This is a photo taken from the Mazengo Primary school today as part of the interview work we are doing for the MIS Small Medium Entreprise piece of the overall MIS project . I love this photo! This young boy followed me around for a couple of minutes before I even realized it simply because he wanted to meet me...how sweet is that? I am not sure if it was the blond hair or what that compelled him but we managed to have a very nice english/swahili exchange and shook hands (his english was far better than my swahili)....then off he trotted to his class. Afterwards we realized that he actually skipped out of his current class just so he could come talk to us....boy oh boy, what a sweet heart!
Its was actually another very interesting day....yet again one of those days where we had one set plans which basically got thrown out the window about an hour into the day. Today was supposed to be a head's down day cranking out process charts but we got whammied with the announcement that we were off to visit 2 more schools today - a government run primary school (Mazengo) and a privately run secondary school (Jamhuri). We met more fantastic people and confirmed again that although most processes are very manual they are very well thought out and precisely followed. The main consensus here is that (at least with the folks we interviewed) everyone hopes eventually to have their data consolidated in some type of centralized system or database but its anyone's best guess when it will actually happen. In fact, today one of the headmasters actually told us that if we are going to get computers in the schools we ought to do it real soon otherwise it will be "harmful" to the outlook of the teachers (guess they might be tired of getting their hopes up). We told Double Masoud (our main TA from the university) that he needed to get cracking on the new system!
We also had an impromptu visit to the grocery store where I met an Indian woman who actually lived in Markham, Ontario (near the main IBM Canada Office) and whose in-laws still live there. That was kind of cool and then we met some street sellers selling some pretty neat Tanzanian arts....Sandip bought some carvings, Beth & I bought some hand drawn cards and prints. Every day we find new places in town and feel more and more like Dodomites!
The most fun of the day occured first thing this morning when Innocent Siriwa joined our update meeting bearing gifts. Everyone received their own bracelet and key chain which was accompanied with his personalized nickname for each of the team ... it was a half hour process but with Innocent you are sure to get your money's worth of entertainment. He is now fully versed in the complete american high five routine....and knighted us all as official Tanzanians from here on in!
k...need to get to my Dodoma wine....its begging me to drink up.
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