On Hold in Arusha

At the end of March we left Gairo to head back to Australia for two weeks. The work at Gairo had come to a stop almost as we are waiting on more pump parts to come in before we can install the remaining 14 pumps. Our worker in Gairo, Nik was going to finish off the remaining 4 pump slabs to be constructed and be ready for the arrival of the pumps. We went to Dar es Salam for a couple of days, where we got the truck serviced, caught up with Max the ADRA director there for an afternoon to debrief him on the Gairo progress, plus get some more great meals from the Pub we stay next to when in Dar.
In Australia we went to a Wedding of Matt and Lauren in Sydney. Matt worked with us in our old company EE. They had chosen a nice venue and planned a great day and a follow up BBQ for Sunday the day after. Congratulations to Matt and Lauren.
We got to spend some good time with our 2 cats in Melbourne. They were well adjusted to Sarah and Blair looking after them while we have been away and didn’t freak out too much when we came home. Sarah and Blair spoil them so much. That is because they are so cute.
We got to catch up with most of our old EE friends one night at a Pub in Port Melbourne which was very nice. Thanks to all who came.
Then it was back to Tanzania via J’burg again. Back at Arusha we are doing various jobs to help out as needed. One night we had a Pancake night. Ramona and I bought a bunch of berries, syrup and ice-cream and cooked up pancakes for about 14 people. Scrump it was. Another night Max and his family and some friends had a small bonfire out back of their house. We sat around the fire and told a few stories did some star gazing, sang a few songs. On the weekends we have been catching up with the other VSA volunteers around. Some good lodge meals, a few Sunday afternoon beers, good discussions on Africa, places to visit in Tanzania, and what is next for us all after our assignments are over. Most of the other VSA volunteers here at the moment are finishing their terms this year or early next.
We’ve taken on a big project at Adra to implement a new accounting software package and a review of their admin systems. They are switching to Linux for security and anti-virus reasons, so any new software has to run on Linux which makes it a challenge. Ramona is trialling the various packages out and noting their pros and cons. Linux is meant to be as easy as Windows but we have yet to see evidence of that. One day I got stuck for the whole day just because I couldn’t launch a file. It had to be done in terminal mode and that is so unfriendly and un-intuitive. Max’s son Brendon knows it well though so we had to wait for him to get free time to help us out.
The national power company (who is a monopoly) announced last week that they were going to start power outages as they could not meet the demand. So in addition to the power going on and off several times a day from a few minutes to hours, they now are turning the power off at about 7 pm at nights for a few hours it seems. So now our kit for walking outside at night has to include carrying a torch. I cannot imagine the loss to the country when they turn the power off, especially during the day and shut down all the businesses. Not only does the power company (govt owned) loose all the income they could have been generating, the loss of sales revenue from business shutdowns for the nation must be substantial. I’ve been reading a history book on the great scientists since the 1500s, the start of the renaissance. One thing that comes out clear is once electricity was invented and made available, the pace of modernisation of those societies was very fast. Without a reliable source of electricity it seems countries like Tanzania will always struggle. The people want it but many probably cannot afford to buy it even if it was available and the government says there is not enough money to build more capacity to generate more power. i.e. a no win situation. Without the foresight to invest in infrastructure, a country cannot move forward.
I’ve been writing a paper on and off since we have been here on some basic problems and solutions I see with Tanzania. I am sure it will win a Pulitzer prize when it is finished which it nearly is. So stay tuned. It is called Lions for Cows. Email us if you would like a copy of it sent back to you.