Another Day of Interviews...

21/12/09

The day started in a highly unusual fashion...corn on the cob for breakfast. An interesting start to the day, but it could have been much worse I suppose. At 9 in the morning the heat was suffocating. I was sweating after the 30 second walk up the hill to the main house. It was something ridiculous.

Today was another day of work for me. By work I actually mean that today was another day of sitting down whilst Audax interviewed people in Swahili. On the journey into town I started to recognise the different roads and began to work out the layout of Bukoba town. It’s only taken a few days!

The first stop was at the Minister for Justice’s office. A quick interview later we traipsed into the neighbouring office (another minister...but I can remember what the minister was meant to be ministering). This particular chap was unavailable, his assistant was very helpful...about halfway through the discussion I noticed he did not have a right index finger. Part of me wanted to ask him what happened but my Swahili isn’t up to that standard yet, and it is possibly not correct to ask such questions to people you don’t know.

At half 10 Audax realised that his watch was wrong and he had missed his half 9 meeting with the Mayor of the town. This was probably a good thing because there may have been dogs for me to step on! Audax and I then went and ventured to the education offices. Here we met one of Audax’s former students from the University of Dar Es Salaam. He was a friendly chap with a big broad smile and a very accommodating assistant. The assistant brought us tea just as we had got up to leave. Shame we didn’t get to have any!

At this point I feel it should be mentioned that we picked up the same taxi driver as the previous day of interviews. Bizarrely the taxi was not so pungent with the delightful smell of sweat, but the taxi driver still enjoyed the occasional lung-cough-up-spit-out treat.

Somehow by midday the temperature had dropped considerably and the clouds were threatening rain. There was the delightful sound of thunder in the air. As it happens this passed right over Bukoba and I imagine it ended up saturating the next town.

As part of the research, Audax planned on visiting the party members of the opposition, and the much lesser voted for party. The main rivals, the Civic United Front (CUF) seemed to think that the current MP was doing a good job and that most of the key issues that needed consideration have been addressed. The MP was described as ‘progressive’ and all in all a very positive report was collected. From the other party, the results were not so positive. I don’t know the finer details, but apparently not enough has been done to develop the town since 2005. I tend to think this may be relating to political jealousy.

Heading back to the house for lunch I couldn’t help but start to think of the lay of the land. Bukoba town itself is on the shore of Lake Victoria. The town is surrounded by hills, quite sizable hills in fact. Some people have suggested that the hills are 2,000 feet high. This may be an overestimate, but they are very high indeed. On top of the hill is Professor Maliyamkono’s house. Although it is only a 10 minute drive from the house to town, apparently the hills make walking the same route take about an hour. I had planned on walking about whilst here but the lie of the land has really put me off that idea. Scattered around these hills are some massive rocks. We are talking huge things...and loads of them. It’s like half of the moon has crashed into the hills and lodged itself. These things must have been flung out from the bowels of hell...but they would be a geologist’s playground. The rocks have a tendency to house lizards...lots of lizards. I have also noticed that some of the lizards have made my rotunda house their chosen refuge. So far I have counted three different lizards (although they may be geckos) in my house. The little things love to try and hide in the curtains...but their plan fails at night time!

After lunch we tried to meet with the Mayor again but once more he was unavailable...this time he was in a meeting. We thought we had a sure thing going on because we had had lunch with the Mayors daughter and that seemed as though it would be a foot in the door. It wasn’t. After unsuccessfully trying to talk to the Mayor we tried to interview some of the party members from the CCM (the party that is currently in power). The secretary general of CCM apparently runs on ‘African time’ and arrived for our 3.30 meeting at 4.15. At this point I was taking in the conditions of the office and I noticed there was no carpet, the walls were stained, and the tables and chairs were not of a particularly good quality. Comparing this office to that of our next interviewee (I can’t remember what institution he was involved with!) I was amazed. Most of the offices I had seen up until this point had been similar to that of the CCM secretary general. This chap however had clean walls, a carpet, well maintained furniture and a bookshelf. It was like stepping into a palace of gold in comparison to the other offices.

Our final meeting for the day was in the sticks! We drove for about half an hour, along some very unforgiving roads. The chap we were meeting was a Lutheran Minister who is also very politically active. He was exceptionally welcoming and went out of his way to introduce his wife to me, because I was not from around Bukoba! At this point it was nearly 7 o’clock and dark. I was quite concerned that I could hear the buzzing of mosquitoes so when the time came to leave the house I was fairly relieved.

I did manage to fit in a nice phone call from mum before heading to bed. It makes a big difference hearing from people, particularly on the phone. I think I am beginning to settle in a bit more now, I am getting used to the heat, and I don’t think the altitude is affecting me too much. Still it’s hard work, but at least I am building a frame of reference to compare how I am coping with living in Africa!