Yesterday was the final day of the commotion. I’m both glad to be getting back to desk work and sad to be saying goodbye to the visiting staff.
It was another early morning out in the field. We left my hotel around 8:00am after having some breakfast and got to the site an hour later. The ride was a bit more comfortable than the previous day, but the car was still jam packed, far past its capacity. I was very happy when started to see the WFG flags in the distance, signal our journey was seconds from being over.
The event location was a new engineering project that I had previously visited. We went into a small local restaurant to get some chapati and tea because many staff had missed breakfast. I’ve become accustomed to the restaurants in Shinyanga that I go to, but this one was even a level below that and was able to give me a bit of that shock I haven’t experience in a while. I’m not complaining though, I paid less than $0.50 USD for a tea and some chapati.
The morning event was meant to be another unveiling/handing-over of a new water pumping station. It took a lot longer than I would have wished, but that was because a local political leader was a guest of honor and made a very lengthy and political speech. A lot of local community members were also in attendance and became pretty rowdy throughout the speech which was pretty funny because it seemed to upset the speaker. To make matters worse, he decided to do his speech in both Swahili and English—I would’ve been fine with just one language.
After the ceremony, the field team all got together for a nice picture. This was the final event where they had to show up and prepare the site (I say they rather than we because I didn’t do anything but sit around the last few days during preparation) so it was very exciting when all was finished.
The final final event was a very professional feeling one. The regional commissioner of Shinyanga came to this one. Her and her entourage were 2 hours late in arriving and kept everyone in waiting, but apparently she’s some big deal so our schedule was dependent on her.
The only reasons I enjoyed this event were the attire and the food. Most everyone was dressed in matching kaundas (as I have so graciously modeled above) which was pretty funny to me. And then there was the food. Pretty much an all you can eat buffet of traditional Tanzanian food that was absolutely delicious after a long day.
I got home around 5:30pm from the event and took off for my run. I was a bit weighed down and my stomach felt heavy, so I was a bit slower than usual and wound up racing the setting sun home. I went to sleep after showering and doing some Duolingo. I tried to read for a little bit, but my eyes kept closing on me, so I decided it best to call it an early night.
Today is back to the office work and I couldn’t be more thankful for it! I am still pretty tired this morning and I will be more than happy to sit in a shaded room all day. Unfortunately when I get home I probably need to do my laundry—the part week hasn’t afforded me much time for it—so it will be a long day if that happens because I have a lot to do.