This morning I had my first Geographic Information Systems (GIS) training session. 13 staff members attended, which was more than I expected. I was a bit nervous teaching a class about a subject that I would only consider myself a novice/intermediate on, but things went well I think. I broke today up into 3 lectures, with two breaks in between to give everyone a brief rest. I provided tea, juice and snacks which went over really well. (Some people here are very eager for free food; I saw one woman take a whole stack of cookies!)
At first I wasn’t sure if everyone understood what I was talking about since no one had any questions at the end of the lectures, but we had a good discussion of how GIS can be used to address health issues in Zimbabwe so I hope everyone got an idea of the potential of mapping different things. At the least I made a lot of new friends when I gave 10 people free 1-year licenses of the software then I presented two GPS units to them. I got a round of applause for that.
The training went until 12:30, by which time I was tired and I could tell people were not paying as much attention. We had a bit of a problem authorizing the software but hopefully that will get resolved soon.
I spent the afternoon working on lectures for tomorrow and in finishing another spatial analysis project that I have been trying to work on since my first week here.
In the evening, I worked more on the lectures and got everything set for Wednesday. What a busy day and it looks like it will be a busy week!