Smiling Faces on a Tuesday Morning

As a side project, the team visited a local school and spent quite a fun Tuesday morning with the students. Gloria talked about seeds and vegetables with Andrea dancing like a sweet tomato ;-) Sally and Colleen shared some letters coming from a school in the US and encouraged everyone to write back to their American "pen pals". Hiroya and Chris did a wonderful job teaching a class paper origami. With the use of the Electronic Kit, Nitish and I showed 4 classes how a simple circuit board works. Finally, Rodrigo taught them how to play marbles ;-)

The children were all so engaging and very much excited about taking photos and posing for the camera.

The highlight of our visit for me though was when I was talking to a group of 7th grade girls. I jokingly told them that I will give a prize to the person who can guess which country I am from. This girl with the prettiest eyes smiled and nonchalantly said, “Oh you're from the Philippines”. I was shocked because she was the first person in the whole of Tanzania who was able to guess it correctly (I get Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, etc). She told me she watches a lot of soap operas on TV and some of them were from the Philippines. Hurray for cable TV!

Check out some more photos here.

Sitting across an open door

I share the room in IAA with Chris and Bakiri. Bakiri sits in one corner, behind the open door, Chris in the other corner, near the window. And I have the privilege of sitting right across the open door, almost facing the hallway. It's been quite amusing -- although sometimes distracting -- to see people pass by, sneak a glance into the room and with a surprised and questioning look, take a second glance before walking away. We get even more stares as we walk across campus, pass the pool tables and into the cafeteria every lunch break. I guess they're wondering what this white guy and this odd-looking lady are doing in their school. What's refreshing though is that when you catch their eye, not one fails to acknowledge you with a smile and a hearty, "Jambo!"

Another good thing about sitting across the open door is that when it gets stuffy in the room esp in the afternoon (no aircon, thank you very much), at least I can still feel the cool breeze come in from outside.

The thing is... kung hindi kaaya aya ang amoy ng mga taong dumadaan (and unfortunately, may mangilan-ilan sila), ako rin ang unang nakakalanghap ng kakaibang amoy ng simoy ng hangin. Pampalakas ng sikmura, hahaha.

--- Syempre isusulat ko yun ng Tagalog ;-)

Portable

Christine, Chris and Bakiri in IAA office. Around 11:45AM.

Bakiri: Hungry for lunch?

Chris: YES! Ididn't eat breakfast.

Christine: Like yesterday.

Chris: Oh, I don't really eat breakfast.

Christine: Hmm... I cannot NOT have breakfast. In the Philippines, we eat 6 times a day.

Chris: 6 times a day?!?

Christine (counting with fingers): Well, there's breakfast, there's the morning snack. There's lunch -- a long one at that -- then there's afternoon snack. Dinner. Then midnight snack.

Bakiri: Wow, you do eat a lot! But you're not -- how do I say this (gesturing with his hands) --

Christine (smiling): --- Fat? Healthy? Haha, oh believe me, compared to the other girls Philippines, I'm not slim either. Filipinas tend to be very slim!

Bakiri: Hmm.. I think you are quite portable.

Chris (eyes big): PORTABLE. Wow. I am sooo going to tell everyone about that.


Ayan. Payat-- este, portable-- daw ako sa Tanzania.

Mabuhay ;-)

Eating in Tanzania

So far I've tried grilled goat meat (like lambchops, but more rubbery); a number of beef stews (mostly with curry sauces); deep friend tilapia, fried and grilled chicken, and various green veggie salads.

For three days now Chris and I have been eating at the school cafeteria during lunch and today we've finally tried ugali. If it's potatoes in the US, and rice in Asia, then the staple in Africa is ugali. It's basically boiled cornmeal mush -- think mashed potatoes meet puto (steamed rice cake in the Philippines) -- served with a sauce for dipping. One is supposed to eat it with the right hand (never use your left hand in Tanzania!) -- take a piece from the mush, dip it into the sauce before putting the whole dripping thing in your mouth. Follow with whatever viand that came with the meal.

As far as student cafeteria goes, this one is very quiet and relatively empty, even during lunch hours. There's always a group of students hanging outside playing pool, but apart from that, it's a far cry from how it was back when I was in college :-)

Hmm... not that I'm complaining, but I wonder where the rest of the students eat?

First Day at Work

So we met our client, Institute of Accountancy Arusha (IAA), for the first time today. I was actually looking forward to walking to work (given that I am in this quest to "lose xx lbs" while I am here). Alas, the university is more than 5 kms away and walking that far to work is never a good idea -- thus, we're going to manage with a daily 10-min cab ride instead. The other 2 teams, however, AWF and TATO, will be braving the 10-15min walk to their respective offices. If our walk around town yesterday is any indication of how things will be for them everyday, then they would really need to learn to handle the pack of street vendors we encountered. They gathered around and followed us for a good 3 blocks, selling painting, beads, hats -- anything! -- with the usual script of, "Pls buy, sister, I will not have dinner if you don't buy from me!" or "My wife is pregnant, please help with the bills." They said those things with a good-natured laugh, so you know that they are just using these lines on you. They will not harass you or anything, but oh, they can be quite persistent! A firm, "Hapana, asante" (No, thank you), will apparently do the trick.

Going back to the topic of IAA... we met with the Director for ICT and his team this morning. One of his guys, Bakiri, was gracious enough to be our host for the day. He took us around the campus, fed us my first Tanzanian lunch, and made arrangements for Chris and I to share his office for the duration of our stay.

The campus itself, surprised me, to be honest. With more than 2000 students, 11 computer labs and a computer to student ratio of 5:1, they are actually more advanced than the average public university in the Philippines! Bakiri took us around and introduced us to some of the faculty and school administration staff. In general, the people here in Tanzania are very friendly. You will not walk 10 meters without someone shouting, "Jambo" (Hello!), or "Karibu!" (Welcome!) to you.

I have yet to meet the Director of Business Promotion, my main client, and I am hoping to do that before the day ends so I can finally firm up my scope for this project.

Hello, Tanzania!

After nearly 24 hours of travel, I am finally in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania! My itinerary: Manila to Bangkok (Thailand), Bangkok to Nairobi (Kenya), Nairobi to Kilimanjaro ( Tanzania). It was tiring and quite boring for sure, with nearly 4 hours lay-over in both stops, and my body aching to lie down and rest. For the record, it was the second day of my period and 11 hours of travel flying coach was indeed not pleasant.

It was a good thing that I spent 3 hours of my Nairobi lay over with a teammate, Sally from the UK. I was, in fact, sitting close to her for a full hour before she finally came over and introduced herself! We then grabbed a bite to eat -- what could've been my lunch back in Manila & her midnight snack in London, became breakfast in Nairobi. Hated the cheese pizza I ordered, but I absolutely loved the coffee!

We finally boarded the plane to Kilimanjaro at half past 10. On the way, I saw Mt. Kilimanjaro (the highest peak in Africa) and it was absolutely majestic! It completely dwarfed everything visible below with its snow-capped peak presenting itself between thick, white clouds -- a great contrast to the brown and very dry area below. There were tufts of trees every hundred meter or so -- in the vastness of the area, from 17K feet in the air, they actually looked like green dust bunnies the giant housekeeper forgot to sweep from under the bed, haha.

I have met Rodrigo from Sao Paulo, Brazil and Chris from Chicago, USA. Had a quite interesting pasta for lunch with Coke (no water for me, thank you) then retreated to my room to catch up on work. A few minutes ago, I finally met Hiroya from Tokyo, Japan and Nitish from Bangalore, India.

We're staying at KIA Lodge for the night and driving to Arusha tomorrow morning.

Pictures to be posted tom!