Tanzania Team 6 Blog

If you wish to read more stories to our adventure in Tanzania, then just click on the attached link below, it will take you to the stories added by the Rafiki Timu members... The magnificent team which made this journey a magical experience.

Enjoy reading :o)

https://www-146.ibm.com/corporateservicecorps/node/4177

Comment lines by Andre Tost: Developing a virtual learning system in a developing country

Below a link to a short article for the IBM developer Works website about LMS project at UDOM in specific and the experience of Rafiki Timu (T6) in general.
Artical written by Andre Tost.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/0912_col_tost/0912_col_tost.html

Vacation in Zanzibar Paradise

Our vacation started on Sunday 08.11.2009 noon as Camille, Minh and I sailed with the Sea Bus from Dar to Zanzibar. On this day we met our friend Shawn who travelled a day ahead of us to Zanzibar and we had a lovely drink in hotel Africa on the sunset terrace. The view was just breath taken. Then we went to the fish market for dinner. Oh my oh my unlimited sea food every where, shrimps, lobster, octopus and fish of all kind…. That was heaven.

Monday 09.11.2009, we did the spice forest tour and then walked around in Stone Town, had a drink at Mercury’s restaurant, which is a tribute to Freddy Mercury as he was born in Zanzibar. Dined in an Italian restaurant… no matter what I write about the beautiful location of this restaurant it will never bring the right expression…. It was just perfect.

Tuesday morning (10.11.2009) we headed to Pingwa sea shore and then to Paje.

So what am I to say about Paje it is simply Paradise. Just have a look at the pictures below.

On Wednesday 11.11.2009 we had to wake up very early to go swim with dolphins, no words can describe how beautiful this was… it was magical… In the late afternoon we went for a biking tour to Jozani the forest of Monkeys. Distance back and forth is 30 KM up hill and down hill…..
For dinner we had 2 fish plates our day ended just perfect… I tell you folks we are in heaven….

Thursday morning (12.11.2009), our dear Minh had to leave for Stone Town as his flight to the States was on the same day at 17:00. Camille and I spend the day laying in the sun and swimming then laying in the sun again and then swimming… man that was great.
When we first arrived to Paje at Cristal (French for Crystal) Resort… we had a deluxe suit then after Minh left, Camille and I moved to an economic room, it was just perfect… Sea view, and sleeping on the sound of the ocean… I am telling you folks it was heaven.

Friday morning (13.11.2009) after an early breakfast and after having packed everything we again spent our last hour on the sea shore, laying in the sun and swimming then it was time to leave heading to Stone Town to take the ferry to Dar Es Salaam at 16:00, and believe it or not… on our way from Paje to Stone Town we had a rain shower… I guess Zanzibar was upset that we were already leaving :o))
Here some pictures for you on our one-week vacation.

We really did swim with them, yet they are very fast.

Sunrise in Cristal Resort...

Pingwa

Stone Town

The 3 Musketeer Camille, Minh and Me

Red back Monkey at home in Jozani Park, Zanzibar

The Bikers :o))

Camille's and Nesrien's favorit spot :o))

That is where we sat...

Weekend events.

First weekend in Dodoma - Winery visit (ETAWICO = Eastern Tanzania Wine Company), Sunday Mass and Mini Golf at Nino’s Pizzeria..

For Saturday 17.10.2009 we had in plan to visit a winery.
Our task was to find one. So after asking around, finally Raj, the hotel operation manager, told us we could go and visit the winery they get their wine from, the ETAWICO Winery.
Votes were taken and the result was a 100% agreement.
So we were all sitting in a Daladala (a small bus used for transportation) hitting our way to the winery, which lies about 45 km east of Dodoma.
I tell you folks the road to this winery was very challenging…
After driving on a smooth road for about 10 min, yet again it is only one way each direction, we then took left and there we were in the middle of this rough bumpy, bouncy, stony and non ending road…
Man, this road was really tough… If you would have eaten a banana and drunk some milk, you would have already gotten your banana shake after driving through this road…

Finally we saw our destination the winery in the middle of the unknown…
We have been taken around and the manger took the time to tell us the story of the winery and how it came to have a Tanzanian work in a winery…then the folks had the chance to taste the wine, excluding me :o) I would hand my glass to Alejandro our Mexican dude. You can imagine his joy, both of us have agreed that I should not refuse and offered drink and just hand it over to him :o))
After the tasting part the shop was opened.

Now the cool part about this whole visit was the fact that an Italian fellow has started this winery in cooperation with the Tanzanian government. All the equipments required have been imported from Verona Italy and was collected in Tanzania.
Let me remind you with the Orphanage, the owner is also Italian!
So now we have an Italian running an Orphanage and an Italian running a winery!

Do keep this in mind there is more to come about our Italian neighbours.. :o))

This brings us to Sunday 18.10.2009. On that day Camille, Alejandro, Shawn, Sonoko and me planed to go and attend the Sunday Mass at the Orphanage ‘The Village of Hope), which starts at 09:00 till 10:30. So there we were all on time waiting for the mass to start. I did mention in my Blog about this village, that the owner turned out to be the priest. This fact we did not know nor have we been informed about when we first came to visit this orphanage. So we were all surprised on Sunday when he showed up all dressed up in his priest clothes.
It was a very nice mass with the kids singing the gospels and dancing on the rhythm of live music.
And although the mass was held in Swahili, yet it was very Italian, if you know what I mean ;o))
Yes, the priest did speck Swahili but all the gestures could only come from an Italian fellow now matter what language is used, an Italian is an Italian :o)) Later on we also learned that this Priest has a Winery as well.

In the late afternoon, a group of 8 folks headed to Nino’s Pizzeria, so what does the name tell us, he is an Italian…! And believe it or not he also has an orphanage, and he lives in Dodoma with his whole family.

People I now can confirm that our Italian neighbours are aiming to have a little Italy down here in Dodoma….

Second weekend in Dodoma – visit to a local Village - Mbwalabala.
Saturday 24.10.2009
We were talking about this event for some time; it was not an easy task to find a village to visit. As we were about to lose hope in finding a near by village, we suddenly managed to find someone working at New Dodoma Hotel’s restaurant called ‘Peter’ who will take us to his which is called Mwalabala.
History of the Villages:
Most of the villages surrounding Dodoma are Gogo tribes. Some of them are also Massai tribes belonging to those who have left the northern part of the country and headed south for job opportunities. You most find Massais guarding certain properties.
The spoken language in the Gogo villages is ‘Gogo’, therefore we had to take Peter with us as a translator.
The Bus was ready for us at 11:30 and we hit the road. The village lies about 26 Km west of Dodoma.
We hit the road and in about less then an hour we were there. Again Pictures talk more then words.
Some facts about the village:
1- Gogo is the spoken language no script for it.
2- Houses are very short as they depend on the length of the tree branches, which are used to support the houses.
3- Men can have as many wives as he can manage.
4- Birth rate is big and who cares about education!!! I will discuss this point later in the future Blogs
5- Peter did face some troubles as he took us to show us his village without taking the permission from the head of the tribe. So the tribunes must respect the tribe hierarchy.
6- White people are eye catchers for the tribunes seriously; the folks there were staring at us as if we were from outer space, some kind of aliens or so.
7- As long as you are white you have to give the tribunes something, no matter what it is.. You just don’t show up with empty hands in a village! That is taboo… And folks you have no idea what these people would do to get what you bought them. As we told them that we have stuff with us for them but everything is in the bus, which is parked, a bit far from where we were standing they all say they will follow us. I tell the road was full of stones needles and most of them were walking bare footed.
8- In Tanzania some individuals tend to kill Tanzania human with the albino skin diseases! And so the government would hide them in the villages so that they do not get hurt. We have seen one in Mbwalabala.

Sunday was a lazy day lying at the pool and having some chats.

The last weekend in Dodoma - Mikumi Safari

Friday 30.11.2009 - 01.11.2009

We saw a lot of giraffes, zebras, impalas, reed bock, bush bock, buffalos and the victory of the weekend was seeing a lioness just short before we headed back to Dodoma on Sunday,
We also learned a lot about the different grass, such as the elephant grass and the Speer grass.The best thing about this trip was the rafiki timu, I am referring to the team… we all were like one big family enjoying every moment of it, letting the little child in each one of us come out for a while and take us back to the time of innocents ;o))

Pictures talk much more:

Me playing Mini Golf

The house of Peter's family in which the 3 wives live. Village of Mbwalabala

The ladies at the village side.

Rafiki Timu at the winery

We saw a lot of them

The team towards the end of the safari.

The victory ;o)) the Lioness view.

PS:- While I am writing this Blog I am sitting with Minh, Camille and Andre the last 4 left. Andre will leave early tomorrow morning.

It is the 07th of November and guess what, in Africa there is a show running called the Face Of Africa (FOA) which is similare to Germany's Next Top Model. And the Top ten selected are sitting right on the sofa beside us!! More to that later :o))

Camille, Minh and I will be heading to Zanzibar tomorrow.

Jambo.

Pictures of events in Dodoma

The Village Mbwalabala


School Time


Registration Day at UDOM

PS:- Coming up, more about our weekend events.
Jambo

Pictures of the Village Of Hope

So what is Minh doing


Me with the kiddos


The Quite group

On the 4th of November was our final presentation

It is really hard to believe that the month is coming to an end time really flies. Our day started of with collecting all the documents we have checking the input, while our speakers were rehearsing for the final presentation.

Our Sub team Minh, Camille and me self have chosen our guardian Minh Le to speak for us.

The presentation should have started at 14:00, yet as mentioned before, there is no hurray and Tanzania so we started around 14:15 which is very good.

I need to mention, that when we all first met in Dar Es Salaam, while we were having a walk by the sea the ladies have made a commitment to dress in traditional Tanzanian Khanga for the last presentation.

So the day has come to meet our commitment and so we did. The 5 ladies showed up in the tradition outfit for Eastern African Women, a very versatile and colourful cotton cloth… see picture below ;o)

Allow me now to give you a brief introduction on what we have been working on that past 4 weeks.

I did give you an idea about UDOM… A huge project with a very big vision, which I do believe, they could achieve with a lot of faith and A LOT OF TIME….

So what exactly have we been working on fo r the last 4 weeks?

The MIS team, Camille, Minh and Nesrien, (IBMers) together with Iddy and Kiza (UDOM programmers) , as well as Gilbert and Ally (tutorial assistance – TA) have been working on creating a pilot plan for MIS (Management Information System) development, which is the first step in the direction of creating a sufficient ICT Hub.

Where UDOM wants to be:
1. Have a modern UDOM MIS
2. Have UDOM as a ICT Hub
3. Have active engagement with primary and secondary schools

How to get there from our perspective:
Have a modern UDOM MIS
- Narrow the scope to HR MIS
- Propose HR MIS Road Map, a framework for MIS implementation
- Create methodology template for business process analysis
- Provide HR analysis and recommendation
Have UDOM as an ICT Hub
- Train programers and tutorial assistants project management skills
- Provide Rational Unified Portfolio (RUP) Methodology tool
- Provide IBM PM54 Principles of Project Management tool
Have active engagement with primary and secondary schools
- Propose a comprehensive UDOM Enrichment Program: Students Giving Back

Our deliverables:
- Delivered HRMIS Road Map
- Reviewed and updated HR MIS relational model
- Created methodology template for business process analysis
- Provided standard templates for management and business controls
- Reviewed and updated Team2 HR recommendation and process, with a focus on HR processes
- Provided RUP Methodology Tool for software development
- Delivered Project Management training session and provided learning materials for project management
- Produced proposal and strategy for UDOM Enrichment Program
- Visited and interviewed primary and secondary schools, establish relationships
- Interviewed HR department, established relationship and commitment

That was our task and this is what we have been doing.
Now we are looking forward to our relaxing week ahead of us :o)

Tomorrow we head to Dar Es Salaam.

Ladies in Khanga and the Gents in Suits