Week 1 in Tanzania

It's now almost been a week that I've been here in Tanzania so thought it's about time to post some pictures and give a brief update on what's going on! 

Of course from my last blog you can probably imagine how hard it was for me to leave Istanbul!  And on top of it all, I was scheduled on the flight that arrived at 3am in Dar es Salaam, so I was a little paranoid just given the timing.

So after a 5 hour flight, I arrived in Dar es Salaam as scheduled: 3am.   The flight was not very busy - it was probably half full.  When I got to immigration, the plan was that a business visa would be waiting for me, so of course I asked immigration for this when I landed, but alas it was not there.

This was a big problem for me because:
1.  I only had $100 USD, but the Visa at $200 USD
2.  The Immigration desk only took cash
3.  The ATM was outside of the airport
4.  I was not allowed to leave the airport without a stamped passport
5.  My passport was confiscated by the officer

So after calling the IBM program manager back and forth and making friends with the officier in charge, I was finally allowed to leave the airport (by special escort) to get the cash needed for the Visa.  After paying, I got my passport back (thank goodness!) and then left the airport.

Needless to say after arriving at the Hotel, I met up with the remaining group members, who all arrived at the day before, so I had some catching up to do!  The other members were great and I was SO thankful that I got such a great team!



Team 9 - Tanzania


The hotel itself was ok - I unfortunately didn't have hot water, so I did get a little sick (getting better now!).

A day later we met our Host from Veta at a Dinner.  The gentleman we are working with (Mr. Kisima) is fantastic and SO grateful to have us there helping him. He desperately sees the importance of implementing ICT within the Country and is looking for support to communicate the message.  So we definitely have a big job ahead of us - but we're excited to be able to contribute to such an important milestone for the country.

Dinner at with our Host the first night

The VETA headquarters

Inside one of their most advanced centres



A welding class




Asking the teachers some questions

 

Last weekend we went to a place called Bagamoyo (this means leaving your heart / soul somewhere and having your physical being somewhere else) - the town was called Bagamoyo because this is where people were captured as slaves and transported to Zanzibar (and the Americas).  It was quite an experience to be there and learn the history of that town and to think about how cruel humans could be to one another....



The town of Bagamoyo

Yesterday we took a 9 hour bus ride (for a 250 km trip) to Tanga.  We arrived at the resort at 9pm and were all stunned by the cleanliness, friendliness and overall quality of the hotel!  (And I was thankful for the hot water!).  We will be working from this resort for the majority of our time here (with some trips to the different campuses) so hopefully we'll also be able to get in a little R&R!


The Bus we took to Tanga - they had to load the luggage through the window



We had a bollywood singer on the bus - Soneeya - she was amazing!



A small village we passed on our trip to Tanga



We arrived at the Tanga Beach Resort! (9 hours later)

I'll end with some other pictures that I have taken over the past week!  We start the work tomorrow so will given another update on that next week, so stay tuned!



The sub-team working at Veta (L-R: Me, Anjan (India), Regine (US), Matyas (Hungary) 



Eating some local chakula (food)



At the Registrars office in Tanga (I closed the door on Anjan so that he would know what it would feel like to be in jail (you know...scare him straight!) ;)