A Week that Was ..

A Week that was ..

Friday, 16 April 2009, Early Morning. I said bye bye to Kullu and Shetty. While checking in, I figure out that the luggage limit is actually 30 Kg and not 40 Kg as I was expecting. And what a luck, my luggage weighs 30.3 Kgs. The staff of Emirates generously accepted my request to let 0.3 me take Kgs extra.

Friday morning, 6.30 Dubai time. My first visit to this part of the world. Looking down the windows, I could see a plane sheet with think black lines drawn in a specific fashion. The whole city looked like a painting or rather diagram with straight lines on desert side and circular lines on side of sea. And then I see those tall towers and a row of ships and boats. Dubai has many small islands around it. And city looks very impressive at first look.

Transit time was 4 hours. And there I go, watching people, looking around the way I used to do when I used to travel from Solapur to Calicut during those 36 hours train journey. The airport was like a centre stage of world. I could see people from Gulf, Europe, middle east, Africa, India, east Asia, and Americas. And it was fun listening to all sort of languages with all sort of accent.

10 minutes before the next flight I met Kate from CDC. She was our NGO Partener. And that was the beginning of my CSC assignment. The excitement was evident in the conversation we had.

The landing at Dar wasn’t that good. I had to hold my seat and breath for sometime. I could see a lot of small planes around.

We met Dan, Wolfegang and Roku at Hetel Medittariano. Dan was the first to arrive. Hotel medittariano is a sea resort located near area where most of the embassies are situated. Friday evening was our first meeting with ‘Dodoma Kikoa1’ Team. Sean arrived in evening. We were sitting at the dinner table for about 6 hours, waiting for Beth and Liz to arrive. After 3 months of talking over phone, we were seeing our team mates. It was fun talking to everyone and understanding cultural differences. You can imagine a dinner table with Japanese, Australian, Indian, German and American trying to evaluate travel and eating habits of every country.

The plan for next day was to regroup at 9 and go out exploring town. I wake up when Roku knocked my door shouting Sandip, Sandip. I was late.. old habit. As per Kate’s suggestions we went out to do some shopping, exchange money and visit another resort cum market place.

At night there was a party at Meditteriano. And it turned out to be a hot shot party of the town. They had a DJ .. supposedly from USA playing songs of all genres and languages. It started with old Arabic style hindi songs and then went on to play the pop and rock music. The place was getting crowded. And by 11 pm it was full. It was such a mix of people that Beth mentioned that she feels as if she is in a James Bond Movie and he is gonna show up anytime. Apparently this party was hangout place for diplomats, embassy people and UN and NGO volunteers. It was the first chance to experience the richness of cultural diversity that towns of Africa posses. Lucia was the last one to join us and we got our house full.

Sunday morning we said Kwaheri to Hotel and started our journey towards Dodoma in a small private bus. Sitting beside Lucia, I was testing my geography and history knowledge. Well, it was a good lesson to know the differences between different European countries and the history behind their existence. And I had my part of stories as well. The landscapes were beautiful. We witnessed some Masaai Villages. Occasional showers of rain halted out speed but we managed to get to Dodoma by 6 pm.

A small party was organized by UDOM to welcome us to Dodoma. It was such a warm welcome. The Principal of college introduced each one of us. I felt like being a part of world delegation when I say ‘Sandip from India’.

Monday was our first day at work. It was great experience watching the construction work and amount of progress they have done in last two years. We met some students, teachers and the Cafeteria staff – important people !!.

In the evening I decided to check out gym at our New Dodoma Hotel. At gym I met a person who told me that he owns a hotel and transportation business. I said I got my first client for my project at University – MIS for Small and Medium businesses.
In evening we went out to African Dreams. It was closed so we went to African Royals or something like that. And what a coincidence, it was the same guy who I met in gym. He was owner of this restaurant. Food was good but highlight of the evening was the giant spider that we witnessed. Not in our food.. but on the floor.

Tuesday, we start our work. We met department heads, then our respective team members from UDOM. They were all Teaching Assistants at UDOM.
In evening, we went for a walk down the road. And you can see the action in another blog called ‘A walk down the road in Dodoma’.

Wedneday, we met Finance dept, trying to understand how they operate. Evening was Club 84. This is the Infamous club of Dodoma. It was evident from the responses that I received from receptionist at Hotel. We had a dinner there but could not stay for long to see the buzz of night party of Dodoma.

Thursday was our meeting day. We met UDOM Library. Slowly we were getting back to our work plans.

Friday we visited our first School. It was a public(Government) secondary residential school. I will write a separate blog about schools in Dodoma. This is a big part of my project now - the schools management system.  sounds cool.
Thursday night we visited Police mess. They say this is the safest place in Dodoma. Reason, it is near the main police head quarters. Good enough. This place had a live music and a dance floor. I was trying to see the relation between music and two to left, two to right – 4 step dance.

One week was over. Here we go. Saturday again. We have a trip planned to Winery. A visit planned to Justinian’s house. And a Eucker game to be played at Hotel. A lot to do.