Arrival at Dar es Salaam
A new country and a new story...
Hanif, Maina, and Chantal met Todd and I at the
airport. Getting through immigration was fairly straightforward. We waited in a
line for the women to hand write our visas ($30) for about 45 minutes. It looked
like a painful process for the women and the folks in the back of the line
(there where 200 people behind us). Our bags were fine though Chantal lost a
camera on the way to the Dar. We think in either Nairobi or Dar baggage
processing.
Dar was truly a different world. We found ourselves surrounded with Swahili conversation, Arabic signs and lots of caravans (minibuses) as we drove from dirt roads to pavement and back to dirt roads. The infrastructure here is not as developed as Harare...partially due to size (Dar is 10-15 times the size of Harare). There are seemly hundreds of small shops (15 feet wide, 10 feet deep) lining the roads and music playing from portable CD stores (almost like Ice Cream carts).
Downtown Dar
We got to DPI and Hanif showed us the iMacs, Maina’s office and the rest of the production facilities. DPI is the school founded a few years ago and DTP is the destop publishing company run by Hanif and his brother Shafiq.
Pixel Corps Headquarters, Dar es Salaam
The Beginnings of the Pixel Corps...
Hanif's computer is nicer than mine...
Todd brought an Apple iSight as a guest gift and Hanif had it running within minutes. Deborah, Hanif’s wife, is in Maine so the camera came in very useful. We plan to use it to conference with TechTV later in the trip.
Hanif playing with his new gift from Todd.
Todd and Chantal getting ready to depart for Hanif's...
We then made our way to Hanif’s house to clean up before dinner at Shafiq’s. We arrived and met Alex, another Alex, who runs Foxes of Africa here in Tanzania. We will be working with Foxes to build proof of concepts for adventure tour DVDs. The model is to generate revenue using local talent while accelerating a local economy.
At Shafiq’s, we had a fine Indian dinner and met many people in the media industry here. Fasiha does PR for Zanzibar International Film Festival, Ngayoma is the program director for the National Television Station, TVT. Mwanga is the Vice Chairman of for the Inpependent Film Producers Association of Tanzania. Peter is from South Africa and is one of the few graphics firms in Dar Es Salaam. Tony does 3D and design for a local Ad Agency.
The Dinner, two of the DTP staff at the end, Fasiha and Maina (SMSing)
Ngayoma, Hanif, and Alex (Fox).
We had a good time learning about media here in Tanzania. There are a lot of challenges which usually goes hand-in-hand with opportunities. No one has it completely systemized it yet leaving many gaps for entering the market. In addition, everyone saw training as a key asset missing in the scene. There is almost no media training available in all of Tanzania outside of DPI.
BTW...Todd Thille has also started a blog with a slightly different perspective and different Photos...you can see that here...
http://www.synesthete.com/blog
So that was the day...tomorrow, we start early for Mikumi National Park.
Dar was truly a different world. We found ourselves surrounded with Swahili conversation, Arabic signs and lots of caravans (minibuses) as we drove from dirt roads to pavement and back to dirt roads. The infrastructure here is not as developed as Harare...partially due to size (Dar is 10-15 times the size of Harare). There are seemly hundreds of small shops (15 feet wide, 10 feet deep) lining the roads and music playing from portable CD stores (almost like Ice Cream carts).
Downtown Dar
We got to DPI and Hanif showed us the iMacs, Maina’s office and the rest of the production facilities. DPI is the school founded a few years ago and DTP is the destop publishing company run by Hanif and his brother Shafiq.
Pixel Corps Headquarters, Dar es Salaam
The Beginnings of the Pixel Corps...
Hanif's computer is nicer than mine...
Todd brought an Apple iSight as a guest gift and Hanif had it running within minutes. Deborah, Hanif’s wife, is in Maine so the camera came in very useful. We plan to use it to conference with TechTV later in the trip.
Hanif playing with his new gift from Todd.
Todd and Chantal getting ready to depart for Hanif's...
We then made our way to Hanif’s house to clean up before dinner at Shafiq’s. We arrived and met Alex, another Alex, who runs Foxes of Africa here in Tanzania. We will be working with Foxes to build proof of concepts for adventure tour DVDs. The model is to generate revenue using local talent while accelerating a local economy.
At Shafiq’s, we had a fine Indian dinner and met many people in the media industry here. Fasiha does PR for Zanzibar International Film Festival, Ngayoma is the program director for the National Television Station, TVT. Mwanga is the Vice Chairman of for the Inpependent Film Producers Association of Tanzania. Peter is from South Africa and is one of the few graphics firms in Dar Es Salaam. Tony does 3D and design for a local Ad Agency.
The Dinner, two of the DTP staff at the end, Fasiha and Maina (SMSing)
Ngayoma, Hanif, and Alex (Fox).
We had a good time learning about media here in Tanzania. There are a lot of challenges which usually goes hand-in-hand with opportunities. No one has it completely systemized it yet leaving many gaps for entering the market. In addition, everyone saw training as a key asset missing in the scene. There is almost no media training available in all of Tanzania outside of DPI.
BTW...Todd Thille has also started a blog with a slightly different perspective and different Photos...you can see that here...
http://www.synesthete.com/blog
So that was the day...tomorrow, we start early for Mikumi National Park.
Posted: Sun - July 13, 2003 at 03:20 PM Africa, Summer (Winter) 2003 Email Comments
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Total entries in this blog: 31
Total entries in this category: 31
Published On: Aug 05, 2003 10:45 AM
Total entries in this category: 31
Published On: Aug 05, 2003 10:45 AM