CROSSING TANZANIA CHAPTER 4

CROSSING TANZANIA   CHAP 4

   


The Mocray Hotel was in Kahama. Knowing that really didn’t bring me much piece of mind. But nothing really mattered because I passed out 1 minute after I hit the pillow.  I did have to get up once around 4. That’s when I saw the 3 ( or 4 or more) cockroaches that run the night shift in my (their) bathroom. But at this point they were of no concern.  Crawling back into bed I had another one tangled up, but outside, my mosquito net. Outside is good. Insensitivity rising, I fell back to sleep till my alarm woke me at 5:00. I was outside and back at the truck before six.  Dennis, who doesn’t seem to sleep much, was up, the truck was running and Elami suddenly appeared from the bush. We were on the road at 6. These guys are on a mission and so am I.  I think everybody was up because this was going to be our last day on the road. My new friends are going home and I am nearing the conclusion of now 17 month project which had almost failed. Now, knowing we were close to a successful conclusion I was starting to feel pretty good too.  From Chapter 1 you know that we were pretty foolish to do this project. I have been to Rulenge several times now over the years. It is the end of the line. Go any farther west and you’re in Burundi. Which is not a great place to find yourself.

    The point is Rulenge is very needy and about as far a way as you can get and still be in Tanzania.  So the idea was valid. Knowing the trouble we had on the 1^st container the transportation process was pretty stupid. What is the definition of insanity?  Then our worst fears crystalized. The container got stuck in Dar es Salaam for 16 months. One of our agents ( facilitators?) at Caritas probably walked away with a few thousand dollars and then disappeared. Meanwhile I keep calling and emailing Caritas and Rulenge (opposite ends of Tanzania) and was getting stonewalled by passivity. It looked like that container would join the thousands of other containers you see around Africa, trashed and looted.  But all that, including trying to disprove the definition of insanity made me all the more determined to get the stuff to where it belonged.  Besides what else am I doing at this stage of my life?  I had a strong need for adventure and I had a responsibility to Rulenge.  There was also this feeling I had about making things better, you know the tag line for The Sandy Christman Foundation. As president or CEO or what ever I am, it started to dawn on me that if anyone was going to jump start this project it was me. We had already invested more then $12,000 USD so what’s a few more thousand dollars if it gets us to success…or had least completion. And besides I was coming to Tanzania anyway to work in the hospital on Biharamulo.   Finally, what was I going to tell all the people that had contributed to the SCF if we just let the whole project fail? That wasn’t fair to them or the SCF. I mean I was responsible for all that donated money. 

   When people donate money to an NGO for a good cause they just assume everything will work. In America we bitch about administrative costs, big salaries and lifestyles for CEO’s of non – profits  (think The American Red Cross). That’s not even a daydream at SCF. Our challenge is getting stuff we promised to its target. Not easy when your going to half way around the world to Rulenge, Tanzania. I  will go public before I close the deal on the Lear Jet.

            
  No, I felt I was definitely doing the right thing and now as we drove west into Kagera (the California of Tanzania…mountains, most west…but no ocean), seeing the end in sight I thought this just might work out.

     It’s almost impossible to tell but as you leave the hot middle of Tanzania and get closer to Kagera you are climbing up a gentle flat slope. By the time you start to see the green hills and the thick vegetation you are above a 1000M of elevation and still climbing. There is some kind of continental divide up ahead where all the water heads east and north into Lake Victoria and the Nile and eventually the Mediterean (hard to believe). Everything else heads west and south to Lake Tanganyika.  Kagera also reminds me of Vermont, verdant, cool and rich (soil that is) to a fault. Kagera is higher then Vermont and that is good thing because we are 2 degrees south of the equator and if we weren’t more then 1500M high we would be roasting like in Dar es Salaam. But I quess that’s where the similarity ends. There are no peaked mountains and no skiing and as far as I can tell a snowflake has never touched the ground here.

       Oops, another roadblock. We slow down to a crawl, pull to the side right up to the big log across the road.  Two police one man, one-woman come out of the bush. They are dressed in white uniforms white hat and the man has a long white trench coat. Isn’t he hot?   They approach the truck. I am lost in translation but I can tell Dennis is not happy. He is arguing. The lady cop does the usual. Walks around back, comes to my window and wants to speak to me.  The window is down; she wants me to come out. Dennis and Kami and arguing with the other cop about mwendo (speed). I get down out of the truck.  Unenda wapi? (Where are you going?) Unatoka wapi? (Where are you from)? Wewe meerikani? (You are American?)  Nice guess on her part but really, where else could I be from with my ridiculous New York - Swahili accent? She just looks at me, maybe a little scowl. I’m sensing, sans language, that she doesn’t like me.   I think we are in a classic speed trap and now that she knows I’m Meerikani the speeding ticket price just tripled. We are marched across the road to a little wooden table behind a tree. On the table, a radar gun.  The male cop is being dominant, posturing, almost threatening. Dennis is ready to shoot him. I’m thinking we could almost get away with that here but now other trucks are stopped because the log is across the road.  The lady cop goes out to drag the log back and get traffic moving. Then another cop appears on bicycle. He has a radar gun and I think he must have gotten us on radar maybe a kilometer or so back. Ok, so we are guilty (not) but lets just pay up and roll on. Dennis is not giving up…maybe he's afraid he will gets points put on his Tanzanian license?  Nah, they wouldn’t be able do that here. I’m not even sure these are cops.  Bottom line, we pay 60,000TzS ($30) or we stay here and argue and I miss dinner in Rulenge.  I pay. We get back in the truck Dennis is steaming (he has areal temper, I’m starting to think he is not Tanzanian). But I’m the one who paid the 60,000 TzS. Fine!

   We roll on.  By noon we are back in familiar territory. The road is deconstructing with each passing mile. The clouds are thickening as is the vegetation and the hills are getting rounder and steeper and greener.  We stop at Muzani ( google map that!).  This is the end of the pavement. Its raining and actually cool, maybe 65. Everyone here has a jacket or rain gear. Its rainy season and that means mud everywhere.  Elami is under the truck doing something and then runs off into a bunch of low single story buildings, shacks really. He’s back in a flash and heads back under the truck, in the mud. Fearless. I figure out latter we had a fuel line leak that some how he fixed very quickly.  I am feeling strung out and very near a headache. Despite sleeping in a bed last night I have been getting less then 6 hrs of sleep in a horizontal or sitting   position for the last 2 nights and every time I don’t feel well I start to get paranoid. Malaria, typhoid, cholera, food poisoning, hook worm, schistosomiasis, the list is endless. But I’ve never had any of these maladies and I’m prob just exhausted.  My first go to treatment is Coke a Cola. I know that sounds horrible in the US, so processed, so sugar loaded with empty, teeth destroying calories. But here..it works. The caffeine sugar rush does something in my brain and if nothing else, it’s safe. Call it what you want but Coke is safe to drink, especially if you’re paranoid.  I must buy stock in that company. 

  Back on the road, now dirt mud, sometimes straight and smooth, sometimes serpentine and rutted. We pass villages of mud and straw huts and I wonder what it’s like inside those on a day like today.

    

Kagera

  

on the road to Rulenge

   

         

    

There is no” Welcome to Rulenge” signs as you enter the greater Rulenge metro area. The town has no catchy title like “cutest town in Kagera” No Rotary Club or Knights of Columbus. But you can tell there’s something different.  There’s a lot more clearing, farming (especially this time of the year) and development. Rulenge has real brick ( locally made by hand) and stucco buildings dating back to the 1960’s and earlier. I don’t know what was here first but I do know some of the first white people to come here in the late 60’s. When I first came to Tanzania in 2008 my wife Barbara and I were greeted at the airport in Mwanza by Sr Margie Wolfe. It was July 4^th and as we walked off the plane Sr. Margie was there to greet us waving an American flag. It was a welcoming site. Especially since we didn’t expect anyone to meet us. We were sleep deprived and in deep culture shock. To see a white women (the only one) and an American flag  (the only one) was well….reassuring. I didn’t know the word mzungu (white person) then but at that point there were 3 of us….and that was it. I was about to learn the word mzungu in just a few minutes as we attracted lots of attention in the airport and that’s how we were addressed by local drivers and porters who tried to grab and carry our bags to a cab or truck despite Sr. Margie’s firm use of Swahili negatives. 

    Only later did I learn Sr Margie was maybe the 2^nd white nun to come into Kagera and Rulenge and take up permanent residence. She built schools, taught kids, noviate nuns and seminary students. Just about every local African priest I meet here was taught English by Sr Margie. So, as we enter Rulenge in our fancy (OK no A/C but still…) big truck on relatively OK dirt roads I think of her and what it was like driving (?) into Rulenge in 1970….my hero. I love her! My idea of a local Mother Theresa. I’ve tried to get her to write a book. She will have nothing to do with bringing attention to herself.

downtown Rulenge

bus stop in R town....a little like the Alamo

 

preparing dinner, you may have to zoom in

We wind thru the village and head into the hospital grounds. The “campus” also serves as a rectory for local priests, nuns and others. The hospital is a rectangle of one story buildings connected by a concrete covered walkway. The hospital is dirt poor and has capacity for maybe 40 patients. The buildings are all 1960-70 vintage maybe earlier. There are 2 new things built here since maybe 1975. A new water tower and solar panels. Both projects directed by Fr. and Dr. Florence, the medical director.  He is a real breath of fresh air, actually a tornado. High energy, determination and battling all impossible obstacles so characteristic of Africa.  Father, Doctor Florence (love that) was with us in Dar to help with the loading. He has taken a bus from Dar  ( non stop) and has beaten us by a day. 

   We have arrived!  The weather is drizzly and cool but we are psyched to finally get here and be greeted by just about the whole hospital staff, maybe 15 people.  After a few introductions, the matron, Sr Monica, has several workers ready to unload. We have 25 beds, 2 generators, x-ray view box, a million pair of crutches, walkers, centrifuges, lab equipment, bicycles, clothing, medical supplies, surgical instruments and boxes of stuff that I never identified but Fr Florence did.

one of the dreaded bikes in background

fast yes, delicate..no

  

the hospital grounds with solar panels

About the bicycles…… let me just say never promise anyone something that creates a rift or animosity or feelings of inequality amongst equals in Tanzania. Elami has had his eyes on one of the bikes since we packed it away in the truck in Dar. He has reminded me several times in the trip that he would like the bike. It’s a Rock Hopper mountain bike, 19990 vintage, no shocks but pretty cool for this part of the world, which is loaded with Chinese, knock offs of the classic the English upright bikes. Now the workers have brought the six or seven bikes out and Elami is all over me. I am feeling very good about things now ( see Coke works!) and I say “ sure its yours”.  Sr. Monica is giving me the evil eye but hell, he deserves it…..besides I feel at this point it’s mine to give.  Later, as time goes by,  I am noticing bad vibes from Dennis. I mean he can’t even look at me. He is off to the side, looks pissed and he’s kinda scary when he looks pissed.  Later as the workers finish the unloading  and I’m eating strange crackers and tea with Sr. Monica she tells me “you can’t reward Elami and not Dennis”.  So that’s it!  I wasn’t rewarding anybody! He asked for it (a million times). Dennis never asked, for all I know he has a bike.  Hmm…. Maybe not, maybe I’m up against some sort of culture thing here. But he’s acting like a baby! He’s a fucking badass truck driver!  (Ok, I didn’t say that to her). Why doesn’t he come over and tell me?

    Ugggh! Tanzania!! I keep forgetting I’m the mzungu Meerikani. I try so hard to fit in. I keep thinking I’m black. But I’m not ….never will be. Most of the time I’m half paranoid. Especially when we are at a scary truck stop. But you (and I) know, that is just my inbreed, inculturated, latent, insidious American Racism peeking through my veneer of politically correct behavior. I really can’t deny it. I think I’m enlightened, liberal but let’s face it: all white (Americans) are racist…..to different degrees, but its there.  We had slaves! We learn about it in 4^th grade. It is depicted as bad but there’s something that marks your cortex when you learn that whites had black slaves. You are imprinted with some sort of latent superiority. It is bad. And when I’m paranoid I’m practicing profiling. And it’s even more basic than that. It’s in our DNA. Not racism but differentiation. Unlike magnets and electrochemistry where like repels and opposite charges attract. In the animal world like attracts. And opposites or “different” is....well….just be careful out there, stay with the herd and be wary of different. That is primal fear. That is survival. You don’t see wilder beasts and lions hanging together here. I know this sounds like Donald Trump but, unlike The Donald, I am weary of irrational fear and its dangerous reflex: fight and flight. I believe there is hope. I believe dialogue overcomes DNA. Understanding leads to enlightenment and bilateral acceptance.  Want more on DNA? Read E.O. Wilson. Want more on fear? Read history or follow The Donald....not to get political 

     Back to Dennis and bicycles and feelings. I have to remind myself in this case I’m in charge of this little adventure; I’m paying for it.  I’m not just mzungu, I’m Meerikani mzungu! I’m also Bwana, now.  I’m not just the truck driver. So Dennis is taking it personally. I have to talk ( sentence fragments) to him. We figure it out.  I was going to give him a tip anyway.  He busted his ass and I’m still not sure if he sleeps. But tips here are rare, maybe unknown. So I will make it right. But I need to do some research first and I know just where to go to get some answers.

      The truck is emptied in record time. Fr. Dr. Florence wants me to go to Ngara, the next big town, to deliver the truck with Dennis and Elami. I can sleep in the rectory there and he promises me a big dinner. Sleeping in a rectory and free meal sounds a good and I’m glad to hang with Dennis (who seems happier now) and Elami. We need to come to closure and celebrate over a beer. I will be back in Rulenge in the morning and besides priest quarters (rectory) are always pretty nice…and clean. I put on Michael Jackson, we head down the hill to Ngara, empty truck, job done and looking for beer.

lunch time Rulenge Hospital

patients families supply the food 

old beds and un-used mosquito nets

screens next year?

old beds

better, he's up!

old beds, new patients

CROSSING TANZANIA

Chap 3  

Truck Stop!

  What makes eating breakfast so unique in in a little roadside “café” in the middle of Tanzania. Well besides the ambiance, then there are these 4 ft. tall crane like birds that have wingspan of 6 feet. They are famous garbage eaters. They are in most towns and cities in East Africa and provide a great public health service. They will eat and clean up most anything. But they are really really ugly. I don’t know what they are called but they are accepted to the point that no one seems to notice them and they are not afraid of people. They just sort of mingle in with the crowd, not too close, they always have an exit. They are like dogs, accepted, as long as they behave.  And because they will eat anything, digestible or not, they are sorta like vacuum cleaners. This might be something you saw on the Flintstones. Betty directing this 4 foot bird -  vacuum by holding its tail feathers.  I donna know.

civic minded public health worker

  Breakfast is hot tea and and ugali, sort of a simple flour based cream of wheat. It’s a national staple. Millions of East African kids have grown up on ugali. I am famished and although ugali might be good ( and safe) I’m not totally buying into the local cuisine here….yet. After I wolf the ugali down I think, what is the safest and best thing?  So I go up to the gas grill which is in front and order Yahi mbili kupika sana ( 2 eggs cooked well), like really well!   Like, Al Carbon,  like kill everyone of those parasites, bacteria whatever. Nuke it!. It is delicious. Now I’m ready for a day on the road.

  We head west to Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. Dodoma is a bit like Brasilia, a capital made by political compromise, in a non-threatening geographic location. I remember learning about Brasilia in 7th grade, a modern brand new city built in the jungles of Brazil.  So too Dodoma but I’m not so sure is quite as striking as Brasilia.  Anyway, there are no superhighway loops around this new city, no superhighway at all. We drive through the middle of town and keep moving. The middle of Tanzania is dry and empty.  Not jungle just open and dry. For some reason out here, in the middle of nowhere, there are more police then in Dar. We are stopped several times in small townships by roadblocks made of a long wooden pole ( just the pole) and policemen in white uniforms. They have radar guns! Dennis has been very speed conscientious so I assume he knows about these speed traps. They are pretty much always the same. Except these cops don’t have souped up police cruisers, they are on foot. The policeman comes out from under the shade of a tree, saunters over, asks for papers, looks at the windshield where in Tanzania you display your insurance sticker instead your inspection sticker. Think about what that means. Then he or she walks around the truck, never looks inside the back but ALWAYS  stops and looks at me. They usually start in Swahili. I can go about 2 sentences before they know that I DON’T know Swahili . Then they might try a little English or just stare. I have never been asked for a passport or any ID. Maybe this region, wherever we are, is trying to break the mystique of the African truck driver.

  We ride on, the day is endless. I suspect we are in the middle of Tanzania, I don’t know of any large towns, much less cities between us and Rulenge.  I can’t see the speedometer but Dennis says we are doing a 80 km/hr.  at max( 48mph). then we have to slow to 50 km/hr in townships. There are occasional giant trucks that pass us, busses of all shapes, sizes and states of disrepair.  The most common vehicles ate pikipiki’s ( motor cycles) and bicycles, then dalidali , little mini vans that are just small buses that are never empty, always overstuffed with people, animals and cargo inside and out.  We pull into a cross roads with a cluster of low buildings with corrugated tin roofs and home made brick walls or even just canvas walls. I think we are all ready for a break. And so does my bladder. We have been on the go since 6. Any town or village out here has 2 things, almost requirements, to make it spot on some map. First there is the universal Coke a Cola sign and then either Vodacom or Airtel (cellphones) signs. Lacking these signs you are officially not an anything (Adrian’s 1^st Law). Get these signs in your village and your on the map……assuming there is a map.

   By 10 pm we are all beat, I have bloodshot eyes and I’m sure Dennis does too. We coming into in a good size town and I hear Elami say “’lory semama” (Truck stop). Dennis and Elami never go 10 minutes with out some conversation in fast Swahili, which I can never understand. But I get this: we are stopping for the night. It has been a 16 hour day and I feel run over….. by a truck.

It may be 10 and it’s a Tuesday night and I don’t know where we are but this place is rocking. There is music and lights (glaring in my weary eyes).  OK it’s not Vegas but there’s a lot of action here. Trucks are moving in and out, there is a bar and restaurant. We head for the food. I order fried rice and vegetables and a Castle light beer (my usual go to, safe meal when in strange places). Dennis and Elami order food no alcohol. There is a 10 to 1 male to female ratio here and I’m trying not to be too obvious about my taking in what’s going on.  I have arrived!  This is the real thing, a real African truck stop in the middle of nowhere.  A perfect place to break laws, hang out and move the Black Economy. When I say Black Economy I’m not talking color here but I am talking roots, as in underground, the invisible, the black market, the under the table economy.  I don’t know the size or significance of the Black Economy in East Africa but it can’t be small. Economist estimate if the calculated world GDP  (about $80 trillion USD) included the world Black Economy then the world GDP would be 15% higher then currently measured (you can do the math). That is probably an underestimate if you consider the Internet and the dark net.  Any open street market in East Africa is not reporting taxes.  There is no sales tax here. And although I don’t see it I know there are things for sale here, which are illegal, and nobody is reporting these transactions to the Tanzanian IRS…if it even exists.  I wolf down my dinner knock off the beer and am fading. As much as I would like to see what’s going on next door I really just want to go back to sleep, even if it is in the truck. Dennis and Elami are blood shot beat and weary. As I scope out the crowd everyone looks the same. These drivers work long killer days on the road. I’m not sure anybody is up for anything here except food and rest.  I’m also realizing I’m the only white guy in the room, sometimes I forget that. What that means is I often draw a crowd, at least a lot of stares and nobody is going to do anything overt with me around. Actually I don’t know what I was really expecting. Like maybe I would see Osama bin Laden and Joseph Cony sitting in a corner having a beer?

      We walk out and head toward the truck but Dennis and Elami direct me towards a gate. They say (I think) that I need a hotel( Unahitaji hoteli). I’m not sure what they mean. But I it sounds like “meerikani hotel” We open a 6 foot high metal gate, cross a courtyard, go around a building…. Now I’m getting nervous…… and come to another courtyard. It’s now close to midnight and we are far from the road, far from the truck…..I do trust these guys… “salamu sana” says Elami. We come to a door, Dennis opens it up and we are at the Mocray Hotel.

What is this, is it safe? is it a brothel? Dennis yells something and a big man comes up from behind the desk, obviously just sleeping. They chat is Swahili, he looks at me and says: “ hello, welcome to the hotel” in perfect accent free English!  Dennis points to the clerk and says”Meerikani menaja”. The clerk looks at me and says ”hi, I’m Jackson, I’m not American but I went to school at Murray State.

Your friends want you to get a good night sleep”.  I’m speechless. The Mocray Hotel is clean, a little skankey but the thought of real bed is too good, I must be dreaming. Dennis and Elami head back to the truck where, I am finding, they always sleep.  We agree to meet at 6:00am. A night at the Mocray Hotel is 5,000 TzS, about $2.50 USD.  Jackson leads me to my room, outside and to the right. I’m still a little on guard and now I’m totally alone in some back street of a town I don’t even know the name of. Jackson tells me his real name is Milaki, he owns the hotel with his family. I have a million questions and its such a joy to speak American. But I am also asleep on my feet. I warn myself to be awake, be sharp but somehow I sense all is OK.

  My room….. small, one twin bed, mosquito net, no big holes, bathroom and “shower” are one and the same….best to use toilet( eastern) first then take a shower. Always smart to wear sandals in the shower, one small window, no view (who cares), sheets are clean!  I take a quick shower; try to get  the Tanzanian road dust off, hop into bed after I put my extra t - shirt on over the pillow. I can take bedbug bites but will not tolerate lice very well.  Final thought of the day as my head hits the pillow: what if Dennis and Elami left me here? ……wherever I am.