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One year ago I was alone, saddled with bags, inside Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyetta airport, watching the last of the travelers filter out as the airport closed for the night. I had just missed my connection to Mombasa, where I was supposed to meet my friend Mary. She wasn’t answering her cell phone. As the luggage carousel sputtered to a halt, the touts and taxi drivers sprung on me like jackals on a carcass. No, I didn’t need a safari. No, I don’t want to ride an elephant. Just get me to a hotel, please, somewhere I can sleep. I was wrecked after ~20 hours of travel, and I (stupidly) hadn’t planned for the occasion in which I missed my connection. The last flight out.

I zeroed in on my guy, one of the better dressed of the lot. He explained that he ran a tour company, and that he could show me some rooms. Wouldn’t I look at some pamphlets in his office? Dubious, and only marginally reassured by the fact that his office was in the terminal itself, I followed. I have a place, my friend told me to go there, I said, can you just help me get there? No, he said, that is too far and they have no room. Please, look at these nice places. Very nice, and not too much. This one, I said, looks fine. How much? Two hundred dollars, that’s a good price (no, it’s not). Somehow I got him to go for half of that and pick me up in the morning. The room was dirtier than a dorm room, and about the same size. Whatever, there was a bed with a net on it. And a prayer rug, just in case.

That’s how I started a five week trip to Tanzania as part of IBM’s Corporate Service Corps program, a trip that a year later I still think of often, if not daily. It was an incredible experience, and I’m incredibly grateful that I had a chance to participate. I long to go back to Tanzania, who knows what the future holds.

Photos:

More photos on Flickr

Hard to believe that my time here in Arusha is almost complete. Today is the last day of real work; tomorrow is dedicated to presentations, handshakes (the cornerstone of Tanzanian business dealings), and goodbyes. Friday is a national holiday. The team leaves on Saturday at various times to go back to their homelands. I’m staying in Arusha for the weekend to visit Mangola, a local village near Karatu, and tour a friend’s uncle’s coffee plantation. Next week I’ll head to Zanzibar for a few days, then it’s back to the States on Thursday, with a pit-stop in London.

I’m happy with what we’ve been able to acheieve as a team here, and I’m very happy with what I was able to accomplish by myself. It’ll be tough not having our daily team dinners and card sessions, or to hear Bakiri’s piercing laugh, or almost being blindsided by a speeding dala dala, but I think we’ll manage.

Dar Es Salaam: hot, crowded, congested, brash, poor, dirty, lively, overwhelming, vibrant, humid, alive.

The title of this post comes from Bakiri, our very animated, very lovable partner at the Institute of Accountancy. I argued that it should not be “land of Kilimanjaro,” but rather “land of Bakiri,” but his modesty, for once, was too much.

Quick updates:

• Most bizarre item I’ve seen strapped on a bicycle rack: a lawn mower. The rider looked a bit unsteady navigating the speed bumps on Njiro road, but he never lost his balance, and drivers, surprisingly, gave him wide bearth. Runners up for the award are: a tower of six suitcases that dwarfed the rider, and a large computer printer.
• Fring has been indispensable in keeping in touch, as it usually much easier to carry the iPhone than the laptop and find a WiFi connection. Now that Skype is available for iPhone, however, I think I’ll switch, assuming I can ever finish downloading the app.
• I made arrangements today with a colleague at IAA to visit his uncle’s coffee farm outside Arusha. I’m unbelievable excited for this, possibly more excited than I am to see Zanzibar. His uncle is on the Tanzania Coffee Board, so you know it’s legit. Expect me to come back with 50kg sacks of coffee.

Sally and Nitish

Rodrigo and Chrstine

Andrea

Nitish

Hiroya

Rodrigo

Hiroya, Andrea, Gloria

Chris (yours truly)

Apologies to Colleen and Christine, I just didn’t get a good picture of you guys.

Greetings from Arusha, Tanzania. The trip so far is going wonderfully. My time in Mombasa with Mary was much, much too short. The sights, sounds, and smells were simply overwhelming. Above you can see the view from the beach outside her apartment.

I’m in Arusha, Tanzania now with the rest of the IBM team. Everything so far is going great, and I’m really happy with the other folks. Today is the first day of work, so we’ve all got a bit of first-day-of-school jitters.

Flag of Tanzania

I’m heading to Africa in a few days as a part of the IBM Corporate Service Corps. Despite the mildly awkward name, it’s a rather interesting program. IBM is sending 600 of its best and brightest to work with NGO in emerging markets. It’s a mish-mash of corporate citizenship, good public relations, philanthropy, and advance market research. I’m joining 8 other IBMers from around the globe — the Philippines, India, Brazil, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States — to work for one month with three organizations in Arusha, Tanzania. We have never worked together as a team before, let alone ever met in person. We’re all hail from various backgrounds which run the gamut from technical skills to sales to marketing to management. Some of us don’t speak English very well, and none of us speak any Swahili.

I learned just a few days ago that I’ll be working with the Institute of Accountancy Arusha (IAA). They offer various undergradute and postgraduate programs in business, accounting, and information technology. I’ll be working with them to assess their current infrastructure, plan upgrades, and various other IT-related tasks. Other team members are working with the African Wildlife Foundation and the Tanzanian Association of Tour Operators on projects ranging from AIDS outreach to marketing to business planning. We’re not the only IBM team that has been to Tanzania. Two teams visited in 2008 to work with TATO and AWF. They accomplished a lot, including creating the current TATO web site, numerous business plans, and lots of consulting work. A fourth team is leaving in a month to go work in the capital of Tanzania, Dodoma.

Overall, I am quite excited for this. It is certainly the most interesting task I’ve taken on in my short tenure with IBM, and I have no doubts that it will be the most challenging. It’s a bit intimidating going into a new country, culture, and pace fo life. Things I take for granted here like instant, always-available Internet access, are simply not available there. What will I ever do with out Google? But that’s all part of the experience, and I look forward to it. I am also quite eager to join this new team. Just from the few weeks of conference calls and uncountable email chains, they have demonstarated a great level of capability and profressionalism.