Kwa heri dar es salaam

How time flies.
It's time to say good bye to dar.. in fact, I already have.

Now I'm sat in the lounge of dubai international airport.
Rather amazed by the level of civilisation here lol

But it was really hard to leave Dar es Salaam.
Reflecting on my 3 and a half months, it was like a roller coaster..
At the beginning, I was full of hope, so happy to be in Sub-Sahara Africa, the place I had been longing to visit. Then after that I was so frustrated - I couldn't "get" the town, culture or people. I think it was about half way through, in my 2nd month, I got through that frustration.

After that, time just flew past. I love Tanzania and dar es salaam, though I do get frustrated every now and then seeing problems that can be overcome.

Also job-wise, it was a valuable experience. I wouldn't say I know everything, but I can say I know more, a lot more than I did before. And although my work at the headquarter (dev partnership div) might be quite "far" from the field projects, I shall try to remember how I felt, things people said, and always relate my work to it. Tanzania will be at the core of my work, whatever level I will be working.

It's(was) sad to leave, but I hope I will come back.

Kwa heri Dar es Salaam, lakini tutaonana tena.

Collecting the ordinary sceneries

Oh dear. Almost 3 weeks without a post.
or more like, "has it already been 3 weeks since I sent to zanzibar??!"

This is scary, cuz I've only got 2 weeks left before going back to Tokyo!

My life started rolling properly about a month ago. Now I know what I'm doing, I know what is where in Dar, where to have fun, and I have a good company too. I suddenly found myself really enjoying my life.. when I've only got 3 weeks to go before relocation.

I'm gonna miss this place. what to do??

I started collecting photos of the favourite ordinary places around Dar.. normal scenery I've been seeing, but not necessarily having a record of. The bunch of photos below are from a casual walk around the town on saturday, but I will try to continue doing this till the day I leave...

Zanzibar revisited

The main post of the day today..

After the ramadhan break wkend, I immediately set off to another 6-day business trip this time to Mwanza, the 2nd biggest city of Tanzania.

Fast forward, I came back to Dar, my friend says "let's go to Zanzibar this weekend cuz we may not have time in October!"
True, we are running out of "weekends".

So we went. My 2nd visit to the paradise.

This time I managed to go to Prison Island, with massive turtoise and the most beautiful beach ever, and Nungui, a famous spot for diving.
Do I dive? again, no not really, but I did a Try Dive and it was fun. (I will use my paid holiday to go to Thailand or somewhere to get a lisence... I'm serious!)

Unfortunately there's no underwater picture, but let me show you how beautiful that place is...

...How could you not fall in love with this island?

Eid Mubarak

How time flies, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last lazy post!
Let me post two in a row to catch up...

What have I been up to?
The last post was on the 8th of September, just before Eid ul Fitr -the break of ramadhan.
Ramadhan traditionally ends when the new moon is sighted. While some countries just decides the date for the end of ramadhan, Tanzania takes a traditional method -the most important muslim person of Tanzania decides -ie, if he sights the new moon, that's the end of ramadhan. If he can't see the moon for whatever reason, another day of fasting. I was told that the break of ramadhan is often a day later than other countries. (Apparently this year Kenya was a day late!)

So, on the evening of Thursday the 9th we (ppl in my office) gathered on the office balcony, saw the moon and went home happily because it meant that Friday became a day off.
What did I do? well, cool people go to the beach for ramadhan break!


So I joined a bunch of ppl for surfing excursion to South Beach, just on the south of dar es salaam.
Do I surf? um, not really. But I like trying.
Well, even if I could -even those surfers I went there with were struggling to catch the wave, because the ocean was nice 'n' calm, perfect for light beach fun.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed floating on the board, paddling, using my unused mascles, having fun under the sun :)

Wonders of nature

A week passed writing up reports and doing all sorts of random work..

Here's a place I found in Lindi, the seaside town I stayed on the last night of the hospital trip.
Totally resembles ah-what's-it-called? The world heritage site in Cambodia (I believe) I'd love to visit but not yet managed to.

Lindi, just like Bagamoyo, also was one of the ports for slave trade in the 19th century, and there are a few historical, German colonial heritages in some parts of the town.

This building is not named as far as I know, and no one seems to care about it.
I was the only one standing there, staring and getting a strange shiver feeling the power of nature and "the past" of such a peaceful town.

Masai warriors

I just wanted to put this picture cuz it's funny...

Apparently there's no/not many Masai guys in Uganda (according to this guy who I met the other day), but in Tanzania you see them everywhere.. on streets, wearing Masai clothes.
It's really cool that they are sticking to their tradition in this era of globalisation and everything! Because of their world-famous reputation as warriors, the most common occupation (in Dar) is... Parking guard. Yea, I'm serious!

And the other weekend when I went to the South Beach in Dar... I found Masai lying on the beach.
Cute, no? :)

On visiting hospitals in Tanzania

It's been a while since I posted here.. I doubt people are following my posts so I was taking it easy.. um that's not true, I think I was a bit stuck.

Since I came back from my week-long business trip, I've been thinking what to post. Before I was just spontaneously coming up with stuff or I went to interesting places and it just triggered my thoughts and emotions. But it didn't happen. Why? I think I'm finally getting used to Tanzania; now, not everything seem so exotic like it did before... oh wait, does that tell you anything about my personality or personal life? ok let's stop lol

ANYWAY, it is both good and bad. But for the moment, this process of getting-used-to-the-new-things isn't completed yet, it seems. I was looking at the pictures from the business trip and I felt that I should share these photos with you (whoever may still be reading)!

Business trip No.?: Consultation Visits to 4 District Hospitals in South-Eastern region of Tanzania.

Ok, please don't generalise too much from my pictures, of course there are hospitals in city, but the places I visited look like this...Cool, huh?

But what the hell is Consultation Visit?
Well, we + Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Tanzania are promoting this concept called 5S-KAIZEN-TQM (Total Quality Management) now in 21(? I think) hospitals, and it is planned to be disseminated to 37 hospitals across the country in the next 4 years.

5S-Kaizen is a management philosophy developed by Toyota, for quality improvement and continuous quality management. The S's are;
Seiri (Sort/Sasambua)
Seiton (Set/Seti)
Seiso (Shine/Safisha)
Seiketsu (Standardize/Sanifisha)
Shitsuke (Sustain/Shikilia)
(yes, it's all translated into English and Kiswahili!)

and "Kaizen(改善)" means something like "further improvement" in direct translation.

Why this?
Because this is what you see in these hospitals...






























I must say, these are seen everywhere I went, and I'm not exaggerating. Well, wards (the last one) look relatively okay -then again, maybe not? maybe I got used to it..

5S is such a simple and seemingly normal concept, yet it is not a norm here. It's not a straightforward thing to change someone's mindset, habit or culture. We all know that it could be dangerous, to impose one's habit to the other in some cases. However, on visiting these hospitals, I felt.. well, I hope this project will help, even slightly, to improve the quality of services for the well-being of these people.