This week I have successfully organised my first meeting and managed to gather a lot of valuable information to help with my work at NIT. At the beginning of the week I had a challenge to organise a meeting with the transport safety and environmental studies department at NIT because a tyre seminar was taking place. The tyre seminar was organised by the ‘Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority’ (SUMATRA) with the aim of highlighting the importance of tyre maintenance for road safety. I was delighted to be invited to attend the event by the head of the vehicle inspection centre; but when I arrived on the first day I soon realised it was going to be very ineffective for me as it was only being conducted in Swahili. As I could not understand proceedings of the tyre seminar I only stayed for a short period of time, spoke to a few people from NIT before returning to my office. I was invited to attend again the following day, but when I explained it was difficult because of the language difference this was graciously accepted. The status of the tyre event brought the local traffic police along with a camera crew to NIT. This is a huge opportunity for publicity at NIT and it also helps to emphasises the growing investment in Tanzania and the importance of road safety. My first meeting that I have conducted at NIT went really well, my colleagues were very responsive and enthusiastic about the tasks i hope to complete during my six months at here. As a result, we've established a lot of information that needs to be collated – this information will be reviewed on a weekly basis going forward. The meeting has also given me a lot to think about and documents to prepare to help propose alternative ways to collect data going forward. On Friday evening I had a personal mission to find somewhere in Dar es Salaam to watch the rugby league challenge cup semi-final between Leeds and St Helens. I've been enquiring about the chances of watching rugby league since my first day in Tanzania, with lots of people laughing at me. I decided that my best chance to watch it would be at the English bar, which is also ‘Narnia’ (it's the bar Neil tried to take me to on my first week in Tanzania but it was closed). I went with some people from NIT and met some of the Korean friends I have made here in Tanzania. The George and Dragon is an amazing pub – when you walk in it is as if you have walked into a traditional English country pub, however when you exit through a door in a back room you have the amazing atmosphere of a beautiful outside bar/restaurant with a water feature in the centre. Unfortunately I discovered watching rugby league is not possible through the TV services in Tanzania, but I was able to have a very enjoyable evening in amazing surroundings with great company and delicious food. The night was topped off by the news of Leeds securing a place in the challenge cup final! On Saturday I went to the market again to do some shopping – I soon realised that Saturday is the best day to go to the market. During the week there is a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables on offer, but the quantity and variety increased significantly at the weekend. While I feel I did quite well and achieved good prices for everything i bought, as I was walking away from the last two sales people I heard a lot of laughing and clapping… I think on this occasion what seemed to be a low price for me was grossly over inflated for them! I will just have to try harder next time. I finished my weekend with a relaxing day at the local shopping centre. I decided to take another week off from underwater hockey to avoid further injury. After a little bit of shopping and lunch in a local fish restaurant I went to see a movie, which turned out to be a different experience to the UK. Half-way through the movie there was a power cut, which did not faze anyone in the cinema, everyone just accepted that it was something that happens and waited for the power to return. I think that accepting power cuts or ‘kukatika kwa umeme’ as normal is something I am adapting to quickly. Overall I have had a very enjoyable productive week. |