Meetings - some with a capital M and some with a lower-case m

So what have I been doing since I last blogged? Well, Team Iringa left Iringa on the 26^th November to head to Dar, ready for a week-long whole-project meeting commencing the 28^th November. Working on the EQUIP-T-ELT (Education Development and Quality Improvement Project for English Language Teacher Training in Tanzania) for VSO are 7 teams of 3 placed across the whole of Tanzania, therefore comprising a total of 21 individuals. Some volunteers came out in February 2013 and set the basis of what we, the volunteers who came out at the end of June 2013 would be doing, and some other volunteers who were unable to leave their home country earlier joined the project in August 2013, so it was really nice to be able to meet the rest of the project team for the first time. We were also put up in a nice hotel - the Giraffe Ocean View - with decent facilities, like a hot shower. There was also a swimming pool but we didn’t get much opportunity to use it as it closed at 6pm and we were often in meetings until 5.30pm/6pm. Still, the rooms (and showers!) were very nice.

(Thanks Nehal for letting me use one of your pics.)

On the 1^st December we transferred to another hotel to join the British Council (BC) team who make up the other half of the project: the English Language Teaching (ELT) side of it. There is a BC trainer at each of the 34 government Teacher Training Colleges, teaching an English course to all of the tutors who will then teach it to their student teachers. There is a tremendous amount of extra time required of the tutors to do this as an extra: 5 hours per week; and the culture here is that when attending courses or any kind of what we would call Continuing Professional Development (CPD) people are used to receiving payment (‘per diems’) to supplement their low salaries, so that when we or anyone provides any kind of training or support without per diems there is very little motivation to participate, so consequently the attendance is dropping. The idea of participating to further your own knowledge and expertise is a novel one, rarely shared. That might be the topic for discussion another day.

So anyway, (nearly) all the VSO volunteers met (nearly) all of their BC trainers in one place, instead of seeing them only at their respective TTC, which was a fantastic day of sharing ideas and experiences, and brainstorming future developments of the project. Each VSO team has between 3 and 6 BC trainers that they are working with, depending on how many TTCs are in their catchment: Team Iringa is coordinating with 6 TTCs across the southern highlands, so that’s 6 BC trainers we have the joy of seeing and working with every time we visit their TTC! It was really nice to see ours again and to meet the whole team, and it was very productive: I really hope we get to do it again. We also got to stay in a very posh hotel (where the cost of my laundry – I think 6 items – was the same amount as spending one night at Econolodge, where we normally stay) with another nice pool (managed to squeeze in about 10 minutes in this one before they closed it for the night), delicious food, and a BATH! I had a HOT BATH! Oh, it was bliss :-)

On the 2^nd December we had finished with our project meetings, and as there were another 9 days until the Annual Volunteers’ Conference (AVC) which was also taking place in Dar the team went over to Zanzibar – or I should say ‘Unguja’ as ‘Zanzibar’ also includes Pemba – for a short holiday, staying with other VSO volunteers who are based there. Juanito had to go to the hospital in Dar for a few days so he joined us later, and even though he was there barely 24 hours it was nice to all relax together, eating good food and enjoying each others’ company. We visited one of the projects that volunteers from the ‘Secure Livelihoods’ branch of VSO is working on, namely the opening of a Farmers’ Market, and had good conversations with some of the volunteers working on the island. Then it was back to Dar for 3 days of AVC before spending a day in Dar hunting for snorkeling gear and then flying down to Mtwara, where we are now. Pics to follow :-)