9 July 2025

I completed a 2-day mental health training session in Morogoro and Babati district hospitals in May, together with colleagues from Mirembe Hospital.

The first challenge I faced as a ‘mzungu’ is the language because my knowledge of Swahili is embarrassingly and painfully limited, and the confidence of trainees of expressing themselves in English is also limited. Most interactions are in Swahili. The presentation slides are in both English and Swahili, but the presentation itself and the responses are all in Swahili. I can pick up a few words that give me the gist of what people are saying but I very much miss out on the nuance. When it’s my turn to present some of the training it’s obviously in English but if I ask a question there’s normally a deafening silence. Fortunately, my Tanzanian colleagues have often bailed me out by offering a translation.

The next challenge is the venue for the training. At both locations we were shown to a room where the only seating was long wooden benches, which are uncomfortable to sit on for several hours. We had also been given a banner when we left Mirembe to promote the campaign for Mental Health Awareness Month and our contribution of mental health training events at district hospitals. The banner was huge – 2 metres by 3 metres! In Morogoro we had to hang it from the curtain rail and secure it with staples. In Babati, we used duct-tape to place the banner on the wall. It fell down overnight due to a strong wind, but at least it provided a colourful backdrop when we used it.

The nightmare scenario for any presenter is that the technology fails – whether it’s the date projector or microphone not working and power failures. This seems to happen to me a lot so maybe I’m jinxed! At both training events we had our issues. In Morogoro, the data projector which we had taken with us had a loose connection in the cable from the projector to the laptop. This meant it kept turning itself on and off until it finally stopped. It turns out that a fuse had blown in the circuit that supplied all the plug sockets.

Even though the electrician, in his wellies, was on hand to mend it I think he must also have been the handyman and gardener and had other jobs to do, so there was no point in waiting for it to be fixed – and indeed it wasn’t – so we carried on without any Powerpoint slides.

In Babati we had been told that there was a TV monitor to connect the laptop to for the presentation, but nobody could figure out how to turn it on. We managed to get hold of a data projector instead. However, it was the only one in the hospital and halfway through our presentation a technician came with a socket extension cable and proceeded to disconnect the projector. Luckily, he knew how to connect the TV so we were back in business, but it was a bit disconcerting for me because I couldn’t understand what was being said in Swahili.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for westerners conducting training in Tanzania is the concept of time-keeping. In Tanzania people operate on “Swahili time” which means turning up anywhere between 30-60 after the scheduled start time. The best way to get around this is to tell people that the start time will be at least 30 minutes before you expect to start, but it’s not fool-proof. If anyone is planning to come to Tanzania to do some training, or even to attend a meeting, be prepared for lots of waiting time.

Having said all this, I must also add that it is a real privilege to be able to conduct training in Tanzania. The co-presenters are extremely knowledgeable and so in touch with the cultural issues around mental health. And the participants are so hungry for training so that they can do their jobs better and contribute to the well-being of the country – there is a lot of national pride and sense of personal responsibility here. They are also very generous in their appreciation to the presenters. There’s also a lot of smiling and laughter during the sessions, even though the subject matter can be very serious, which demonstrates their keen sense of humour in both English and Swahili.

I’m now looking forward to running a half-day workshop next week with 50 multi-disciplinary Mirembe staff. Fingers crossed that everything works!

Chris Bumstead – CNWL International Healthcare Partnerships Coordinator 

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