Hi everyone, let me first introduce myself. My name is Lesley and I started working for STT at the end of June as a replacement for Cat. It was a little daunting at first especially considering the high standards set by Cat and Victoria, but so far I have been made to feel very welcome and have now settled well into living and working in Dodoma.
I previously lived in Tanzania, in 2003 as a volunteer with Student Partnerships Worldwide. While I had not previously been to Dodoma, this experience meant I had some understanding of Tanzanian culture and Swahili. My Swahili was very rusty at first, but has steadily improved and it has definitely helped to have been in Tanzania before.
I was introduced to Dodoma by Cat and my induction to life here included dealing with bank queues, computer break downs and driving practice. While, driving here is not as scary as I expected, I managed to get stopped twice by traffic police on my first day driving. They checked my licence and the tax disc and let us go on. Fortunately, we had organised my Tanzanian driving licence the day before!
Other news from Dodoma; we have four students from the Institute of Rural Development and Planning (IRDP) working with us on placements. They have been assisting us in collecting baseline data to inform DEP III. This is an opportunity for them to experience working in villages, including the hazards involved, like the car breaking down. Luckily, Action Garage lived up to its name and went quickly to the rescue, twice in one day, after a series of punctures! We have also been researching three new villages in order to choose one to start working in. We aim to establish tree nurseries in the community and school and build and test the stoves we saw in Kenya. These visits have also not been without incident after I got the car stuck in deep sand and had to be dug out with the whole village primary school watching! Still luckily the villagers and Justin came to the rescue! Best wishes, Lesley
