Nov 11, 2012
Well I’m at again, traveling to some remote place and
staying for an extended time. But I so love to do it. I’m currently traveling
at 539m/hour at 39000 feet as I’m getting ready to land in Kilimanjaro airport,
we let a few off, pick up a few and on to Dar es Salaam Tanzania where I will
be spending the next few months.
I’m working on the Tanzania 21st Century Education
Project. This is a USAID funded project and my responsibility will be to
prepare equipment for about 900 schools, that include, 900 access points and
network devices, 4500 laptop PCs, and several types of servers. The first phase
is training teams to image and setup the equipment. Then we’ll have an
extensive 2 week installation training class. That should take me to the
holiday break, afterwards I’ll be back to support the 15 installation teams.
Current plan is to be done around mid-February. Most of the installs will be on
the islands of Zanzibar and the district of Mtwara (in the very southern point
of Tanzania). So expect to see some great sites. Many of the installs will also
require solar power, so the teams will install the solar, batteries, and power invertere. The places that have grid power will get battery backup systems to
have a more consistent power source.
I’ll be staying in Dar es Salaam at the Slipaway Apartments
for the first several weeks, it’s along the water and a short ride to our
warehouse. I’ll send pictures soon.
Preparing for this trip was a bit more stressful as there
were several delays in my departure date. I was first expected to be in country
on Sept 1 it slipped to Nov 10. My house is now up for sale. Big thanks to our
neighbors the O’Neil’s for taking care of Indie the dog during my absence. They
are the owners of Indie’s BFF Koda, they will have a great time together. Thank
You!!!
The night before leaving, we thought it would be a good idea
to transition Indie to go to the neighbors, I was frantically doing last minute
packing, cleaning for a weekend open house and getting all my stuff ready. As I
drop him off many of my neighbors were waiting for a surprise going-away party.
It was great, I was totally surprised. I was still in my moving/cleaning
clothes. But stayed around for some drinks and cake, thank you neighbors!
I’m now sitting for one hour on the ground in Kilimanjaro,
waiting to head to Dar. On my KLM flight they have a camera mounted in the
front of the plane on the landing gear. I’m guessing most planes have this, but
KLM broadcasts it to all our in-seat screens, super cool.
At around 1am I arrived at my new apartment to find three major
cockroaches sharing my room. Three quick flip-flop chops and they were gone. I
left them there to show the others I was not kidding around and there IS a new
sheriff in town. Sadly, I found out I get daily maid service and they had to
clean them, sorry.
Nov 12
Today was the first day in the warehouse, a Palestinian
co-worker Sylvester picked us up in his Toyota diesel pickup and we ran across
town to the warehouse.
The warehouse is this huge building with thousands of
dollars of laptops, network equipment, and solar and power equipment. I started
working on imaging some of the laptops. Shortly after I arrived a team of 12 guys
show up. I’ll be teaching them how to configure and install the equipment over
the next 1-2 months. They seem really fun. The warehouse is not air
conditioned, in fact the fans barely work. It’s easily over 100 degrees in
there and we have not turned on all the equipment yet, arggg. I asked the
warehouse person for some thermometers, first thought was to monitor our
equipment, but really for bragging rights. I figure I’ll be losing some weight
again this trip much like Haiti, when I get back I’m writing a friggin diet
book. Why not make some money on these projects.
We battled several issues and left for a conference call, we
decided to do it by out apartment because we did not have to sit in the 7pm
traffic after the call and we could also drink. Hello Kilimanjaro beer!!!
Before the call I decided to stop to get a sim card for my phone. What a mess,
still can’t get it to work, this shit should be so much easier now, but it’s
not. Went back home after beers and dinner and had another call and started to
write my blog.
After a few days in the warehouse we are getting the bugs
worked out. They are all showing up at my house, hahaha. We have some pretty good flows with all the
teams, we have 20+ working in the warehouse so the coordination and keeping
people busy will be a challenge. The warehouse is getting hotter as we put more
lines into production, I now truly know what a sweat shop is all about. Got a
call from Apple yesterday, they asked if we could build some iphones for
them, hahaha. But really, we are moving along, it’s tough work but everyone
seems to be working well.
I have not seen much of Dar yet except my ride to and from
the warehouse, the warehouse, and my apartment. Yesterday we got home at 7pm so
we could go the grocery store before it closed. Four cokes, three bottles of
Kilimanjaro beer and large bottle of water. Guess I’ll need to shop for food
this weekend. As sweatshops require, looks like we are working on Sat this
week.
I’m getting into a routine, wake up early, check my email,
watch some BBC news, oatmeal and tea, then off to work. Coming home, stop and
get a beer or two, something to eat, conference call with the US, then watch
BBC news. Living the glamorous life.
About our TV, we have over 40 stations, but as you go
through it’s the same four channels over and over again, but I do get BBC News,
that rocks. I’ll have to find someplace to get my college football fix this
weekend.
I have a shower in my bathroom, its pretty small. The issue
is the shower curtain does not go far enough down, so the water hits the bottom
and splashes on the floor. Each morning I leave with a rather large puddle. So
they have decided instead installing a longer shower curtain, they leave more
towels I can use on the floor.
Nov 16
Was at the local grocery store today and found my world’s
most favorite juice, Ceres “Secrets of the Valley” it has Apple, Cherry and
Black Currant, I discovered it while in Haiti and totally love it. To quote Zombieland rule number
32, “enjoy the little things”.
So the grocery across the street is pretty interesting,
seems to be catering to tourist/business people in the area. It has four isles,
one is dedicated to alcohol. While at the store getting some more of my
favorite juice and a few more bottles of Kilimanjaro beer, the power goes out.
This is a somewhat normal, you can tell because the checkout lines all have battery backups and continue to work. So you can still buy your
beer and food with the power out. The bad news is unless you’re finished and or
right up to the front of the store it’s pretty dark. I usually have a head lamp
in my bag, but with that being at home I pull out my smartphone, start the flashlight
app, the app turns you camera flash into a flashlight, and off I go finishing
my shopping.
The team in the warehouse has been doing a great job, we are
supposed to image 120 laptops a day, yesterday we did 500. There is a man that
rides through the warehouse area on his cooler equipped bicycle selling ice
cream. I was outside talking to one of my co-workers and decided everyone was
working really hard today so we stopped him, checked out his selection and
bought ice cream for the whole group working in the warehouse, we bought almost
his whole days allotment. I’ll bet everyday he stops by our offices again, and he has.
I’m trying to make working more
enjoyable for the team, little things like ice cream and music can really help.
I told the group on Monday to bring in some music, I would procure a set of
speakers to play music, we have 1000 sets in the warehouse. Over the next few days, no music, I told them
that would have to settle for MY music if they did not bring their own. So I
got the speakers, took my iphone running spotify and started playing music.
After a few minutes people were asking my about spotify. If you don’t know it’s
a product like Pandora (which I really like, but the dumbasses at Pandora won’t
let it work in “this” country for some dumbass reason) that you can pick an
artist or type of music and it will play music in that genre. So I asked them
what kind of music they wanted, I heard jazz or rock, so I set it up and left.
I come back a few minutes later and I’m hearing this crazy hip hop, they had
figured out spotify and changed to what they wanted. The team totally loved it
and you could see an immediate rise in happiness with the team. Today, we have
a visit from some senior members of USAID, they want to see the imaging
process. I may have to change back to some “Ken” music for a very short period
of time until they leave.
Nov 17
Woke up and did not have to go to
work today. We were planning on working on Sat, but because of the great work
from the team this week we decided to give everyone Sat off. I got up, talked to Brynna,
hadn’t done that all week, then went for a walk, it’s a great area here, a peninsula
and friendly people. Came home, found a local organic bakery, bought some fresh
bread and some lemongrass/lime jam, it was awesome.
I have to fly to Mtwara next
Sunday to do a priority install. Some high level people wanted to see an
installed school. But nobody is trained
yet on the install, so they are sending the trainer. It can’t be any hotter than the
warehouse, I hope.
Next week – go back on the Ken
Stober Sweatshop Diet™
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