Job done...

5th January 2010

Another early morning for me...and then straight to work. Well nearly. I was told that I would be paying Salum to drive me to Dar, via Serengeti and Arusha. This was okay, I was expecting to have to do that, but I needed money. So off we popped, the Professor and I, to the same bank where I decided queue jumping would be okay. Once again the same practice occurred, the Professor took me to his accountant who fast-tracked me through the queue, once again to the grumblings of the residents of Bukoba. At this point I am glad I am heading away from here. I think I have managed to annoy just about everyone in the town with the queue jumping shenanigans.

When I was waiting for the lift to the BDA offices from the bank a random chap came up to me. He informed me that I looked very much like someone he went to school with (this I doubt because the guy was about 50 or so), and he wanted to make sure that I wasn’t actually that same guy. I was a bit apprehensive because I had just changed quite a lot of money (I received roughly 831,000/ - I am a millionaire in Tanzania!). Luckily the driver turned up, and for some reason the man darted off fairly quickly. This has since added to my suspicion of the gentleman.

One of the interviewees from Audax’s research, an absolute bear of a man, was my first appointment of the day. He met me in the BDA office and we conducted the first interview there. From there we picked up the same psychotic taxi driver from the day before who once again performed death defying feats of driving prowess. The next respondent was a woman who owned a bar, who we coincidently found in the street.

A quick chat later and we were heading into the rural end of the municipality. We were off to find a brick maker. He lived down a dirt track of a road, which is not suitable for standard cars. A 4x4 would not have gone amiss. As the grass and occasional rock scraped the underbelly of the car, and the feeling of the earth underneath the floor of the car rumbling as we went by, we eventually ground to a halt outside the chaps house. The driving adventure started up again as we headed back to the road and civilisation. This time the back of the car was fishtailing on the mud and we skewed nicely around corners that weren’t there.

We then visited a shop in the Kashai ward. Incidentally this is my favourite area of Bukoba because is so ‘African’, and no one cares for western influence, well at least not obviously. We then drove down to the shore of the Lake to talk to a couple of other people. Hon. Kagasheki was having another publicity event on the shore, and again a huge turnout was present. He drove by me but failed to see me so I got on with the days chores!

We visited a banana grower who invited us into her traditional home. It was very dark inside but reasonably well furnished. She had a small cat which looked quite healthy and clean, if not a touch underfed. I wanted to play with the kitty but I thought it would probably be best just to get on with the interview. Having nearly forgotten my hat in the house, we eventually took off back to the office. Here another two people were waiting to be interviewed so they were added to the list.

That was me done for the research in the BDA. All that is left is to write up the findings, which I should probably be doing now instead of writing this. Such is life. I was told to meet the Professor at 3 at the airport as he was flying to Dar that evening. I wasted about an hour walking around town looking for nail clippers. I couldn’t find them anywhere so I gave up and stood in a shop being ignored for 5 minutes before I realised that I was running late. I jumped in a taxi and got to the airport a couple of minutes late. Luckily the Professor was late too. We saw him off and headed back to the house at Ntungamo.

I had the rest of the day to myself where I toyed with the prospect of working, but then I changed my mind. They should have checked my work ethic before they employed me I feel!