Monday, June 28, 2004
I've been back on-site since Friday evening. It feels good to be back, where all my stuff is and I can feel comfortable hanging out in my underwear if I want. The flight from Dar was a bit different. I typically fall asleep very soon after takeoff. I woke up just as we landed, rather confused because they wouldn't let us off the plane. Turns out we had returned to Dar because some people noticed a bad smell in the cabin. Then there were lots of people looking at the left jet engine, and then a couple of guys began pulling out tufts of bird and feathers. Seems we finished off a big bird on takeoff.
It surroundings do look different, though. The fields and everything look like late fall - yellow going on gold and brown. The brown seems to be a little more pronounced every day, and wind now seems to be a constant. It is also cooler - I sweat less when I bike to town, and sleep under a sheet now. The good part is that there are fewer mosquitoes, ants and other assorted bugs. I'm told this is standard dry-season fare, and will continue until September or October. I want to go up to the hilltop this evening with my fancy new camera to take some panaramic shots before everything is totally brown.
Last night I met with my group to present all the stuff I learned in Dar about what other groups are doing to teach small business skills in Tanzania. There was a lot to cover - I'd visited six different organizations. The Internationl Labor Organization, TechnoServe and Junior Achievement seems to have their act mostly together. But we are clearly proposing to do something different than anybody else. Onward!!
It was a long meeting. We have a lot to do before we get started. But my instructors insisted that they have to go home for a MONTH now that they have graduated. As a result, we will also have to delay our start date by a month. That isn't so bad, actually - gives us more time to handle the preliminaries. We talked about financing - which we don't have yet and the hour grows late. I'm sure we could fund this pretty easily from all kinds of charity donations. I'd bet that my Unitarian friends would come through big-time. But I proposed that we try to use only African funding. There seems to be this whole dependency culture of expecting foreigners to pay for even basic infrastructure. Sometime, they just have to get off these handouts and take responsibility for themselves. So why not now? My group thinks this will be a real shock to Africans, but they are behind it. We will see what the Rotary thinks.
This morning I dropped in on the Mgr of the ExIm bank, who assures me that the Mwanza Rotary Club is actively deciding what kind of support they can/will provide, and that it does include the loan of a computer. Bingo! And that the Rotary should be meeting with me "soon."
Meanwhile, my instructors have decided that they need more money than was originally budgeted. I have to agree with them that what I/we had proposed does not seem like enough to live on but still, it is in-line with what secondary school teachers with families and experience earn. Can we really give them more without looking like we are feathering our nests?
It surroundings do look different, though. The fields and everything look like late fall - yellow going on gold and brown. The brown seems to be a little more pronounced every day, and wind now seems to be a constant. It is also cooler - I sweat less when I bike to town, and sleep under a sheet now. The good part is that there are fewer mosquitoes, ants and other assorted bugs. I'm told this is standard dry-season fare, and will continue until September or October. I want to go up to the hilltop this evening with my fancy new camera to take some panaramic shots before everything is totally brown.
Last night I met with my group to present all the stuff I learned in Dar about what other groups are doing to teach small business skills in Tanzania. There was a lot to cover - I'd visited six different organizations. The Internationl Labor Organization, TechnoServe and Junior Achievement seems to have their act mostly together. But we are clearly proposing to do something different than anybody else. Onward!!
It was a long meeting. We have a lot to do before we get started. But my instructors insisted that they have to go home for a MONTH now that they have graduated. As a result, we will also have to delay our start date by a month. That isn't so bad, actually - gives us more time to handle the preliminaries. We talked about financing - which we don't have yet and the hour grows late. I'm sure we could fund this pretty easily from all kinds of charity donations. I'd bet that my Unitarian friends would come through big-time. But I proposed that we try to use only African funding. There seems to be this whole dependency culture of expecting foreigners to pay for even basic infrastructure. Sometime, they just have to get off these handouts and take responsibility for themselves. So why not now? My group thinks this will be a real shock to Africans, but they are behind it. We will see what the Rotary thinks.
This morning I dropped in on the Mgr of the ExIm bank, who assures me that the Mwanza Rotary Club is actively deciding what kind of support they can/will provide, and that it does include the loan of a computer. Bingo! And that the Rotary should be meeting with me "soon."
Meanwhile, my instructors have decided that they need more money than was originally budgeted. I have to agree with them that what I/we had proposed does not seem like enough to live on but still, it is in-line with what secondary school teachers with families and experience earn. Can we really give them more without looking like we are feathering our nests?
