Tedious Work, Delicious Food and Celine Dion (Wednesday 6/3)

Once more Paul woke me up a little before six telling me that my water was ready. I’m always unprepared to get up as when he knocks he waits by the door until I open it. I have to launch out of bed to make sure he doesn’t have to wait too long. 

The long awaited bathroom photo!

The bucket bath was quick and easy and I went outside to be greeted by a thick fog. Most mornings have a nice fog that hangs over the rain forest in the distance. 

When I came back in, Paul was excited to talk! Paul was gone the night before and I finally found out why; he was getting a new phone! It’s a lot nicer than his flip phone and he wanted to show me every new feature and take a couple photos. He loves to document everything and always try new poses. It’s always very fun.

After the quick photo shoot, I grabbed my stuff and went up to the main office for a day of work. Jonathan told us that our main goal today was to start our Math Club AI generation along with our own projects. We were given paid AI accounts which meant they could produce higher quality content and let us use it more.

Essentially we give the AI a math lesson from a Tanzanian textbook and the AI makes two lesson sheets and two solution sheets. The generation takes about 5-8 minutes. We then review the generated content to check for errors as the AI can make mistakes. We then do this process until we run out of “tokens” which is the currency of using this AI. Every time we tell it to do something it takes a certain amount of our hourly tokens which replenish every four to five hours. In one hour I can review 8 documents and generate 32 documents. Eli and Miraclin are about the same. 

Safe to say the entire process is very time consuming. We have hundreds of documents to generate and review to complete all of Math Club by the end of June! The work is tedious but satisfying. 

While Eli, Miraclin, and I were doing work for Math Club, Henry and Michael were in training. Again to reiterate we would be in training too, but since we’re technically supposed to be in Bukimau we need to be working as if we were still in Bukimau. I essentially did this process of generating and reviewing all day which means less events to write about in this blog! 

To break up the work we had tea time (breakfast) which was mandazi, hard boiled eggs, and tea. The women who made me dinner last night are the ones responsible for all of the meals that we have at the main office. I’m very grateful as their food is always delicious and it’s always nice to not have to make my own food. I never see them eat and enjoy the meal they create which always makes me sad. 

For tea time we eat at the front of the office building underneath an offshoot of the roof. Going back to work, Eli and Miraclin have many fun conversations and make the monotonous work a lot more fun. Soon enough, lunch came! Even though it’s the dry season, it’s still pretty wet and rains very often. While we eat a lunch of rice, chicken, beans, cabbage, and watermelon we watch the soft rains outside. To add to our lunch an interesting soft drink was given to us to try. It’s a pine-nut drink but tastes like Fanta mixed with coconut, certainly not my favorite. However, Eli loved the drink and drank three bottles of it! I think that during my time here I will definitely start to gain some weight.

Again, we go back to work where I transition to my regular personal project. I realize that I might’ve made a small oversight and forgot to purchase something for my project that would be very helpful. After talking with Jonathan everything should work but I’m definitely kicking myself for not being a little more prepared. In the States you can order something off Amazon and receive it the same day. Here you must travel hours to the nearest city to go to a vendor that probably won’t have what you’re looking for! Now I know what life was like before the internet ;). 

The small bottleneck in my project means that I can get back to Math Club content… This work feels like I could do it from home in America, but I know that the entire idea of the project was last minute and we’re the only ones here that have the knowledge, and most importantly the free time to get it done. While generating more math worksheets, Eli mentioned he hadn’t bathed in five days and that he couldn’t wait to shave off his long hair. I couldn’t fathom having longer hair on this trip and totally agreed with him. Who knows if he’ll actually cut it all off! It’ll be a surprise for sure. 

Finally, the work day comes to an end and Eli, Henry, and I play hacky sack which was a blast. Before Henry joined in, it was only Eli and I which is only so fun passing it back and forth to each other. The reason why no one else has played is because of Michael’s summer class homework. The problems are extremely difficult and everyone has been chipping in their time to help him out. However, no one can figure it out and he’s gotten pretty behind on assignments. I can’t imagine trying to get school work done out here so I applaud him for even trying. 

Paul comes to pick me up and essentially leaves me immediately to go to the village. He was able to get a new phone last night, but not a new extension cable that he needed after his old one exploded. I simply sat in his room and listened to Celine Dion play for an hour. For some reason Paul’s USB stick with downloaded music has an album with every single one of her songs. It makes me laugh every time I hear it. 

Eventually, Andrew comes into the room and tells me to go to dinner. We walked up to the same location as the main office and there again the three women cooked us an absolutely wonderful meal. It was ugale, beans, greens, and cabbage. They always stack so much food onto my plate and I feel disrespectful to not try to eat it all so I’m often completely stuffed by the end. I’ve been eating so much food and I don’t see how anyone could lose any weight out here. I’m thinking they must’ve not liked the food (which is inconceivable) and starved all summer. 

It happens to be that both Michael and Jonathan are both eating dinner here too so I talk with them and learn more about VST through Jonathan. After all, he grew up in Tanzania with VST developing around him so he knows it pretty well. I also learn from Jonathan that all of the guys staying at my house are all best friends. They all went to university together and have been friends for the past decade. It finally makes sense as they’re always laughing together and looking as if they’re having a great time. 

With Paul gone and dinner over I can just wander alone for once which is fun. I eventually make it back to the house and head back to my room and write before I fall asleep. Usually when I write it’s hard to know if it’s Ratrick making noises outside (just as a reminder, the rat that visits/lives in my room is called Ratrick for fun)! Additionally, in the middle of writing one of Andrew’s friends came into my room and I asked him if he was staying with me. He nodded his head and for a moment I thought I’d have a roommate. Instead, he just grabbed the mattress and left! The house is certainly packed now which is the complete opposite to the vibe here when I arrived at an empty house. Luckily, I’m a deep sleeper and all of the random noises in the house travel so well (above each and every door is an open window slot so every room is connected) never wake me! 

Sweet dreams in Tanzania!