Habari

This is my last working day in Tanzania, just like the other days, I get in the lift from the thirtieth floor, the lift operator, who told me she earns 100,000 shillings a week (about forty quid) spends all day Monday to Saturday, going up & down, up & down, presses the button for the ground floor, I think to my self; I hope the lift doesn’t stop to many times, boy was it hot in there.

I walk from the lift to the reception area to meet Adam the cab driver, passing through the long but quite wide corridor, where a couple of shops sold souvenirs. I once again observed around 20 or so members of staff at the far end of the corridor, standing in what looked like a guard of honour, all dressed smarty and neatly in their company uniforms, as I approached in my Metroline shirt so perfectly iron by the guy from the laundry, (by the way, within ten minutes of being on the coach, picks up its first stain) they look at me as I pass through the lobby.

I say “Mumbo” (which means how are you) they reply “Poa” (which mean fine ) but alas; this guard of honour is not for my benefit, that’s where the mangers office was, my departure time coincided with their team meeting and they were waiting for him to put in an appearance.

Another day another accident, ten minutes after leaving the institute to practice the lesson plan on how to approach, enter and negotiate roundabouts, we drove passed the scene of an accident which involved a motor cyclist.

We saw the motor cyclist lying on the road, he had been knocked off his bike, a fairly large crowd gathered around; I really hoped someone there knew first aid; as I don’t think the emergency services would have a very good response time, its was only 09:30 I got the feeling that it wouldn’t be the last accident of the day.

At the garage the institute use for refuelling the coach, we stop to pick up some bottles of cold water, I was told by one of the lads last week to use the brand called “Kilimanjaro” so I have been sticking to that ever since, he said it was the best ever, I later found out that he comes from that area, so a little biased maybe.

While the lads went into buy the drinks I asked  a security guard standing at the entrance to the garage if it was okay to record him with my camcorder, I told him I would make him famous in London, I thought it best to ask politely first, after all, he was carrying a rifle, which hung around his neck.

On the road the usual mayhem unfolds, the Dala Dala drivers are up to the normal tricks, one of the lads told me that many many years ago the fare to travel on one of these buses was five shillings, he went on to explain that Dala Dala in Tanzanian, means five shilling, so passengers got on the five shilling bus.

Everybody knows about the dangers that are on the roads, people will have to think outside the box & try everything they can to get the problem sorted out. Motorist need to be educated, be made aware that they are “The Problem” and need to change their attitudes towards driving.

If you ever visit Dar es Salaam; traffic lights are often ignored & don’t for one minute think you can at least cross the street on a Zebra Crossing and get across safely, priority has been stolen by the motorist & they too are simply ignored, if by a miracle someone does stop, be afraid, be very afraid; because as sure as eggs are eggs, there will be always be someone, either over taking or undertaking that’s a certainty.

The lads have responded well to the training, taking on board the principles of defensive driving & putting it into their practical drives. They has listened intently & asked many questions. It’s been great to see them improve as much as they have. I know further inputs are being planned by Transaid sometime next year & wish the lads that come out here, every success.

My last duty was to have a meeting with Neil & the head of road safety Mr Hans Mwaipopo and debrief them on my tour of duty & discussed among other things, which trainees should benefit from those future inputs, Mr Mwaipopo has already spoken to the trainees from last week & questioned them on the materials & training they had received, he told me there was tangible evidence that my input has been a success.

Mr Mwaipopo asked me to thank Metroline for their support and sponsorship in allowing me to come out to Tanzania and I do that now, he also asked me to thank my family, for allowing him to take me away from them, I thank them too.

I also want to thank Metroline; for giving me the opportunity to come to Tanzania, they can be confident that the huge investment they have made; will make a big difference in saving lives.

I hope those that have been reading my blog have found it okay, I know there have been a few typos along the way; I wish I had the opportunity to Nicolise it first, she wouldn’t  have missed a thing.

So that’s it, job done; so what about those inoculations I had that made me feel quite unwell, the ten hour flight, the heat on the coach, the traffic, the chaos, the mayhem and last but not least the pharmaceutical issues, would I do it all again.

You bet your bottom dollar I would.

Habari

I haven’t told you about the “Dip Stick yet have I?

No-not a Dala Dala driver, Professional, Competent, Considerate just a few words you would never use to describe one. What these guys get up to is plain lunacy.

No- not even Adam the taxi driver who picks me up in the mornings from the hotel and takes me to and from work. He’s not a bad lad at all really, he normally arrives on time anyway, in this town that’s pretty good going, you will soon suss out how he does it though, he can speak as much English as I can speak Swahili, I always say to him when I get in or out of his cab “Asante Sana” (which means thank-you very much) how he gets about with out hitting anything though, I will never know, tailgates the lead vehicle, he rarely uses his mirrors and weaves in and out of traffic just like the rest of them.

No-not even a Bajaji driver, they are a breed of their own, I haven’t told you about them have I.

A Bajaji is small three wheeled covered vehicle which you can hire like a cab, they're a bit cheaper than a normal cab, (sorry “normal” cab ha ha), lets say regular cab.

I found some information on the Bajaji and this is what the report said:

“Following the unprecedented population growth in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam, initiatives have multiplied to solved issues related to it, The Bajaji motorbikes, initially designed for the disabled are now being used by the non-disabled, and, in fact, are invading all the streets of Dar es Salaam, posing a traffic security challenge”

These things weave in and out of the traffic risking life and limb, they really are dangerous, you won’t be seeing a picture of me sitting in one, that’s for sure.

No, I meant the dip stick on the coach for checking the oil, when we do the checks, we have to unlock the dip stick which is secured by a bicycle lock threaded through the ring you use when you pull the thing out, dip sticks are often stolen in Tanzania, I was told they are worth a fair bit of money when sold on.

“Okay okay, you can get the joke out of the way now please:  you’re thinking about phoning someone, saying you have a dip stick for sale in Tanzania aren’t you”

While conducting the lesson plan on vehicle checks, another group of students began to congregate around a Dala Dala parked next to the Scania in the institute’s compound, the institute use this vehicle for PSV training (they still use the term PSV) you may recall me saying that theses Dala Dala have twenty four seats.

The students climbed aboard, all seats became occupied, they were about to have some driving lessons. I know, I’m thinking the same as you, how can anyone be trained properly when there are so many students, I’m told it gets worse when they use the Scania, don’t forget, I have already told you the Scania has sixty seats.

Time behind the wheel is extremely sparse, a lot of PSV training at the institute is classroom based, at Metroline there is a huge amount of classroom based learning, there is also a huge amount of on road training, and they need that here as well.

I’m  told that work is going on to try and reduce the number of students there are on any one vehicle, maybe down to around fifteen, by doing this though, there will be a heavy drain on the funding available to the institute, so who knows if this will be achieved.

Fifteen is still a ridiculous number of trainees on a bus, however, it would at least be a step in the right direction, and I hope it can be achieved in the very near future. The students who will benefit from the numbers being reduced will have the responsibility to drive professionally, not sink back into the poor standards that are out here now, there has to be tangible evidence to the money men, that better training, makes better drivers, better drivers save lives.

On the road I ask the lads to stop off as I wanted to buy some fruit, in particular bananas, with the pharmaceutical issue I am experiencing and feeling a bit below par, bananas are a good source of energy, that’s why you see so many tennis players at Wimbledon eat them, its natures equivalent of a Red bull. 

We stop at what I can only describe as a truck stop some 109 Kilometres from the institute, we could have stopped sooner but I was in no rush, there was also a garage and scores & scores of people selling fruit and other goods, as soon as another vehicle arrived they would descend on it, trying to sell their wares, the lads approached a young boy no older than seven, he was holding a heavy basket containing loads of bananas.

I wanted to get the Camcorder out for the DVD I am putting together and film the scene, one of the lads said to me “Mr Ron, don’t use your camera here, there are some bad boys about” it stayed on the coach, which was securely locked.

I broke off six bananas, I asked one of the lads how much the boy wanted, after speaking to him in Swahili I was told he wanted 150 shillings, now, the exchange rate after fees is about 2500 to the pound, so this boy wanted 6p for the lot, just to confirm its not a typo 6p

The smallest note I had in my pocket was a 2000 the trainee said to me “you cant give him that he wont have enough change” I gave the boy the note and said keep the change, well, this little cherubs face lit up; it really was quite sweet, I saw him walk away with his hand in his pocket clenching his fist, there was no way in the world that note was going anywhere but home with him.

While milling around the truck stop, I hear “hello there” from behind me, I turned round, this guy about 6’ 2” approached me saying “your not from these parts are you” I said “err no I’m not” maybe the Metroline shirt gave me away.

I recognised the accent though, it turned out he was a truck driver from Zimbabwe,  we engaged in a short conversation, as I explained what I was doing in Tanzania, he seemed pleasant enough or was he simply disappointed that I wasn’t just a tourist, when he realised I had three lads in tow, after all, there were some bad boys about.

Not every body was happy bunny that day though, when we left the truck stop, passing through the town, we saw two lads knocking seven buckets out of each other.

 As we motor along some open stretches of road with the driver doing quite nicely, I talk to the other lads about recording faults and preparing for debrief at the end of the drive, I want them to apply the principles of PNP when giving feedback (that stands for Positive, Negative, Positive) start with some good points about the drive, hit them where it hurts with the negatives of the drive, then finish on a high)

I cut the chat short every now and then, when I bark out an instruction or advice to the driver when I see him make a mistake or when he approaches a hazard that needs dealing with in a certain way, if you have ever been trained at Cardington you soon learn that we can really multi task and we are always looking.

For my own use I produced some progress reports prior to leaving the UK I adapted the ones that are usually used at Metroline to fit in with this environment, I will maintain these, as it my intention to give a summary of my trip to Tanzania to my manager.

I thought it would be a good idea to have a picture of a Metroline double decker bus on the front of the progress report to give it a flavour of London, I showed one of these reports to a trainee, I explained that it’s important to record information to refer back to, so you can plot the progress or non progress of all students.

One particular trainee is a smart lad, high up in the Institute of Training, a true theorist on driving; errm, I’ll come back to him later if I have time, after seeing the picture of the Metroline double decker bus though, he then told me that he went to England in 1986, on a vocational trip, visiting training institution; which included a visit to London Transport, oh I said “where did you go” he then went on to tell me and I really did laugh out loud, “ I went to the playground where they spun the buses”  (sorry you have to be a bus man/woman for that one)