Presentation and a half...

My long awaited presentation on Friday to my charity went off well. The presentation was all about last years' Kilimanjaro Expedition, which raised funds to construct science laboratories for a community school in rural Tanzania. After preparing a mammoth 60 slides PowerPoint slide presentation over the last week, I felt ever more confident and relaxed, two years ago I would have melted at the thought of giving any sort of presentation. I fine tuned the slides on my way into London on the train, and arrived at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) campus 5 minutes before start. The audience was as expected, a mixture of students mainly dominated by ex-colonial Britain Tanzania Society members- however I did not expect a journalist with a TV camera from a random channel, BENTelevistion, to show up- Apparently it broadcasts to 70 million Africans across the globe!!! I quickly became nervous, but then calmed down. I ran through the presentation without a hitch in 40 minutes and was relieved that my presentation skills were still on form- In fact it was certainly my best presentation yet, you can only improve when making presentations I find. Mostly the audience were impressed that I did not concentrate too much on the intricacies of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro by giving them a dad by day account of climb, rather, I focused on the leadership and social entrepreneurship aspects of the whole project from start to finish over the 1-2 years and the difficulties of managing the expectations, culture shock and safety of 24 people on a mountain. I ended with brief interview with the TV journalist, in which I opted to do in the language of Swahili and had some quick discussions with some of the other charity members, before finally having a chance to say hi and bye to some of my friends who kindly attended. Afterwards, we headed for a goodbye meal at a cosy Italian restaurant with the other charity members and their extended families, which was nice. Over the dinner, I was embarrassed at how little Swahili I actually knew, this girl proceeded to tell me about the Swahili translations of new words such as "internet" and "website", apparently the language is quickly catching up and replacing the English words used for these modern concepts. A lot still to learn, despite my frequent trips home. So I said bye to the charity members and promised to return post MBA to further contribute my skills to the already excellent work the charity does helping to relieve poverty in Tanzania.
Of course, no London night is complete without joining my school and university friends at some bar on the King's road in Chelsea. Saturday morning, despite the scorching hot weather, I gave my time to help Alex on his Jazz agency website- specifically teaching him to maintain it by himself- although I’ll still deal with complex stuff (that I’m still learning!). I returned back to the English countryside by 6pm to enjoy a cool British summer evening. Good weather further forecasted in my last week in the UK. Looking forward to Summer Solstice celebration at Stonehenge on Monday/Tuesday, longest day of the year - a 20-30 minutes walk from work just after the sunrise. Should be yet another opportunity for a perfect party before departing good old England and back into Africa.