Rumours

Now that I have returned back to North Carolina, I have learned that there is some question as to whether we actually did any work when we were in Tanzania, or if we were out drinking and carousing and playing all the time. While it is absolutely true that we tried to maximize our time on the weekends to explore the country, and each evening we had dinner in town or in our hotel courtyard - during the days, we did work. Some would say we even worked hard! So let me share some things about work and play!

Work

I didn't share alot about our projects or our daily work because I didn't think it was necessarily interesting to all of you and I didn't feel right sharing details due to privacy concerns. While that will always be important, I can share more than I have to date. (some might be repetitive - but it should give some context).

We were working with the University of Dodoma, in Dodoma, Tanzania - the capital. UDOM opened in 2007 and intends to grow rapidly to have 40,000 students in just a few more years. Providing university level education is one of the key elements to growth for Tanzania and specifically for alleviating poverty. UDOM is also intended to be the Information and Computing Technology (ICT) Center of Excellence for Tanzania - and will provide ICT services outside the university.

Our teams were there to begin to enable UDOM to achieve their rapid growth and achieve their vision. We had four projects. Our projects were focused on cloud computing, online education, systems to support university functions, and systems to be deployed outside the university.

Most of the work we were doing was new for each of us. Our teams were new for each of us. We had to understand the projects, determine how we were going to approach the projects, build our project plan, and execute and provide final deliverables that could stand on their own for the continuation of the projects. For my teams, this was a new area for all of us - so we relied on our collective knowledge, our files/presentations/consulting guides we researched before we left - hoping they would help, the help of the masters students we were working with, and creativity. We did alot of interviewing - learning in detail the current state of their processes (which were very comprehensive and completely manual), documenting these processes, validating them with the people we interviewed, and defining requirements for the systems to be built in the next steps. We also tried to transfer our skills to the team to enable continued work and repeatable processes. We also had a prototype of one of the systems built. I include this photo as evidence of our working!



Drinking and Carousing



While it is true that there were many references to beer or wine in this blog - I will now add some context. Dinner - whether it was at a local place or at the hotel, took a long time. Our gathering place was in the courtyard of the hotel. Gathering 10 people, deciding what the plan is, and then getting everyone moving was no small feat. While our efficiency improved over time - there remained alot of opportunity to socialize in the courtyard prior to dinner. Many times, we had dinner in the courtyard. Ordering, waiting, and eating meals normally took around 2 hours. We do not know what logistical challenges caused this to be true no matter how simple the request - but it was simply how it was. It was terrific time to socialize and get to know one another - catch up on our projects, and make plans for the following weekend. You should note on the table that there is little drink - looks like a bottle of water, a bottle of beer, and some ketchup and chili sauce!. Certainly later, you might find a different configuration -...maybe! We all had to get up and work the next day, and it was all social and tame. As all the beer and wine was different from what we might normally see - Ndovu, Serengeti, Kiliminjaro, Safari for beer, and Dompo, and Dodoma Presidential for wine - it made for a little local commentary in the blog (little did I know that you might all interpret it as a nonstop drinkfest!).

We had a terrific team - our time together was great - and I will miss it very much. I enjoyed our working together - in person - something we rarely get to do anymore in this virtual world - and I enjoyed the time we had outside of work.

Greeting Shane

enuf said!

Welcome Back!

Apparently nobody notified the Internal Revenue Service that I was to be out of the country for a month and they shouldn't mail me urgent correspondence that required immediate responses. As a wonderful welcome home, I am being audited for the first time on my 2007 taxes - I don't think its a full audit - but they do want alot of information. Apparently somebody - who will not be named - did not put some sales of assets on their tax return - and the IRS feels that they should get their part of these sales. So - rather than focusing on other mail, laundry, and getting ready to get back to work - I spent a good chunk of the day on the phone with a few companies trying to expedite the delivery of financial information so that I could complete a full response to the IRS by Friday. Now - I don't know about you - but I do not think that is at all a kind welcome home. I think I should be able to expect a warmer welcome from this fine government - but that was not to be.

Another welcome home gift - that I'm hoping to avoid - is the full implantation of airplane germs - into my otherwise healthy self. I am all about banning anyone with the most minor sniffle from airplanes - until they can figure out how to properly filter the air (anyone vote for a bag over the head of anyone who sniffles - sealed at the neck). Guy across the aisle from me sniffled, coughed and sneezed his way from Amsterdam to Houston with not a kleenex tissue in sight or any form of covering of the mouth. Now - guess who has some sniffles. I'm going to choke down some airborne - and convince myself that it might work.

Other than that - I truly am very glad to be home. Shane gave me a hero's welcome - and one day I hope to recover from the paw marks on my shoulders! It was a beautiful day, we had a really nice walk with Jan and Rusty - we marked our territory on the paths in the park (well, he did, I just offered moral support) - sniffed a few dog bottoms (him only - again) - and started to make my way back into this real world.

By the way - I do my own taxes...go figure.

Houston, we have a problem

Flight from Amsterdam left about an hour late. No worries - I had almost a 3 hour layover....2 hours....then 1 1/2 hours. Apparently there is no planning function in Houston, as what seemed like 6 planes arrived from international destinations at the same time. A football field full of people, and a short staffed immigration service, together with an inefficient queuing system, led to extremely long waits. Given that the only question I was asked at immigration was whether the tattoo on my hand was henna or not? (it is henna, for those that are interested), it was unclear why the lines moved so slowly. Of course..time was ticking away - 30 minutes before my flight was to leave for Raleigh and luggage retrieval and customs inspections awaited. By the time I got to the luggage carousel, both of my bags had arrived - phew! I then stood in a fairly long, but quick line through customs. I had a completed customs form with a random list of purchases I made and values I struggled to recall - so I only needed to get to the front of the line - and then give my luggage back to the staff to get on the Raleigh plane. After clearing customs (20 minutes til takeoff), I got to the transfer luggage carousel, where a bevy of luggage agents chatted amongst themselves - oblivious to frantic passengers all running late for their flights. Finally we got their attention - half went back to discussing their saturday nights and their manicures - a few scattered, and one guy took his time rechecking our luggage. Once stashed, we bolted for the tram in the airport (the longest 90 seconds wait ever) - and arrived at terminal B looking for gate 84M - naturally the most distant gate. Running through the airport - getting to the counter I was waived over - they were expecting me. They checked my boarding pass and I flew to the gate..ran to the tarmac and boarded the plane - 'sit anywhere, we took standby passengers'. I collapsed in my seat. Moments later 2 others did the same, and the doors shut and we flew to Raleigh. Thankfully I was able to sleep the entire way. Upon arriving in Raleigh - early if you can believe it - I came down the escalator - and looked across the nearly empty airport - to see the warm welcome of Jan - a wonderful site indeed. It is a wonderful indulgence to get picked up at the airport by a close friend - and I was thrilled to see her. We stared at the nearly empty baggage carousel hopeful the bags made it. One bag came through - so obviously they both should make it - they were both checked at the exact same time at the exact same place....but noooooooooooooo....no second bag to be seen. No worries - baggage agent confirmed it was on the next flight and it would be delivered within 6 hours of getting in if I sign the door tag and leave it outside the door. So sign I did, and hung it on my door. Waking at 8 am, I opened the front door expectantly - and...voila - on the front door remained the signed tag - no bag. Sigh!

Called Continental baggage to see where my bag was - knowing that every moment the bag wasn't in my possession increased the opportunity for my belongings to be in someone elses possession for good. They claimed the delivery service did not deliver late at night - was this the same service that explicity told me that it would probably come around 3 or 4 am?...yes it was.
Not understanding why I would be unhappy that I was given two completely different stories, and not getting anywhere in progressing the speed of delivery - i hung up exhausted from frustration. Ultimately the bag came at around 11 am - and the rest of the day was - laundry!

Dar - Zanzibar - Dar - Amsterdam

I spent my last day in Africa in Zanzibar. It was a very full day. Up at 4:30 am pack and stash luggage, taxi at 5:30 am, ferry at 7, zanzibar around 9:30. I wasn't sure I was going to go - but I really wanted to spend more time with at least a subset of the group. We had a really nice time walking around Zanzibar. We had coffee/beer overlooking the sea, followed by a walk around stonetown, followed by lunch in Mercury's - on the sea..and more walks around Stonetown. It wasn't alot of time, as we had to catch a 4 pm ferry to get back to the hotel to get luggage and catch the flight. The goodbyes were very difficult - very difficult.

I made it to my flight comfortably on time, and arrived in Amsterdam. So far so good

Drumming, chips, post office and travels

As promised, here you see Denise and I playing the drums with the Gogo tribe. You may notice that she is getting extra special attention on how to play the drums - but apparently I am a natural. This night was a blast. I'm not sure what we expected, but it wasn't to have a huge village come out and put on a special performance of their traditional dance. This is a village of about 3000 people. Lots of children. Each person or family builds their own home. I'm guessing they don't get too many visitors, and certainly not typically a group of 10 people from 7 different countries. I know for certain they don't see too many digital cameras. The kids just loved having their picture taken and wanted to see the picture on the camera. All we had to do was turn our camera around so they could see the picture and we'd be swarmed by kids..all looking for themselves in the pictures. To quell a riot, we had to put our cameras away, as the kids were going crazy with excitement. In the end we donated some shillings to the village kids, which are going to be matched by the university. They're going to make sure the donations go directly to the children. We have had several sources tell us that if you want your donations to go where you want your donations to go - you really have to reach out and do it directly so that you can truly see it having a direct impact. There are alot of different directions donations can go that don't always reach their intended destinations, so we definitely learned that being involved directly is the best way to go.

We had our last day at UDOM yesterday. We finished our final presentations on Wednesday, and tied up all our deliverables on Thursday. We were given some UDOM polo shirts to take home with us. We also had wanted t-shirts - for workouts, etc. - but were unable to find them. As we were leaving the building this girl on the staircase was wearing a cool UDOM t-shirt. We commented on it, and she noticed. We started talking with them, and by the time we were done, they agreed to go back to their hostel and buy the shirts and bring them to our hotel for us to buy from them. Of course, there was an expected markup - but that was fair given the service - she had to return to the hostel (the campus is huge), and then shuttle into town. She texted Denise, and we met her outside for the exchange. We could only get a few, as we couldn't commit for 10 people - but I'm glad to have it. Mostly I was glad to have yet another happenstance experience where something we wanted appeared when least expected. Honestly I thought the girl was going to sell Denise the shirt off her back right on the staircase. I an't recall if I blogged about it, but a few weeks ago, she ended up buying earrings right out of a waitresses ears. I swear the girl was about to take her t-shirt off - but we stopped her (fear that we might have to reciprocate ;-) ) - and said we wanted to know where to buy them.

We went out to a local Dodoma restaurant last night for one last experience of a place where our choices would be chicken and chips, meat and chips, egg and chips, or piza and chips (we're not exactly sure what the last one is). I risked egg and chips again - and here you have it. As this was an upscale restaurant (it had a floor to go with the plastic table and chairs), I got some garnish of papaya, cucumber, and tomato with the egg and chips. A risky last meal in Dodoma - but I have survived.

I will spare you most of the tale of trying to mail a box of literature back from Dodoma post office. I went to the post office - "can I send this box to America" - "yes". Ok, "what do I have to do to send this box to America" (pointing at address on box). - "you can't send the box to america today" - "why not"....."customs person is not here today" (in the capital city main post office) "come back tomorrow". "when tomorrow", I ask. "sometime between 9 and 11". (our bus leaves at 9)..."when between 9 and 11"...."sometime", he says. "Can you be specific" -..."sure - sometime between 9 and 11".....

and so I trudged back to the hotel, box in hand..ready to toss it onto the train tracks. In the morning I gave the box to our host at UDOM when he came to see us off, and I may or may not see it again.

We took the bus to Dar - stopped in Morogoro at the Hilux hotel for lunch. Got here around 4:30. Long ride - euchre games, book reading and napping I am in our last hotel for the trip. I will go out now to meet my friends and enjoy our last night together.

Last Day in Dodoma

The internet connection at the hotel (formerly known as the 'fast' connection) - is not working. Perhaps it will be working in 2 or 3 days - perhaps. Perhaps it will be working for an hour, and then never works again - perhaps. Perhaps they don't realize the impact to our blogging!

In any case, we head to Dar Es Salaam tomorrow morning, and will get there in the afternoon (hopefully!). Ideally their internet is connected and I can share more about our last days and nights here.

Yesterday we did our final presentation to the university. There were about 30 people in the audience, and they asked some good questions. I think the team did a great job. I am proud to be working with this group. Today we are finishing up all the final deliverables, wiping the white board, sharing small gifts, cleaning up our work rooms, meeting with the students, and getting a few things ready to ship - and we do hope we see them again.

Its really weird closing down the project. So many people helped us and supported us here. The TA's and students were terrific. I'm going to miss the 61 steps everyday up to our room - and all of our visitors. I am, however, excited to be heading home too!

Will write more and hopefully put some pics up tomorrow night.