Subject: Bukoba #11: Six Months in Bukoba
Monday, October 1, 2001
I have a phone! The connection was installed last Monday. My phone number is 255 28 2220862. I also managed to get an Internet connection in Mwanza and should be able to receive mail at gregvogl@mwanza-online.com and browse the Internet by using local calls to Mwanza for 40 shillings a minute instead of Dar for 200-400/=. But I think it was a waste of 54000 shillings, as Fiona will probably be gone in a week for the UK and I'll not have a working computer with a modem for the rest of the month. Hopefully the Cyber Centre will be up and running again soon and I'll use yahoo again from there. So to be sure I get the messages eventually, please continue to use gregvogl at yahoo dot com as well. Mwanza didn't have a spare part for our second printer, so we remain with only one working printer. My box of computer books and supplies that Mohammed went through so much trouble to bring to Tanzania in July remains in the VSO office in Dar; it would have been faster to send it surface mail. :(
Mwanza this weekend was pleasant though sunny and hot. We were lucky to get second class on the ferry both ways, six to a cabin (Fiona, Gwyn, Machteld, Andrea, Tony and me), so we were able to sleep both nights. Saturday we stayed at the Pamba hostel which was not bad for only 3000 for a double. We ate a lavish breakfast at the New Mwanza hotel, a variety of pizzas at the Kuleana Pizzeria, and nice but costly suppers at the Tilapia Hotel and the Sizzler (Chinese and Indian). The others went swimming at the Tilapia pool, and we played Hearts, Sh**head and a Parcheesi-like game. Saturday night we were up until the wee hours at the Rock Beach Hotel which has a bar, pool tables and disco. Sunday I spent three and a half hours in an Internet caf? collecting my e-mails from the past three months and updating my website. It now has a separate page for the University of Bukoba Department of Information Technology which has an updated computer proposal. It also has an updated Bukoba page, including an eight-page travel guide to Bukoba, a vastly improved PowerPoint map, and all my past letters. To see it, go to http://gvogl.tripod.com/bukoba/bukoba.htm .
My advanced word processing workshop will not start until tomorrow, as participants were not informed and two of the three were away. The university will not start classes until at least January, so I will need to continue teaching workshops and probably start finding new students. I will also be able to catch up on numerous projects, including designing syllabi, visiting donated computer recipients, and maybe helping out at the Cyber Centre. If the university is delayed until October, I may have to find some other primary VSO job, either in Bukoba or Dar.
Anna's contract has been finalised and she is now busy contacting potential donors and establishing a registered charity for the university, so she will not return until mid-November, but she promises to bring plenty of goodies, including a replacement hard disk for my portable. Fiona has been tentatively offered a three-month administrative position in Nigeria. She would like to come back here after it finishes if she can find appropriate work here, but hard to say if that will materialise. Professor Katoke is due to return later this week, and hopefully Mariana will be back Wednesday to clean up my neglected and filthy abode.
The annual Bukoba tennis tournament will take place roughly November 4. Last year about 20 people participated. The winner was Zully, the proprieter of the Rose Caf?, and my money is on him this year too; I don't think I have won a single game from him. My goal is to finish in the top half of participants. VSO Kagera is holding a regional celebration of the 40th anniversary of VSO in Tanzania on November 16. During the day we will host a conference at ELCT, and in the evening will be a ball at the Lake Hotel. I hope to take more digital pictures, create a PowerPoint presentation about the university and have it play automatically on my portable; it would be a good promotion for the university. Also, I've never been to a ball (or even a prom), and it should be fun.
Hard to believe I've been here six months already; time has really flown. Comparing Bukoba with Ohangwena, I think that this is a more interesting and happening place: a larger and more linguistically and culturally diverse population, less Westernised, more to see and do. I think I've done more socialising here than I did in Namibia, though primarily with ex-pats. I think I have spent less time with Tanzanians than Namibians, particularly students, and I've barely learned any new Swahili since training and zero Ruhaya. Maybe my highest priority now should be to get intensive language training.