Updates

Ok it appears last week's post was not a big hit except with my core group of supporters. The comments I got were very encouraging but the number of reads was about half the normal. This week I will focus on some basic updates of what is going on.

I will start with the biggest update-I finally have a residence permit for Tanzania after only about 6 months of paperwork.  Despite every site online describing the process and telling me it would cost $500, the paperwork came back with a receipt only showing it cost $250.  Now the fun to try and track down a receipt or reimbursement from the government for the other $300 (250 for the actual permit and 50 for the entry fee).

What does this mean?  Well first of all I don’t have to go to Nairobi every ninety days anymore.  So I can take trips inside of Tanzania and look around the country a little bit more as well as cut the enormous cost of the Nairobi trips out of my budget going forward.  Those trips cost around $750 every quarter between hotels, food and the very expensive taxis.  The bad thing is now I don’t have my quarterly food enjoyment trip.  Though I have found several places in Arusha with decent food including an ok hamburger.  For someone who spent a large portion of his life living on LERP meals (think one step below MRE and probably equal to a C Ration) or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches through college, it amazes me how much I miss both variety in my food and quality now.  

I guess I got soft in my old age.  Or it may be the ever present beans and ugali here on site.  Fortunately I got hold of the Peace Corp worker cookbook and have tried a couple of things out in there and look forward to trying the peanut butter spaghetti sauce mix.  Currently I have been trying my own variety of mixes to make the pasta taste better.  Finding canned tuna and at a decent price has helped a lot.  So Wednesday nights are still pretty much tuna casserole and movie night.  This week’s movie is Gran Torino.  My tortilla's were ok this week but I need to mix in more water I think as they fell apart partially.

With all the traveling for the last Nairobi trip and getting a little sick on my way back (nothing serious just mainly travel and having eaten too much in the big cities) I lost over two weeks of work on site.  I am back out there this last week and am trying to finish up the painting work.  We are having some late rainy season rains.  The season would normally end this month but we have had daily rains of some description most days this week. 

The good part is that most rains have been hard and fill up our water tanks on site, so the rainwater harvesting project is going well.  The bad part is the hard rains and how late they came pretty much killed the corn crop this year.  A large portion of the sunflower crops are also dead or dying this year.  The rains never came early enough to plant any rice this year.  Most farmers have plowed under (read as a person with a hoe knocking the plants down) the dead corn crops and put in some small crops of vegetables or potatoes. 

We are most likely looking at a year of hunger and famine in the region.  Already people have been trying to sell off things like cows to keep their families afloat.  Unfortunately everyone is trying to do things like that and the market prices are down due the high supply side.

This last week I heard that the drawings the kids did at our pre-school reached the contact in the states in time to become part of the Kairos prison ministry weekend.  I had worried about that because when I first tried to send them it was Easter weekend which for some reason lasted and extra 2 days into the next week so I did not get to mail them at all that weekend but had to wait a week.  So it was touch and go for a little bit there.  If any other groups like any pre-schools stateside want to try and do a drawing exchange please contact me.

This Friday was May Day which a big deal here.  This is like their Labor Day celebration.  Most businesses close (all government based and banks of course)  but they normally get together for a big meal together.

An interesting note in the town of Singida is the recent installation of what appears to be fiber optic cables for telephone.  Considering this is mainly a country of cell phone usage and even cellular internet service, I find this development very interesting.  Especially since trenches are being dug to Arusha and out along the paved part of my travels meaning it is heading to Mwanza.  Now keep in mind this is the city that installed street light posts with advertising but did not wire them up last year.  That’s right the street light posts are there with advertising but have no wires run to them and no wiring inside of them and no lights.

Speaking of interesting work going on, I took the following picture the other day in Singida of an electric worker doing work on a live service line into a building with only a pair of simple gloves on.

As I close off this will be the weekend for the peace corp workers to get together and play games in town.  They are also planning another of the student conferences like last year but this time it will be all male since last year was all female.  I hope to participate again on science day.