Off to Mtwara

Sorry for my long delay in blog postings, I was in Mtwara for most of last week, and what they call internet is more like a bad AOL experience, remember the those dial-up days.  Back in Dar with some better internet connections now. I’m a bit worried when the biggest town has so many internet issues, wonder how the remote schools will get access. Good thing they don’t have a lot of facebook or skype needs.

We pretty much finished our imaging and prep work, 4374 laptops, 970 access points, 970 cloud controller and about 180 servers all in 12 days, awesome team, I start installation training next week. We’re going out Sunday night for a celebration dinner.

Nov 19

Heat, heat, heat!!!

It was already hot in the warehouse last week, so what did we do, added another production line. Now it’s getting very hot. I've talked to the people who run the warehouse and asked for more and bigger fans. I’m drinking not only water, but electrolytes now too. I will ask to get a bunch of bananas to come into the warehouse today to keep potassium levels high.

Since I got here it’s been get up, go to work, come home eat and have a beer and go to bed. Not too much fun yet, but getting a lot done. This weekend I get to get out and travel to install one of the schools.

Today I came home to a new bed. That may not be exciting to most, but if you read the last paragraph my life is a bit boring right now so this is pretty cool news. When I arrived, and since I arrived last, Matt, my roommate got the nice room with the big bed, I got the smaller 2 single bed room with a sad excuse for the mattress. Today I got a double bed with a pretty sweet mattress. What a difference.

Nov 21

The warehouse is a cement cinder block all the way to the tin roof. The cement dust comes off leaving a fine level of dirt across the lab. We move the equipment through very quickly so no impact on that, although I may need to clean out a server or two. This week we had to do a major cleaning to clean all the surfaces we do imaging.

To add to that we have a tin roof. The first time it rained you could not even here yourself talk, between the tin roof and rain, cinder block walls and cement floor it was acoustically perfect to maximize the sound of the rain. Several times I thought the earth was coming to an end and thought about climbing under the desk, but remembered it really won’t end until Dec 21, plenty of time.

Nov 22

Thanksgiving

A few days before thanksgiving we were given the option of taking the day off. Some of our US based co-workers took the day. Since it is not a holiday here and the team wanted to work we decided to work. Got my usual aluminum foil lunch container of chicken, rice, and veggies.

Thanksgiving meal

 Got home so that I could get another sim card for my phone. I was told my current provider may not work in Mtwara, so I got another one and another phone number.

So the phone system here is a lot like many other places, everything is pre-paid, but where you get service is the challenge, you almost need a special google earth program and know GPS stuff to figure out which system to use in which location. Most people either carry multiple phones or multiple sims. I happen to do both. There are several carries here, Zantel, Airtel, Tigo, Zain, and Vodacom. So when you meet new people the conversation at some point will turn to cell phone and data service, what do they use and where. So you take all these data points and create a plan that may work for you. I now have two sims, Vodacom for Dar and Airtel for Mtwara and other locations. When I go to Zanzibar I’ll likely need to get a Zantel one too.

So you go to the store and buy a sim for about TSH2000-3000, then buy a one month data plan, 1gb for TSH15,000. Then you buy phone service, TSH5000-10,000. So for about TSH25,000 you get a month of data and phone, that is about $15USD. So for $30-45 I’m pretty well covered for phone and data around the country. I also have to keep a log for when each phone/data plan expires so my phone service does not lapse and each service has a different way to activate the next month.

Now to make things complicated you have internet for your computer, it is a USB device that connects to the side of the computer. Since we have no internet at the house, I use one of these devices. It’s pretty good. But for Dar I use Zantel, they seem to have the best coverage during the daytime hours. When I go to Mtwara, I’ll need a different one. They all have different service plans that expire monthly too.

So now you understand it’s somewhat complex to determine which sim card and USB internet device to use in which location and to keep track. Still having a hard time remembering the codes I have to use to find out balance and such.

Laundry

This week I needed to do laundry, heading to Mtwara next week and needed some clean clothes. Ken’s rules for travel “no matter how long the trip, pack for two weeks”. This way you have enough clothes and you just have to figure out the local laundry “laws”. At the Slipway, the cleaning people get extra pay (or maybe most of their pay) from doing renters laundry. I left my laundry on the bed with a note, loosely translated using the google translate service. I came home to no laundry. I thought, it will be here tomorrow, I hope. If not packing for the weekend trip will be a challenge. Then I knock on the door, the neighbor in 18A, who we work with at the warehouse, comes over with this basket, it’s my laundry. How did they get it to him? At least if they were going to misplace the laundry, it was great it was them, otherwise I may have never seen it again. As I go through it, I find I’m missing 1.5 pairs of socks and gained 0.5 pairs of someone else’s socks and a bill for TSH25,000. Looks like I need to keep working on my laundry plan, I can get phone service for a month for the same price for a load of laundry.

Nov 28 Mtwara Tanzania             

I have been down in Mtwara the last few days getting ready for a VIP event for the first school installation. We came down Saturday morning to install a 20 thin client Window Multi-point Server. It includes a solar system, communication equipment and a special education server.

How do we put 20 computers in this room, hey where are the tables?

We found the tables in the another building, we had to carry them over, clean off the spiders and move them into the classroom. The tables were all trapezoids, so the design was like a life size tetris game.

Showing Coleman how to check the internet

Assembling the presenter box that has a computer, projector ,  and speaker  packed nicely in one easy to carry box

Running the Ethernet  and power wires to the other room

Must have a painting on the side

We finished the majority of the install on Sunday, but had to do some more tweaks on Mon and Tues as a few additional parts came into town. It’s now all ready. This is a regional teacher training center where the teachers will come in and learn the new technology to take back to their schools.

20 computers in the classroom

Communication equipment

Powered by solar panels on the roof

Rob from USAID cuts the ribbon with a rep from the Ministry of Education

Staying at the Msemo Hotel, some have called it a beach resort, I don’t, because the beach is not that good, and don’t want people to think I’m living the high life while here.  But the views are outstanding.

During this project I got to meet 2 Peace Corps volunteers that had been assigned to the project, they were so great and wonderful to work with and so happy and passionate about this project. I look forward to continue to work with them on TZ21.

Dec 1

It’s been a great week, the event went off flawlessly, got great kudos, the imaging is almost done so the warehouse if cooling a bit. Going get caught up on my paper work this weekend.

With the all the challenges living here, I would still say this work is at the top of most favorite projects of my career. Seeing a remote school in Africa get computers, internet, power and how this will change their lives is amazing. Being able to make it happen is so cool.