Habari

Now that I had arrived safely, the first thing I needed to do was unpack, I had a lot of training material which had taken up the vast majority of the space in my suitcases.

I had arranged a meeting with Neil over lunch, where we would discuss my input, therefore I had to crack on to get organised.

I had decided to divide all the training material evenly between the three suitcases, just in case one went walkabout, it’s never happened to me before, but there was always a first time, so all this material needed to be sorted out and arranged into packs.

Once everything had been unpacked and I was sorted in the room, I found the ATM located in the hotel lobby and withdrew a couple of hundred thousand Tanzania Shillings, that’s about £80 I completed a quick recon of my new home for two weeks and located the restaurant and bar area, just in case I fancied a cold beer at some point, who knows. I also manage to get a complementary security box from reception so I could stash my passport and other travel documents.

Neil arrived in a taxi and the taxi driver Adam took us to an area called Slipway, a short distance from my hotel. Slipway is more of a tourist area than where I am staying, a few shops a supermarket and of course the restaurant, which had a beach front location, over a cold beer and some grilled chicken we carried out our meeting and discussed plans for the next couple of weeks. We picked a table in the shade as it was a very hot day, have I mention the weather yet, sorry slipped my mind, well it’s hot.

The following day I went to the Institute to start work; I had prepared a short power point presentation and would use it to introduce myself and Metroline to all attendee’s.

The trainees introduced themselves: William, Daniel and Michael, in Tanzania, you can either call someone by their first or last name, I preferred to use first names and everybody was more than happy with that.

I handed out all the training material and each trainee received a Metroline high visibility vest, bearing the safety message, “Never cut corners with safety”

Following the presentation and all introductions we located the sixty seat Scania coach in the compound and we began to discuss the importance of vehicle checks.

The lads had a fairly good understanding of vehicle checks, not to Metroline’s standard, but that would soon change, they started by checking levels that needed to be completed with the engine off.

I had prepared laminated copies of the bus checking sheet for the trainee’s to use, it has been slightly adjusted from the Metroline sheet I use at work.

I stressed the point that pre-driving checks are an important part of a bus driver’s job and cannot be under estimated. At Metroline all drivers have comprehensive training on bus checking and this was the high standard I would teach my team.

I explained to my team, before a driver enters service with Metroline, they will need to pass this test, which is conducted by me or another driving examiner. The test falls into three main areas, the cab drill, saloon checks and external checks, trainees will need to explain and demonstrate the safety checks that are required and these checks must be carried out before the bus enters service.

I explained to my team, it is the driver’s responsibility to make sure everything is as it should be; driving an unfit bus will compromise the safety and comfort of passengers and other road users; my trainee’s all agree.

This lesson will work well in this environment, as these instructors may be teaching in excess of 30 trainees at any one time, they would be able to fire question to any of their trainee’s who must be able to respond with the correct answer, therefore, each one would need to revise for this exercise.

We practiced this many times and with the aide of the laminated tick sheet and dry wipe pens Metroline provided (all the lads all agreed this was extremely helpful) I soon had them up to speed and each one in turned took the lead and conducted the lesson on the others, they used Swahili to do the lesson and this was fine by me, I interject regularly for an English answer, which they gave.

Michael is involved with transport initiatives and I will email him a copy which he will translate into Swahili and present to his colleagues. He explained that many drivers simply check fluid levels and are not concerned about other checks; Michael would like to see Metroline’s system used on a wider basis.