Corporate Service Corps - Team Tanzania9: Week 2

Well, we are now into our 2^nd week here in Tanzania and on the ICT project for VETA.

From a project perspective, we have commenced all of the analysis based on the information we gathered from interviews that took place with major stakeholders from the previous weeks, and are now working towards completing our mid-term report. What we’ve realized so far is that while a very basic communication tool (e.g. posting course material online) could drastically increase the reach to students across Tanzania, and improve learning, this is quite a difficult concept to implement because of the lack of internet connectivity across the major regions. And, in those regions where connectivity is somewhat reliable, it is just so unaffordable for many of the centres and for the students. So that said, we are working on trying to find alternative solutions so that we can still work towards our end goal of fulfilling the high demand for education (currently only 15-20% of the demand for education is able to be fulfilled given classroom capacity issues (hence the need for ICT) and therefore working towards increasing the skilled labour force within Tanzania.

From a personal perspective, well, things haven’t been the easiest! Our entire group (with the exception of 1 person) fell ill over the past few days (major stomach illnesses). I think it was something we ate in the buffet. I was one of the first people to go down and then one by one we started to drop like flies! Most of us have medication that we brought from our home countries, so we rationing them with other team members who do not have the medication. I’m going on about 49 hours with the illness, but am feeling much better thanks to the electrolytes package that my group member gave me to keep hydrated and the antibiotics that I brought from home. One more day and hopefully everything will be back to normal for everyone.

Before the group sickness, a few of us ventured out to a local beach to enjoy the sun and sand.

The "rebel group"

View from the Yacht Club

Beautiful white sand

Jelly Fish that washed up on shore

There we met a local family that was celebrating a birthday party for a 9 year old. They were so giving and so hospitable. They invited us to the birthday party and taught us how to dance Tanzanian style. They also kept giving us food and offering us everything they had – it was really touching at how giving they were. The kids were really cute, there was this one little boy named Mariamo that was afraid of the water so a few of our group members took him into the Ocean one step at a time, and by the end he was skipping and jumping – we couldn’t keep up! That was by far my most favourite day in Tanzania so far.