Extracurricular activities

Well, the three week long course in Tanzania has now come to an end. It has been a great course and I must admit, that I have learned more than expected. Especially the activities that took place outside of the class room were very interesting and educational. Let me share a few with you:

Car maintenance
Even though I have tried to convince MS that I will be fine with just a bicycle there is no way around it – I am getting a huge 4WD truck. At least MS has been smart enough to offer a 4-hour session in car maintenance. And I can now claim that there is nothing that I don’t know about a 4WD truck. We tried to change a wheel (and those are a lot heavier than normal wheels), check the oil both here and there including the oil filter (apparently the mechanic will tell that he has changed it, when actually he hasn’t), we also learned how to use the 4WD and went down to the pit to have a look and explanation about the bottom of the car – I almost became interested in mechanics!!! So now I am ready to become a driver in Nepal – how that turns out I will let you know...

Becoming a Masai sister
During the course we also visited a Masai village. The Masai is a very well-known nomadic tribe living in Kenya and Tanzania. They have managed to “resist” influence from other cultures and therefore in many ways live as they did 100 years ago. We visited the village because a local organization, HiMS, worked with the community there – the following week we did a consultancy job for them.
It was an interesting experience where we had the chance of playing tourist getting really close to a Masai village and where they got a big donation from us – so everybody was happy. It caused great excitement when I told them that I was going to Nepal to work with similar women groups and when the official part of the visit was over I was giving a Masai necklace. I was told that this was a sign of me now being a Masai sister and that I would always be a part of them now. All together a great afternoon.

Working with HiMS
As mentioned we used the last days of the course trying out some of the technics we had learned. We were split into two teams who each visited a local help organisation. Our team was to work with HiMS (http://www.hims-tanzania.org/) who worked with local groups in the communities. For the two day workshop 15 very committed women participated and they really worked hard. They had asked us to come and help them develop a organizational assessment tool – that is a tool to gain a common understanding of their organization and identify in which areas special attention is needed (capacity building). It was an interesting assignment and very relevant since I most likely will be working with this in Nepal. The workshop was quite successful and everybody gained from it. After that experience I am really looking forward to start my work in Nepal, since I am convinced that the women I will be working with there will be equally committed.