Hujambo! (TZ summary)

Hujambo!

What a trip this has been so far, and hard to believe I’ve been here nearly 2 weeks already. There’s so much to say, but I’ll just give you a few tidbits of my trip so far.

Background:
My work is part of a funding body called the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), which is concluding a 5-year grant cycle in Kenya and Tanzania with a 2-day workshop in Dar es Salaam. I’m in Tanzania to lecture and provide training for a week at one of their grantees, Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Morogoro. SUA and the science division at CI (my work) received a grant to perform a forest cover and change detection analysis using satellite imagery for 1990-2000. I made a map of that analysis, and the grant was amended for SUA to do a 2007 update and for me to provide training in cartography. This also required significant software training because the version they were using was not adequate, from a graphics standpoint, to produce a high quality cartographic product. Going from version 3.2 to version 9.2 kept the same concepts, but with a totally new interface and considerably different functionality.

Training at Sokoine
I’ve never provided formal training before, but in the end I think it went rather well. I wasn’t able to prepare my materials beforehand like I’d hoped, so it meant I’d teach for a full day, go to dinner with colleagues, and start preparing several hours of lecture slides. Thankfully they had computers with the software as well, allowing for them to explore and truly learn the software rather than just watch demonstrations. Each day I had just enough material for the day, a gift I attribute completely to Heavenly Father. It was so gratifying to see how much information I had to teach and how much they valued it. I even gave them a class project that will hopefully be useful for both them and me. I loved being in Morogoro—the weather wasn’t as hot, everyone was friendly, and it was a smaller university town with the potential for a tight-knit group of expats. Morogoro is at the base of the Uluguru Mountains, so in terms of its location I guess that makes it almost the BYU of Tanzania. We also had a chance to meet expats where we were staying and while going out to dinner. Everyone in Morogoro has such random backgrounds and they all seem to be here for a least a month. Oh, and Michael Bolton’s music is alive and well here.

Post-training
Once the training was completed, we returned to Dar to join colleagues from CEPF to do a site visit in Zanzibar. Zanzibar is actually 2 islands, but Unguja is the island to which most people refer. We visited a national park, the only patch of original forest left and a “blob” I’ve put on maps for over 4 years. Turns out there are trees and monkeys there! The site visit also included meeting representatives from isolated villages on the southern coast of the island, and some of our partners. One of them, Miza, also does GIS so we hit it right off. Then it was a few days relaxing on the beach in the north before returning to Dar for a 2-day workshop.


Overall impressions/moments
Going to church in Dar es Salaam on my first Sunday. Quite the struggle to get there because it turned out to be District Conference, but so worth it! I met the District President who’s mentioned in an article on the last page of this month’s Ensign.

Learning that one of the professors I was teaching did some of his PhD work in Berlin, so while we couldn’t converse in Swahili, we could in German.

Food: I ate “local style” most of the time I was teaching. A typical meal consisted of Ughali (like bland, stiff mashed potatoes made from wheat) that you form in a ball with your hand and pick up meats or dip in sauce. My beverage of choice is Tangawizi, a ginger ale with a stronger raw ginger flavor than we get in the US. The curries on Zanzibar were also good, but I think that’s more Indian Ocean than the island specifically.

In some ways, this reminds me of parts of India—tiles floors everywhere, the auto rickshaws (“tuk tuks” here), the overcrowded minibuses (“Dala dala”), the smell of charcoal and burning trash, roadside stands selling anything imaginable, etc. Things I haven’t seen as much before—goats and chickens wandering around (no cows spotted until we were outside Dar), open sewers (how did I miss those in India?), and the occasional Masai walking along in their traditional dress. I’ve learned that in this part of Tanzania (central and southern) they wear purple fabric, and that their dress has nothing to do with income. Many wear it to remind them of their heritage and are actually well educated. Others wear it because of the tourists. Case in point: there are no native Masai on the island of Zanzibar, but I’ve been harassed by several on the beach up here in the north. The women’s clothes are gorgeous everywhere, and everyone dressed up so much for whatever church they attended on Sunday in Dar. They may not have running water in their homes, but they still manage to look immaculate and spotless. The biggest difference from India is that we don’t have a local family to look after us. At least I’m not alone. Julie and I flew in together, and the next night Conrad arrived. He lived in TZ and taught at Sokoine for a few years, so it’s nice to have him show us around. The kids we’ve seen are cute and come up to ask, “How are you?” in English before running away. I tried to learn some Swahili phrases on the last leg of our flight, but being tired didn’t help it sink in. I can give a polite greeting, say thank you (“Asante”), tell them I’ve come from America, and I think I can ask where’s the bathroom (hopefully something like “Wapi Msalisi”).