and I’m feeling good…

Wow, this week has been full on!

I have spent around 60 hours on training etc. at the Iringa Sunset Hotel. And although it has been a lot of hard work (for free!), I have enjoyed it immensely! The willingness and enthusiasm of (almost) all the staff there has been so rewarding. First half of the week I did shadowing and observation of each department. I had, in particular, looked forward to the day in the kitchen as I was desperate to show them how to make a ‘proper’ pizza… and they really liked the pizza I made, but then just continued to make it their own way – haha – therefore the ‘almost’ above… But I got a huge amount of data from all the sessions which resulted in a Wednesday action planning meeting with the management team to discuss my recommendations.

Wednesday was actually a really great day in general… rest in the morning, action planning in the afternoon – we decided on 15 actions which were prioritised and allocated to each person, it felt to good to get things down on paper (flipchart) for them to get started on. Then I walked and walked for about an hour and a half… up and down the hill, watched a bit of a football ‘match’ and just enjoyed getting out and being alone with my thoughts until Carelynn joined me for the second half of the walk and we had a lovely catch-up. The evening finished with dinner at the hotel, a bottle of wine and random music sent to me by my friend, Jerry… and when he sent me Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, the day was complete…

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life… and I’m feeling good.” 

Yes, that summed it up perfectly for me!

The rest of the week I did learning needs analysis and personal development plans with the supervisors and managers at the hotel, which showed a huge gap in their skills and even in their understanding of what they need to learn… And last but not least we prepared a Cocktail evening for Saturday night. The staff really enjoyed being part of that and learning something new – was a lot of fun! Oh and Mojito was by far the most popular cocktail.

My friend Timo and his wonderful son, Jason!

Final de-brief with the hotel director, Baptista, will happen tomorrow… and then my stay in Iringa is almost over. I will be very sad to leave all my friends here, but need to get back to the business of setting up my business… Lawyer meeting etc. in Zanzibar next week and then back to Arusha on the 1st December. Can’t believe it Christmas soon… here there’s no decorations or xmas hype, so it’s easy to forget the time of year, and because of the weather as well, of course.

Right! Time to close the laptop and take the wine out of the freezer (the fridge is not working here at the hostel – have been looking after the place as Carelynn was away celebrating Thanksgiving out of town) and then I will have my first cinema experience in Africa a little later!