TAN: Mac Expo

A stop at the Mayfair Plaza to meet with the architect, Smit was the first order of business for the day. The Mayfair is scheduled to be open in January with about 75% occupancy. The power was out when we arrived, so Smit gave us a tour of the premises to show us what was possible for the new DTP space. From the high polish floor tiles to the gaudy wall treatments, the Mayfair had a typical mini-mall sensibility to it. Everything was glossy and cold. It will take some work to convince them that the office needs a different approach.

  
The beautiful Mayfair Plaza, scheduled to open in January.

The power eventually came back on and we left with printouts in hand. Back at the office, Chantal and I set about coming up with layouts for the new space. There was a fair amount of vagueness to the actual numbers of staff and types of equipment. We proceeded to do our best with the little bit we had to on.

Our afternoon break was a trip over to the Royal Palm Hotel with Mwanga to see a demo of the new G5 Macintosh and Mac OS 10.3. The local Apple Reseller had thrown the event. A gentleman from France did the bulk of the presentation on the new hardware and operating system. Afterwards, a Swedish gentleman who has been in Tanzania since the mid-1980’s working in communities throughout the region, gave a talk about the set up he uses to put together video projects with teenagers. He has been working most recently in the north of Tanzania in the Lushoto region at a training center called Maneno.

After the expo, Mwanga clues us in that the gentleman is bad news. He has had numerous clashes with the groups he is supposed to have been training. He has taken footage that the local people have shot and put together and tried to sell it as his own. According to Mwanga, he has been chased out of at least four different communities to date.

We returned to the office just before a Pixel Corps meeting. I had volunteered to give a talk about getting files into After Effects. There were half a dozen folks present in varying states of attentiveness. One of the folks sitting closest to me was asleep about mid way through the talk. The rest of the group looked on blankly while I went through the material. My repeated queries as to wether or not any of it didn’t make sense, were greeted with cold silence. I began to wonder if Maina had been fairing any better in his lectures.