Tanzania! [2024-10-05]

It’s hard to believe, but our 2024 trip to Tanzania is already in the rear-view mirror. As usual, it was a busy time and plans shifted as we encountered unexpected opportunities and challenges. Overall, we were pleased with how things unfolded, and it was great to be with Reneal Team Tanzania for a few short weeks. We also got to meet up with old and new partners. Now we’re back home with some exciting tasks ahead of us.

One major development was setting up a new Reneal office and spares storage area in Arusha. This space was generously offered to Reneal by the JR Institute of Information Technology. We met Mir Pirbhai, the Director of JRIIT, two years ago and have collaborated on various activities since then. Reneal had been storing spare equipment in a shipping container used by our long-time partner Habari. We are so grateful for Habari’s generous, long-time support, but the opportunity to access the equipment more easily – and clear out valuable space needed by Habari – led us to make the move. Having an office for repair and storage should help Reneal reduce our maintenance cycle time. We are very grateful to both Habari and JRIIT for their wonderful assistance!

We had a good meeting with Jane Langoi of Habari and Erick Mosha of Arusha Node Marie to catch up on recent changes. Reneal’s 9-year collaboration with these two organizations is primed to enter a new phase as ANM contemplates a new strategic plan and Habari begins to merge with Mawingu. We had several chances during our time in Arusha to discuss future alignment and opportunities to collaborate.

While in Arusha, we met with Terrawatu, another key partner. Reneal and Terrawatu now jointly support two computer labs in Arusha City, and we discussed options to expand the partnership in some different ways. Terrawatu’s close support of these schools should aid Reneal’s efforts to keep training and maintenance current. Fortuitously we were in Tanzania while yet another partner organization, A is for Africa, was in-country. I met Mary Anne Smith (“Mama Molly”) of AIFA the day after the grand opening of Lenjani Primary School. Through sustained effort, the local parents and AIFA have made this school in a remote village a reality. Finally, we had a chance to see two computer labs set up by a team from Israel. Both labs use Ubuntu and have some similarities with Reneal’s approach. We look forward to learning more about their plans.

During this trip, we were happy to add Danny Nnko to Reneal Team Tanzania. We previously met Danny at the Arusha Regional Office where he provides computer support. He has skills in both logistics and computer hardware, so he’ll be a great addition to Reneal’s efforts. We had weekly Team meetings while in TZ, and one of the highlights was hearing the plans of the Training Design Team to increase our outreach to existing schools. We are excited to see this effort bear fruit in 2025.

Neal has been working on a couple of significant updates to the Reneal system, and we’ve deployed beta-test software at three schools in Arusha City. This update includes the web development environment tailored for students to learn about web and database programming. It also features the addition of a wireless router so the educational content on the server can be accessed via tablet or phone. We hope to deploy this to more schools in early 2025, after the beta-testing is complete.

Another major objective was to do some in-situ testing for the next major revision of the Reneal software, migration to Ubuntu 24.04. Arusha Day Secondary School graciously allowed us to use their computer lab for the afternoon so Reneal Team Tanzania could try to stress the 24.04 development code. There were many helpful findings during this “test like you fly” opportunity.

One of our early meetings was with Mr. Kennedy Masatu of Bureau Veritas. BV is an international organization tasked with executing the various electronics import programs recently instituted by Tanzania. Kennedy was an invaluable source of information and guidance as Reneal learned to navigate these new policies during shipments. His patience and support is unlimited. It was a true pleasure to meet him in person!

A special treat was meeting with Dr. Wilson Mahera, from the office of the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology. We’ve known Dr. Mahera from his days at the Arusha District Council, when Reneal was just starting out in Tanzania. His energy and vision have been a source of inspiration to Reneal. We were also delighted to renew our acquaintance with Arusha Regional Administrative Secretary Missaile Musa as well as meet Moshi District Council and Arusha City Council officials.

As always, we are very grateful to Reneal Country Director David Nyangaka for helping coordinate our work while in Tanzania. We couldn’t do it without him! Our Team members (Robert Nyangaka, Erick Mneney, Ashura Hamis, Juma Mshiri, James Ngahemelwa, Jastin Msechu, and Danny Nnko) also went above-and-beyond to make things go smoothly. We return to the US excited for the 2024 Phase 2 projects, thanks to the generosity of our donor Apto Solutions, and the new developments in 2025!

[Photos: Reneal Team Tanzania in the new Reneal office at JRIIT, meeting with Dr. Mahera]