Life at the New Site

This week in the blog (yes, I know I am not actually getting them out weekly right now) I wanted to talk a little about life at the new site.  This project is very different for me because I am currently not hands-on involved with any of the actual work going on.  Instead of focusing on budgeting for the next year, participating in the long-range planning of capital projects, learning about my new community and walking with a group of 20 something children most of the time.

 

view from front of house

First, let’s talk about the weather some.  I cannot get a defined answer on what is rainy season here.  In almost all the areas I have visited in Tanzania there are a defined set of months when you know you can get rain and months you know there will be no rain.  It is their version of summer and winter.  Exceptions apply of course, especially along the coast where you are more likely to get rains throughout the year.  In Yulansoni it was late November through April where you could get rains.  Arusha, it was normally just a little later.  Since arriving, the daily forecast for Moshi has been for rain, but it only happened twice the entire time I have been here.  Here at Kiruani, it has rained once all day.  There have been clouds but no rain except that one day.  It was a great rain from the perspective it rained lightly all day, never very heavy

I know it must rain heavily here at times though because almost every drainage pipe under the road has signs of heavy wash out on the downstream side.  In fact, many of the concrete coverings for these crossovers have become exposed due to the rain washing away the ground beneath them.

It is hot here like it was in Yulansoni.  Only in Yulansoni it tended to cool off some at night.  Here it stays hot until around 3 AM.  So, I normally wake up regularly to drink more water and to switch out to a dry pillow since I have sweated all over the one I am using.

The transportation out to the site is similar in nature but runs a good bit more efficiently than that in Singida did.  Normally when I am heading to town for a day, I walk 5.6 miles to the bus stand.  (that is 2.6 more miles than the trip in Yulansoni).  I could ride a piki piki (motorcycle taxi) for 3000 shillings (less than $1.50) but I like to get my exercise in even on town days.  Arriving at the dalla stand I wait until one arrives or the one sitting there has enough passengers to leave.  The dalla dalla ride is about 1 hour (a little less depending on the driver) stopping to pick up and drop off passengers.  Normally it maintains a full load with at least 2 people standing.  The best seat is against the window on the next to last row of seats so you will not have the spare tire under your feet and you can get some air from the window.  They will drop you off on one side of town and you can grab a piki piki or walk into the heart of town. 

Normally I walk to one of my favorite eating establishments, especially the one with cold diet sodas.  If not that one I must grab some soda from a street vendor or shop before going to the restaurant because several places only serve sugar drinks or beer.  I normally spend a couple of hours here because I can get a Wi-Fi signal and an electrical outlet to recharge all my electronic devices (or at least the ones I lugged into town).  I do what shopping I need to do, meet with folks if that is on the agenda and then do my personal shopping for food.  Then I walk back down to the dalla dalla stand in town, get into another dalla heading out with 28 new friends.  I normally pay a piki piki to take me down to the site since my backpack has normally gained 20 lbs. since I left this morning and I am already pushing 11 miles of walking according to my fitness watch.

 

the road to walk

I normally go into town once a week to restock and recharge things I can’t charge at the site.  I still must work out a good schedule for going into town overnight so I can call home.  Calling home requires the overnight stay because the best time to call home seems to be 11 am their time which is 7 PM our time or night which I still try to avoid traveling at night because of the quality of the transportation.  I limit these in town visits because hotels in Moshi are expensive at least compared to the ones I have been using in Arusha and Singida the last couple of years.  For example, my hotel in Singida was a quality hotel and cost 20,000 shillings a night (less than $10).  In Arusha, a nice hotel that is simple not luxury would cost me 30,000 shillings a night (less than $15).  Here in Moshi, it is $50 because all the hotels have white person pricing.  The only added benefit over the other hotels is that they have air conditioning. 

On site, my daily routine includes a walk early in the morning of between 6 and 8 miles getting me back to the site around 10 am.  The school seems to start at 9 am but differs on different days (a typical thing in Tanzania that I have seen).  I normally walk the site and look over what the contractor is doing.  The afternoons I work on budget numbers, coming up with ideas for fundraising or talks (next blog), writing some ideas for blogs etc.  The biggest problem along this line is that we have very little solar currently.  We plan to add it to the house I am currently using (this week I am supposed to have some transportation lined up for hauling the panels and batteries out to the site).   Until we add that solar power though it is difficult to keep my computer charged up, not to mention the phone.  I also try to sneak some power on my kindle so I can read at night.  It normally gets dark here at 7 pm so I normally go back to the house at 5 pm to get a shower and start cooking dinner before it gets dark.  Until solar is added to the house there are no lights except my headlamp.

The pace of work by the contractor is good for Tanzania, but it is not like when I was doing on-site construction management in the States.  There we had multiple contractors every day with recognizable work accomplished every day.  One project in NC was so busy I had trouble getting all the daily work into my daily log book.  Here they are working but without machines, like we have it been a much slower process.  For example, finishing out a wall in the states could be done in a day by good crews over entire sections of a building.  Here it may take several days to finish out a wall because you can only apply so much of a coat to the wall, wait for it to dry at least a day if not longer then apply another coat and so on and so on.  For example, when making a form for the top of a wall unit.  In the states, we would have pre-formed molding to shape it and would use fresh lumber just for this purpose that will most likely be discarded after we were done.  Here they go looking through their stack of used lumber and scrap together pieces to make what they need.  The difference between those two processes can be days.  So, keeping track of what the contractor is doing does not take all my time.

The housing situation here is much better than it was before.  I am currently using the headmaster’s house because he will not be on site until January with his family.  The house is much too large for me.  The master bedroom is larger than the entire house I had in Yulansoni.  It also has no critters living in it with me.  In part, because it is made from concrete block and not red mud brick but also the quality of the construction is much better.  It has a bathroom with a sit-down toilet that I did not have to jury-rig inside the house.  In fact, it is in the master bathroom.  It has a shower in the house.  No walking across the compound with my bucket of water, clothes, shower bag and towel to a bathhouse the entire site shared.  I just go in the shower room and cut the water on.  There is not a water heater, but to be honest after sitting in a black plastic sim tank all day with the sun beating down on it the water is not necessarily hot but warm.    I am using a gas stove again because cooking the meals good for me as a diabetic are quick compared to the meals normally prepared over a charcoal stove.

Three times a week I get the bucket out to do laundry.  Laundry here is pretty much the same as at my other site.  Put water and dirty clothes in a bucket followed by some hand washing powder (laundry detergent special for hand washing).  Then you stick your hands in and start agitating until the water is filthy.  Pour out the dirty water and fill up with clean and repeat.  Then you hang up the clothes for a couple of hours, towels and socks take at least 24 hours.  Why three times a week?  If you go longer than a few days the dirty clothes are more than you agitate in a single bucket and you run out of space to hang clothes. 

It is like dishes, you never want to get behind on these chores at the site.  You need to wash your dishes and cookware no later than the morning after but typically right after you eat.  You must sweep at least twice a week to keep too much dust from accumulating especially on furniture.  Because you sweat so much at night you need to wash your sheets at least once a week if not more. Problem with washing the sheets so much is they take 24 hours to dry completely.  I have an extra set, but they act as my curtains right now.  Temporary housing always lends me to put off buying things until I am set somewhere.

As I mentioned before, it gets dark here at 7 PM so I normally like to read books on my kindle or once a week I use the headlamp and read the chapter of “The Story” to keep up with sermon program at my church.  There is no internet at the site except fleeting moments when it will download the words of a message (no attachments) but that is about all I get.  Normally I take the phone with me on my walks because I can get some signal at the end of the walk and can respond briefly.  In Moshi, I can normally get a signal like I could in Singida.  If I stay overnight the wifi at one hotel is good enough I can even watch a Netflix show or two.

My mom had this in her "antiques" so I grabbed and brought it along to make toast

Sunday is my day of rest and church is about 1 mile from the house so I walk there for the start of the church at 10 am and it ends somewhere around 12:30.  It is a little more low key than some in the fact they don't have regular dancers but they have a small group that sings and a couple of women lead the service.  Offertory is when they put a box in the front and everyone gets up and goes forward and puts their closed hand into the box. 

the gap between the door and the floor was a little too much so I took some foam you can use to insulate pipes with (I had broght it to make a composting toilet just in case you put it around the lip of a bucket to sit on) and stuck it to the bottom of the door.  At least now snakes and lizards cannot come in under the door.

I know everyone wants to come out and join me after hearing about all the luxuries this site must afford over my last one.  Drop me a line and we will set something up for you to come do.