Palm trees blow in the wind, XXL butterflies circle around bougainvillea blossoms, tropical insects and birds provide the sound carpet for brainstorming sessions with PLANWORX team colleagues. What sounds like a cheesy commercial is, for a few weeks a year, my everyday work as a conceptual designer and copywriter. That’s when I’m drawn to Dar es Salaam and, as a digital nomad, swap the artificially ordered tech reserve of Parkstadt Schwabing for the bustling life in Tanzania’s largest city.
Granted, the chaotic traffic madness of the city center is a few kilometers away, but the soundscape of arrhythmia-inducing local “Singeli” sound (300 bpm), the rattling of tuktuks on the dirt road in front of the bungalow, and the voices of the local neighborhood children transport me to another world.
A world where the clocks tick completely differently than in hectic Germany and where I can still work just as I do at home thanks to Work 4.0, internet available everywhere and the right IT infrastructure from PLANWORX. For almost three years now, PLANWORX has enabled mobile working and through Microsoft Teams etc. even conversations with colleagues almost 7,000 km away sound flawless – a fact that still amazes me and makes me grateful.
Grateful that digitization has made my life richer, more diverse and more flexible. I am grateful that I can freely organize my working hours and my work location and that PLANWORX not only grudgingly allows me to do this, but fully supports me in doing so. And grateful that the reality in this developing country brings me back down to earth every now and then.
Digitization has also simplified life here. Mobile payment systems and cell phones are replacing banks and landline numbers.
However, things that are supposedly taken for granted, such as health insurance, uncorrupt civil servants and police officers, and equal opportunities for men and women, are still dreams of the future in Tanzania.
Here you live in the now. Tomorrow is far away. For a “Mzungu” – a European woman – who is quick-tempered and trimmed to meticulous planning, this is not infrequently a test of nerves. But you become more relaxed and learn to shift down a gear. And you get a daily reminder of how privileged we live.