This past
weekend was pretty quiet…it just made me miss Australia more to be honest. I
didn’t get much done other than I finished modifying some templates for the microfinance
project, and had some nice sleeps hahahaha. Today was much the same really! Not
much happened!
This morning
I got to the office nice and early, in case I had to rewrite my presentation
from last week, since it’s not the wisest idea to rely on the fact that your presentation
posters will still be around from day to day hahaha. Anyway, it was a pleasant
surprise that it was still there! So, I just got to relax and work on
redesigning some more templates! I’ve been working on the interview templates
that Projects Abroad uses. The issue was that it was all over the place, and different
interviews had their answers in different formats and in different places, and it
was overall very difficult to understand. So, I redesigned the first interview
template last week so that it can’t be edited anywhere except in the designated
slots for the women’s answers, unless you deliberately unlock the document in
order to edit the questions…I thought it might just be a bit of a waste of
time, something to fill in my spare time, but this morning Elizabeth told me
that it was so good she wanted me to do the other interview templates like it
too! So that’s what I spent my morning doing!
I also discovered
this morning (a little bit of backstory here – some of the volunteers went on safari
this past weekend, like Yuta and Cleo) that Marjolein went on safari, too, but…like…not
with the other Projects Abroad people
who went…they only discovered this because when Cleo signed in to one of the
parks in the visitor’s book, she noticed that Marjolein’s name was already in
there, for THAT day. Apparently throughout the day they saw her a couple of
times, and she just said hi and continued on her way. She was on her own with
her own safari driver…no one else. And the thing is, she knew that there were other people going, since she told them to
have fun on the safari on the weekend! Very strange…oh well!
Um what else
happened…not much…then we left to go to the Monday morning group, Aged Sunshine. I got to deliver my
presentation on good customer service! Rachelle told me that she liked
translating this presentation because it’s simple. There’s no difficult words
or anything, it’s just straightforward hahahaha. It was well received! A couple
of the women had some questions about specific situations, but nothing too difficult!
Then, immediately afterwards, Cleo did a cooking lesson on how to cook an
apple cake…which, I won’t lie…was really yummy…I loved it. HAHAHAHA except
without an oven to bake it in, we had to make do. The women got a massive metal
bowl, put it on top of some hot coals, and covered the top. I didn’t
understand why, until they put the bowl containing the cake mix inside the
bigger bowl. They had essentially made a tiny oven! It was really clever! But yeah,
despite the lack of any measuring implements, the possible lack of clean
instruments, and just all-round questionable-ness…it turned out to be delicious
and light and fluffy! I wish I’d taken some pictures! I didn’t take many today
unfortunately.
So right
after the whole cake had been devoured, we all piled into a taxi (not a minivan
today, just a standard sedan-sized car, and also not with our regular driver,
Walter) and headed back to the office…except we didn’t make it to the office. Out
of all the reasons not to make it to the office, I thought it would be the
driver’s use of 4th gear to take off from lights…or the deafening
lack of brake pads on the rear brakes…but no…it was plain clothes cops. If you ever
get pulled over by plain clothes cops in Tanzania, you’ll understand just how
scary it is when you don’t know what’s going on. Cleo and I both noticed when
the driver went around a car in the middle of an intersection, but we didn’t
think anything of it really. About 100 metres down the road, this black 4WD sped
up behind us (I could hear their engine roaring), swerved out, drove past, and swerved
back in front of us again, before jamming on their breaks and coming to a
screeching stop. The guy in the passenger side then leaned out his window with
a tiny (like maybe A8 size…if that’s a thing…it was pocket sized) red book in
his hand. Then both guys waved us over to the side of the road, and the driver
complied. At this point, Yuta, Cleo and I were all a little worried because we
had no idea what was happening, just that two big guys in a black 4WD had ordered
us to pull over without giving us a choice (no sirens or lights or anything). The
driver took the red book from one of them, and opened it up, and I saw that it
said “Inspectore ______” with some name in there, so I thought “I hope these
guys are really cops, and at least not too corrupt” hahahahah. Anyway, there
was some heated discussion, after which both the cops went back to their car
behind us. Rachelle then explained what had happened to us. The driver took off,
and I immediately said to Cleo “I’m pretty sure those cops still have his
license”…anyway for the next few minutes we didn’t think anything of it and brushed
it off…until the black 4WD came up, swerved in front of us again and yelled at
the driver! My immediate thought was “Ugh what is it this time”, but I asked Rachelle and she told us that the cops said
that they thought our driver had tried to escape! So, I was right! They DID still
have his license. (which means he was just an idiot and didn’t realise) They
told him to follow them to the police station…at which point I got really worried,
since I try to stay out of police stations at the best of times in Australia,
let alone in Tanzania, where the police force’s integrity is somewhat questionable…After
about 30 seconds of driving, the driver finally stopped to let us out…he was
going to take us all the way to police station! Anyway, we walked the rest of
the way back to the office which was only like 5 to 10 minutes of walking. So THAT
was the eventful part of the day, thank god…
Then we had
lunch at Lenana which was uneventful…I didn’t wear my drink this time…which is
good! Then we headed back out to the afternoon group, Chem Chem. While Yuta did
the bookkeeping and Marjolein did her presentation on saving, Cleo, Rachelle,
and I all went on a business visit to Lightness’ business. She sells second-hand
clothes. Despite her somewhat irrepressible enthusiasm for clothes (and her
constantly trying to sell everything in her store to either Cleo or me), she suffered
a lot from tunnel vision in terms of running her business. Her sights were set
on the final loan offered by the microfinance (which is 1,000,000Tsh) to allow
her to move her business into town. The issue is, her current business is far from good and requires a lot of work first. Additionally, rent for
a shop in town is about 400,000Tsh per month, meaning that loan could barely
support her for one month once she outfitted the shop and paid rent…so I tried
to explain to her that that’s not a good goal for the use of the final loan,
but she was very intent on it. I discovered that she used the entire first loan
she got (100,000Tsh) to buy ONE pair of shoes to sell…I don’t know what she’s
used all the subsequent loans for…but I don’t think it’s capital investment. It
was a really quite a shame to see someone so enthusiastic, with such an
excellent support structure behind her, but who just couldn’t get how to run a successful business. I’ll
get to see her again next week so maybe I can work with Cleo to develop a business
plan for her or something…otherwise her shop (which is on a back road somewhere)
will definitely die after the final loan is given to her.
Anyway, that
was about it. I took some pictures of the miniature field where the Chem Chem
group meets!
Otherwise,
that was it. I came home…and now I’m just relaxing. There’s power! So, I’m pretty
happy. It’s also now only a week until I finish up at Projects Abroad! I’m
looking forward to coming home! I can’t wait to see the “Welcome to Melbourne”
sign at the airport hahahha.
Anyway, as
always, thanks for reading! And I’ll see you next time!
Scary. Glad you're all OK.
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