultural response to the classroom environment because during tea-times & at lunch etc. the group is EXTREMELY friendly, open, talkative, & volume is not a problem. Even the accent seems easier to understand!
We also talked about DACUM processes, using expert workers to come up with accurate occupational processes; and then spent some time working with Bloom's Taxonomy. (Based on their evaluation notes from yesterday, this was a topic that they clearly wanted to know more about).
One topic that keeps coming up is the need for up-to-date mining equipment that their students can use for training. You can't miss the frustration in their voices. I feel frustrated along with them. So we talked about getting donations of equipment (remote but possible, I suppose), using simulations, & focussing on the most difficult micro-task of using the tool. Stuff like that.
One happy little development is that I am going to have a lovely Tanzanian dress!! Doug happened to complement one of the women today on her beautiful traditional dress & I agreed with him. Before I knew it, she had offered to arrange a visit to a tailor so I could get one made. So right after work we went to the market, shopped for material, & then arranged with a tailor to sew the dress. It is not really a dress: it is a well-tailored blouse ('blusi') with a piece of cloth wrapped around the waist for the skirt & another piece of fabric wrapped into a turban on the head. It really does look terrific. I went crazy looking at the fabric which is heavier than kanga fabric (this stuff is called kangeri I think) & of higher quality. Doug liked the idea so much he is ordering a similar garment for his wife. Mine will be ready tomorrow!
We were dropped off at the New Dodoma hotel to settle in. This place is just great. There are THREE restaurants, a bar, and an internet cafe (the internet actually works) with printing & photocopy facilities. Tonight I had enough time only to locate a resource for our presentation tomorrow but soon I should be able to get online, send a quick email to let friends know I am alive, & upload this blog.
Still later (I did say it was a busy day!) we were picked up for supper. Supper was at the Chako ni Chako, a locally famous spot where even the President visits when he is in town. It is nothing much to look at: a long & modest sidewalk cafe, but it is one of those perfected combinations of food & social life that just works. You sit at plastic tables on a dusty sidewalk & the waiters bring you plates heaped with roast chicken (kuku choma). The chickens have obviously been free-range because the meat is very very chewy. It is a very simple menu: roast chicken pieces with salt & chili sauce for dipping, & limes to squeeze on if you like. They bring you pop or beer & occasionally roasted plantains too. Delicious. Another waiter comes around with a pitcher of warm water & a plastic basin & pours water over your hands so you can clean before eating. Starving cats weave under the tables looking for scraps. People drift in & out off the sidewalk & there is such an atmosphere of colleagiality and good humour. It seemed almost our entire MRI crowd was there. Chako ni Chako apparently translates as 'yours is yours' & it means something like 'you only have what you have.'
Of course, I am paying for it now; my intestines are a mess. I do hope I am not kept awake all night but even if I am, it will have been worth it.
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