Time for Training!

The notice in Dar es Salaam Safari Inn! Worrying!

YES! I FOUND THEM HERE! :D

We started training on the Mon 29^th July at CEFA Hotel in Mikocheni B (20 mins outside of Dar), not too far from the Passionist Fathers hotel where I was staying. CEFA hotel is really clean and lovely, and hosted a group of learning and physically disabled Tanzanians every morning who craft bags and jewellery out of Kangas, as well as make different cheeses, to earn a living.

It felt really nice to meet up with everyone again, and meet some new faces. The days were long and we were bombarded by lots of important information about health and safety, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, book referencing and sorting, and basic Swahili. But it was all interesting and in some parts very fun!

We also got to look at some previous library renovations, and what sorts of things are important to include in ours. It was overwhelming to see the amount of work we had to do in just 3 short weeks, and we were all a little unsure of how much we could actually achieve. We each assigned ourselves a role within the library to enable effective use of time and delegation – I am in charge of books and the reference system, so lots of colour co-ordinating from this art student!

I found it hard to find a wealth of food choices in Mikocheni. For the first two nights we had chips and meat or chicken, with a small splash of chopped tomatoes. I am a little sick of roadside chips to be honest; where is the ugali or the rice? On the third evening we stayed to eat dinner at CEFA which was an amazing aubergine parmesan bake, with vegetables and what seemed liked rice. It was incredible, and very large! On the last evening we went in search of a Lebanese restaurant that we had seen from our bajaj (more of that later!) but decided on a pizzeria instead. It was a pretty good Hawaiian considering Tanzania is not famed for its pizzas.

 So… Bajaj’s. Well these are Tanzania’s version of Tuk Tuks; little three wheel motorised cars that are driven like motorbikes. You can squeeeeeze three in the back and one can even share a bum cheek with the driver in the front, although this is not the best idea considering the speed of these things! We took one to the local supermarket, and they drive around the traffic, on the other side of the road, on ‘paths’ in the path of oncoming traffic which they narrowly avoid… It’s definitely an experience! 




Pics of Steff, Eseelle and myself in the back of a bajaj. Milan in the front with the driver!