University of Dar Day 2

Ok so spoiler alert...remember what I said in previous blog entry about never having seen an accident here?  Well, today we were hit by a motorcycle.  I'll get to that in a minute.

Today, we spent the morning/early afternoon back at the University for our property law training with Professor Goodluck Kiwori and a cross-cultural training session with Prof Hussein K. Mlinga.  Both were very interesting.  The property law session was useful although I will not bore you with the details  here.  The cross-cultural training session was so that we could learn some things about the people of the specific regions where we will be working drafting wills starting next week.

Outside the law school

Professor Goodluck lecturing

We also got the opportunity today to visit with a local attorney named Magdalena Rwebangira.  We went down this insane pothole filled road and arrived at a compound where a couple of men came out and manually opened a gate to let us in.  Once inside, there was a lovely landscaped garden and 2 story office/home.  She was a small woman who came out to greet us and who shared with a smile that she had 3 daughters and now has grandchildren as well.  She then said she had done some work on gender equality in Tanzania.  (humble is an understatement.  I googled her when we got home)  She spoke with each of us at length about our individual research projects.  What a friendly and accomplished woman.

Magdalena Rwebangira and Gretchen today in the garden at Magdalena's office

After all this, we headed by a shopping center we had seen.  The shopping center was probably about the size of a Super Target or Walmart back home, but as it turns out, it is Mlamani Mall, the "largest mall in the country" and features "the largest movie screen in East Africa."  One of the group members needed something from the pharmacy, so we went in and checked out the grocery store Shoprite which is a South African company.  They were rocking out to some Celine Dion and Whitney Houston over the sound system in the store.  I bought some Coke Light (Diet coke) here though for about 1/5 the price of what it costs at the hotel...so yeah.

Finally, we headed home for the day.  About halfway back to the house, there were sirens behind us (not unusual).  Traffic was bumper to bumper with buses, "tuc-tucs", cars, motorcycles and everything in between.  Out of nowhere, a guy ran into us on his motorcycle.  He was trying to get out of the way of the police escorting a black mercedes with flags on it down the middle of the traffic jam.  The motorcycle guy managed to get up and hop back on his bike and took off.  Our driver got out, checked the vehicle and we went on our way.  The back of the vehicle and the wheel was damaged/scratched up.  We spent the 20 minute ride back to the hotel telling him how that would have all gone down in the states (police report, 2 hours on the side of the road, lawsuits, etc) He was fascinated.  

Thats all I have for today.  Tomorrow we start our will drafting workshop.  Here are a couple more random pictures of people I photographed today.  

Outside her home cooking

"Hakuna Matata Spare Parts"  love it!