On the last Monday of April, I found myself nervously standing in a room of about 15 people from the e-Government Agency and National Bureau of Statistics in Dar es Salaam. They were waiting for me to start training them in Python and CKAN. I’ve been programming in Python since 2011, but I’ve never actually trained people in Python. On the first day, I didn’t have any slides. All I had was one [PDF][pdf] from Wikibooks which I was using as material. I didn’t even cover the whole material. By the end of the day though, I could sense that it was sinking into the attendees a bit.
It all started with an email from my manager asking me if I was available to do a training in Tanzania in April. After lots of back and forth, we finalized on a date and a trainer to assist in the trainings, and I flew in. Dar es Salaam, strangely, reminded of growing up in Salalah. I got in a day early to prep for the week and settle in. The trainer looking groggy on a Monday does not bode well!
People who train often don’t tell you this – Trainings are exhausting. You’re most likely to be on your feet all day and walk around the room helping people who’re lagging behind. Looking back, the training was both fun and exhausting. I enjoyed talking about Python, though I feel like I need more practice to do it well. The CKAN training, I was pretty satisfied with the outcome, by the end of the week, the folks from e-Gov Agency went in and setup a server with CKAN!
Note to self: Write these posts immediately after the trip before I forget 🙂
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