First Days

They say the first blog post is the hardest.....

Greetings to the thousands of people who will inevitably flock to read our musings from Tanzania. We arrived safely and spent Tuesday night in Dar es Salaam before flying to Mwanza yesterday. From there, it was a 2 and a half hour drive to Shinyanga where we’ll be based for the year.

Following a number of arguments with the volumetric capacity of our suitcases, we landed in Dar wearing far more clothes than is advisable at over 30 degrees. Coupled with navigating a hectic airport, long visa application process and carrying over 60kg of luggage, it made for a very sweaty afternoon! We had been told that “boys wear shorts” which turns out to be completely true, so no matter how hot it gets we’ll be covered to our ankles.

Initial observations include a surprising amount of Chelsea shirts (lots of Drogba fans, not Adam Nditi related apparently), radio dominated by Pitbull and Katy Perry (really makes you feel at home) and bicycles laden down with loads that a truck would be proud of. It has also been impossible not to have already been struck by the friendliness of the people we’ve met so far.

Shinyanga is a town of 100,000 which is far smaller than Dar’s 5-6 million so feels a lot less full and busy. Bicycles dominate the roads with cyclists needing to keep a keen eye open for goats and cows feeding at the roadside. So far, we have visited AICT’s regional office and met the staff we’ll be working alongside – really great people who are very focused on the issues in the communities they work in. 

Today was spent at the AICT run secondary school in Shinyanga who were having their graduation ceremony for final year students. It turned out to also be a welcome ceremony for us which was great. This is the school that Alice will be involved in and we will work out how that looks over the next few weeks. Facilities are very basic but the students are enthusiastic and eager to learn and staff work well with what they have.

Swahilli word of the day: Pole, Pole (polay polay) – slowly, slowly

said to us in an airport queue but could also be used to describe the Tanzanian approach to life; patient and calm with an emphasis on slowing down and enjoying life