Holy Bureaucracy Batman! (Part 2: The Bank)

The saga continues....Yes, making a $300 deposit in a bank account is worthy of a blog post all by itself. It should be a simple and straightforward task. But not in Tanzania. For starters, I only have US$ 250 in cash and a $50 traverlers check. I go to the National Commerce Bank (NBC) branch in a nearby mall to make the deposit. I stand in a massive line for some ridiculous amount of time. No sorry we don’t take travelers checks and the ATMs have been down for 2 days so I can’t pull out any more Tanzanian shillings to convert into dollars. So I tell him just to deposit the $250 and I hope that COSTECH will accept the travelers check. One of my hundred dollar bills has a tiny tear in it (like someone stuck a tack through it at some point. The teller looks at the bill, looks at me and shakes his head. He runs all the bills through some machine that confirms that they are in fact U.S. currency and then tells me that he can’t accept the bill. I don’t even bother to argue. I take my money and leave. The next morning, I take a tiny piece of tape and tape the tiny tear back together, Cathryn lends me enough shillings to buy $50 and we go to different branch of NBC. I go to the teller line while Cathryn goes to customer service to deal with some issue she’s having with her account there. I get to the teller and I can’t hear a word she’s saying through the inch thick glass because they are blaring ABBA out of the speakers in the bank lobby. I tell her I can’t hear her because of the music and she just keeps talking in the same voice. So I proceed to tell her that I need to first buy fifty dollars and then deposit $300 into this account. She responds but I can’t hear her. I continue to tell her I can’t hear her until the teller next to her gets up and walks over turns done the music just enough so that if I strain I can hear the woman tell me that what I want to do is impossible. That’s right. Exchanging currency and making a deposit. Two very basic bank functions that are for some reason impossible. I go to customer service where I find Cathryn saying to the women there, “Do you know what NBC stands for? It stands for No Body Cares.” The response was a very literal, “No madame that’s not what it stands for. It stands for National Bank of Commerce.” I can see I’m in for it already. My attempts at attaining customer service were no better than Cathryn’s. However, I did learn that the music is blaring in celebration of customer appreciation week. Oh the irony. Moving on to the manager’s office, the first thing out of his mouth is they can’t help me because I don’t have an account there. Cathryn responds, “Well I do, at least for now but I’m going to close it because the service here is so bad.” At this, the manager says he’s got to go figure out what the exchange rate is (at the branch I was at yesterday they had it posted on the wall so I know I’m not making a completely off the wall request here). While the manager is doing that, one of the customer service women comes in and asks me why I didn’t just go to an exchange bureau somewhere and exchange the money before I came to the bank. Ummmmm…maybe because this is the bank and banks exchange currency! She leaves. The manager comes back with a print out with a horrible exchange rate. I think about arguing but really what’s the point. He tells me how much in shillings it will be for US$50 and sends me back to the teller line. I rejoin the disco party in the bank lobby and wait my turn. I’m lucky enough to get the same teller as last time. The manager brings her the exchange rate print out. I give her my shillings. While she does her thing, I fill out the deposit form which is three sheets with carbon paper slide in between and requires a ridiculous amount of my personal information. Then comes time to hand over the dollars. I slipped the torn and taped hundred in the middle of the other bills and crossed my fingers. She scanned them through her little machine. Tore off the bottom carbon copy, stamped, signed and dated it and hand it back to me. Mission accomplished. Sweet Success!

Holy Bureaucracy Batman! (Part 1: The Bribe)

Today is a proud day for me. I am officially a Class C Resident of the United Republic Tanzania. I’d sing the Tanzanian national anthem if it knew it. Attaining this revered status was one of the most ridiculous and convoluted experiences of my life. Since I bailed on the jerk professor I had intended to work with, I couldn’t get my residency through the University of Dar es Salaam as planned. My scholarship is through Rotary International and one of the local Rotarians is conveniently the president of Toyota Tanzania. He told one of his HR people, Dennis, to help me get my residency permit. I would never ever have managed it on my own. So Brandt left for Bagamoyo and for two weeks, I ran around Dar like a chicken with my head cut off, taking dalas all over the city (as many as 5 in day) to round up all the paperwork. On the top of the list was my research clearance from the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH). I had sent my research clearance application last October, 3 months before I left for Tanzania and heard nothing. My emails inquiring about the status of my clearance have all gone unanswered so I decided to just show up at the office to figure out what the deal was. The guy whose job it is to process research clearances for all foreign scientists claims he hasn’t received my application (or any of my emails and assured me I hadn’t sent any emails because he always responds to every email always). He sends me down to accounting to see if there is a record of my application fee. The accounting guy takes me to a woman who pulls out a ledger book and casually flips through the pages looking for my name. No computer. No electronic records. No way of knowing whether my application was received or not. I go back upstairs and ask if I bring all the application materials (including another $50 travelers check for application which is probably the reason the original application has magically disappeared), how long to get my clearance approved? It will take 3 months. I ask if there’s anyway to get it any sooner and he just smirks. I go home and forward the guy the emails that we had previously exchanged to jog his memory. I get no response. I go back to Dennis. He says he knows this guy. He paid him a $300 bribe less than a year ago to get research clearances for a group of students that came over to work in one of the regfugee camps. So Dennis gets on the phone with the guy and sets up a meeting for the next day. We have a little chat which is mostly this guy making up excuses for not doing his job. Then they send me out of the room to go (re)pay my $50 application fee. When I come back, Dennis is ready to go. All I have to do is go deposit $300 into the COSTECH bank account and bring back the receipt and my clearance will be ready to go. It was like magic!

Food and Capitalism

One of my favorite Tanzanian street foods is sugar cane (miwa). The street venders buy a couple of full stalks (which can be six feet tall), then use machetes to flay off the hard husk and chop it into pieces as thick as a good steak and about the same diameter as an Oreo cookie. They then put five or six pieces into a small clear plastic bag and sell them for 100 tsh (9 cents!!). You bite off a chunk and chew and suck the sugar crystals from the woody pulp. After you are done chewing, you have a mouthful of dry wood-like fiber. If you want to fit in, you just casually spit out the remains onto the ground. When in Rome…

Other common street food is grilled quarter pieces of corn, peeled green oranges (the oranges are greenish yellow, so for the longest time I refused to get them because I thought that they were unripe and sour), handfulls of peanuts, hard-boiled eggs, and coconuts. Everything but the coconuts are 100 tsh (coconuts are 600-700), so they are all quite popular with the local Tanzanians. The results in that the vendors are everywhere, the roasted corn and orange venders are usually in the same place everyday, while the others just roam an area. It is capitalism in its most pure and basic form.

In fact, capitalism is in full effect in Tanzania, at least from my experience in Dar and Bagamoyo. Everybody is selling something. Though most people selling their stuff from a small duka (store), many just roam the streets with their wares in their hands. I have seen these portable, one-man stores selling kitchen wear, pillows, boot-legged DVD’s, women’s clothes, shoes, knifes, books, etc. The funniest two walking stores I have seen so far where the dude selling a balance--not balances--just one balance. I think this gentleman did not really understand his buying public. The other guy was carrying one coat rack (yes, a full coat rack), clothes hangers, and pillows. He just stood by the edge of the road looking like wished he was anywhere but where he was at that moment. I guess if they make one or two sales a day, they are okay.

Back to the small dukas, they line the streets everywhere. And the funny thing is that you will have three stores in row all selling the exact same thing. Then down the street, you’ll see three dukas all selling the same again. These stores are usually small; most are nothing more than a tin-roofed shack with no electricity. They really don’t advertise, other name a small name directly over the entrance. So you have to walk around looking into each store to often find what you want, but if you look hard enough, you can find anything. It is really interesting to see all the people all doing their thing, finding their niche, and making an honest living.

Skype Ready

We are officially skype-able on the weekends!! The wireless internet at the lab where Brandt is working is super slow during the week when everyone is here but we just did a weekend test run with my mom and had crystal clear reception and video!! If you want to talk with us, our log in names are brandtph and robyn.smyth . I think we'll be online again tomorrow afternoon (morning in U.S.) Yay!!

Kwahari (Goodbye) Dar!!

Sorry about the delay in getting this blog entry up. Robyn said that I had better do it soon, as I was creating a “blog-jam”. She thought she was pretty witty coming up with this play on words…ahhhh, the delusions of grandeur. Anyway, we finally moved out of Dar is a Slum. Hallelujah! We packed our bags a couple of weeks ago and moved 70 kilometers north to a sleepy town called Bagamoyo.

Bagamoyo, TZ is a small town located right along the coast. It is an old town that the Germans colonized in the late 19th century. Before that, it was a bustling port town where East African slaves where shipped to Zanzibar and then onto the Arabian Peninsula. However, over the past century, most of the buildings have decayed into ruins about town. The TZ government doesn’t allow them to be torn down; so many these beautiful buildings are derelict and falling apart. Though, this decay makes for an incredibly picturesque walk between home and work. Bagamoyo has money from tourism and the fishing industry, and I guess that a European company is building a pilot sugercane/biofuel plant just north of town, so the people here are relatively well off. In town, there are a couple of small art schools, a larger performing arts college, and the national TZ dance company. Because of this, the town has a very artsy feel to it. The other night, as I was strolling home around dusk, after stopping to watch some league soccer game (both teams had jerseys), I walked by the performing arts college's small auditorium and heard singing. They were putting on a free show—TZ rap, traditional music, free-form brass band jazz, etc. It was pretty incredible. I guess Africa isn’t so bad now!!!

So we have moved to a little paradise up the coast, but why? Well, I finally found a great volunteer opportunity with IHRDC (the same research group that we visited out in Ifakara). Traditionally, their focus is on all things malaria--epidemiology, surveillance, treatment options, control strategies, etc. However, they are currently planning on expanding into the other major public health diseases that are a huge problem in Africa, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB). So, at the IHRDC’s Bagamoyo site, they are planning to construct a high containment laboratory (a BioSafety Level 3 lab, or BSL3 lab) to begin clinical trials of TB-related drugs and vaccines. They also want to expand into basic epidemiological research of TB and set up Masters and PhD level programs for TZ students. My role is to consult on setting up the lab, help in developing the research program, train new workers, and write grants. In the US, this would be a challenge, but here in Africa, it will be an adventure (to say the least). In exchange for my services, they've rented us a nice, clean, safe, furnished 2 bedroom cottage with a fridge, hot water and even air con. Just what we needed! So whereas we are gone from the source of pain, suffering, and humor than was Dar, I am sure that some of that void will be filled with stories from my work.



I think I should describe the working conditions for a bit, so you all have a mental framework for all future happenings. My “office” is directly looking out at the Indian Ocean (maybe 75 meters away). I feel the cool ocean breeze coming off the water, watch the smaller dhows (a traditional fishing boat from this region) come in late afternoon from fishing all morning. I believe that this is pretty much the nicest office one can have (Yes, even better than the lab back at UCSB). However, I say “office” because it is actually just a plastic chair, a rickety wooden table, and my lab-top. I move these items about the first floor of the building depending on sun placement, whether it is raining, and whether I need a power outlet. I often set up on a corner of the patio in the back. Luckily they have wireless. They are fixing up the second floor for offices, but they have been doing this for the past year. So even though they look like they are almost done, it may be a couple more months of my wall less office existence.

The research building in which we are going to set up the BSL3 lab is on the grounds of the Bagamoyo District Hospital. But, this hospital is nothing close to what we think of as a hospital in the US, or even in Dar. It is a set of 10 to 12 long, one-story, block-buildings set on about a 10 acre plot. There is one ambulance for the whole district (90,000 people). If you are sick and are staying in the ward, you have to have people bring you food, since the hospital does not provide it. So often a whole family sets up around the hospital grounds for the duration of the stay. It feels more like a camp for sick people. But instead of wood campfires, they burn medical waste—right by the road in an open fire pit. I recently saw the trash men picking up the remains using rubber gloves, masks, shovels and small plastic garbage bins. They were dumping it into the back of an open bed truck. Nice. Regardless of the above, it is not a dreary place, and people seem relatively calm and content.
So hopefully, the blog-jam has been cleared out and more blogs will come. So until next time, “safari salaama”.

Insane Traffic + Horrible Roads + Massive Rain = Total Mayhem

So when they say rainy season, they’re not kidding. The rain comes down in sheets for hours at a time, sometimes multiple times a day, every day. The paved streets here are lined with open gutters that are about 3 feet deep and one foot wide. Before the rains started, they were about a third full with this festering, green, smelly water and, of course, various forms of trash. These are the city’s storm drains. With the first big rain, they immediately filled with the massive amounts of water pouring off the street, got clogged up by all the trash, overflowed, and flooded the streets. Brandt was with Chris in his Land Rover as he drove down a stretch of road close to two football field lengths that was flooded in at least 3 feet of water. There were teenage boys standing by to get paid to run through the water in front of the car to show you how deep it was. At a semi-dry high point mid-way through people were waiting to jump on the top of the truck to get a lift the rest of the way. So if you have a real SUV, and you know how to drive it, I guess this no problem. But many people are confused or delusional and they go driving their piece o’ crap sedan into the water, where it promptly stalls. And this is where it really gets interesting. The second a car is stopped for any reason, all the cars, trucks, daladalas drive directly up to it’s bumper door as if they are going to drive over/through the stopped vehicle. Unfortunately, the laws of physics still apply in Tanzania and it is not possible to drive through another solid object and so a massive traffic jam results. We have seen this over and over again. One night we were with Cathryn going to meet friends for dinner and we sat in a traffic jam for an hour and half. It was on one of the main roads going downtown. It’s one lane going each way and a third lane under construction. Cars are already driving in the half finished lane. As soon as the traffic stops moving, cars coming from behind start driving in the oncoming traffic lane. This is standard practice. That lane promptly filled up with a line of cars and came to halt so they they just started making more lanes on either side until there was a giant blob of traffic 5-6 cars wide all trying to drive down the one lane that goes in that direction. We inch along in the proper lane. Brandt who is sitting in the truck bed part of the car starts getting cranky starts yelling out the window asking the drivers of the growing blob of cars if they think they’re special. Obviously this is a rhetorical question because clearly they are all special because why else would they be driving on the wrong side of the road/in drainage ditch/through the yard of the business along the road. When we finally get to the intersection that was probably only a hundred yards away when the jam started, we find a six lane blob of cars from the other direction driving directly into the 6 lane blob from our direction, a bunch of overwhelmed, untrained traffic cops discussing the weather or something not very useful over their radios (I think I’m going to devote a separate post entirely to the traffic cop situation), and a couple of random dudes attempting to direct cars through the one car width space between a tree and the road along one side of the intersection. It was truly unbelievable. The dirt roads have become gigantic mud pits. We have to walk about a mile from Chris and Cathryn’s to get to a place where we can get a bus or taxi. It’s essentially an obstacle course. Three steps on that high patch of grass over there, then hop across the flowing stream on the rocks that someone kindly placed there, try to find some semi-solid mud to walk on over to the other edge to get around the foot deep, swimming pool sized puddle. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to being on Double Dare, the Nickolodean game show. The main difference is that the slime is brown instead of green and it smells gross. I’m seriously contemplating investing in some waders. They live behind these huge factories and there is some fluorescent purple stuff coming out of one of them and mixing with all the water on the street. I’m worried I’m going to start growing a sixth toe or something. And of course all the while, every local I walk past feels compelled to remind me that I’m mzungu (definitely not going to be forgetting that any time soon) and about a quarter of them ask me for money. Apparently the fact that I’m walking through the mud pit obstacle course is not enough of an indication that I don’t have a lot of money to spare.

Randomness...

One thing that continues to amaze me as I walk around the streets is that there are shit-loads of chickens in this country. Everybody has a chicken (or ten). At least I think everyone has a chicken. They can be found rummaging through every garbage heap and random grass lot from here to Christmas, everywhere but in people's yards. I assume that people can identify their chickens quite easily like,“Mine is the dirty white one missing half her feathers, yours is the slightly less dirty white one missing half of her feathers.” I guess when they are ready for some kuku na ugali (chicken and a white, corn paste-like food that Tanzanians LOVE) they run out to the road/garbage heap and grab their chicken. Trust me, grain fed chicken has nothing on the garbage fed variety.

Less in number than the chickens, but similar in overall biomass, are the goats. You find them grazing everywhere, roaming (apparently ownerless) through the weeds and vacant lots. They stroll along, leisurely chewing on anything at head level or below. I have to be honest...I really, really want a goat. If we ever get a yard, the deal will go down, regardless of what of Robyn says. In fact, I think I’ll name the goat after her. Cool!

I'll be writing a blog about my new job and moving up to Bagamoyo soon. Also Robyn is visiting Lake Victoria (Mwanza) right now, and I'll be heading up to Arusha/Moshi to spend a week up there. It is close to Mt. Meru, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the Serengeti. We will focus on the mountains for now and hopefully have some good pictures. Later.