Not an awful lot to discuss...

14th February 2010

Whilst I myself haven’t been doing much, I still have the occasional musing to ensure that you have something to read whilst you underperform at work. The past week has been uneventful, and relatively dull. In fact, I don’t think that I have any personal experiences of adventures and ramblings to amuse you with.

I have had to do a bit of work, which has been something of a challenge as intermittent electricity supplies have caused havoc with life in general! I have been expanding my previous report on the BDA which is all fun and games, and it’s a great way to express a degree of self importance, especially when it is considered that the recommendations that I am making will change the way that the agency operates. So as I have been plugging away at the report, fighting the monster that it a lack of electricity, I’ve decided to try and examine the immediate area of Mwenge through a sensory capacity.

I’ve been in Dar for about 5 or 6 weeks (I’m beginning to lose count) and it has got to the point where the heat, the colours, the attitudes of people, the smells, the sounds and just about every other factor that batters the senses has become a norm. I was sitting outside last night whilst waiting for the electricity to power my air conditioning unit and restore my apartment to a walk in freezer, and I was giving some thought to the fact that I should have been doing something other than sitting in on a Saturday night. Somewhere, lost in my bored musings, a big sigh must have come out of my body, followed by a standard deep inhalation. It struck me that then that most of what should still be a new experience seemed to be washing over me. I picked up the familiar fruity smell of the early evening and I was swamped with the thoughts of when I had first arrived to the apartment, and how, although it was only 3 or 4 weeks ago, I had been feeling then. And that started my time of reflection.

As it turns out, my progresses since arriving in Tanzania has been going at unsteady paces. It seems to cascade between intense periods of acclimatisation and engagement in new experiences, to the mind-numbing boredom of waiting for something to happen. I’ve been trying to motivate myself to get up and get to experiencing as much as I can, but self-motivation has not been one of my strengths. I’ve attributed my recent lack of effort to a few factors, and most of them are regarding my ‘boss’. I’ve still not seen my boss since I have left Bukoba. I was meant to go to Dodoma with him, but that didn’t emerge. He was meant to be in Dar to see me a couple of weeks ago, but instead he went to Bukoba. He had arranged to meet with the Professor and me on Friday; this didn’t happen for unknown reasons. And then hopes were put up that he would appear on Saturday, but needless to say, this also didn’t come about. I have not been paid since the end of December, and my visa is threatening to become invalid. I’m trying to work out how to tackle that particular issue, but I’ve not found an alternative solution to me leaving the country, and then coming back. Whilst I realise that business runs differently in Africa, and I realise that I am not the most significant issue that my boss has to deal with, I am feeling a touch undervalued. It doesn’t seem right to put someone on the backburner when they haven’t properly started the job. Once a meeting has been arranged (and actually conducted) I am sure I will feel more positive about the scenario.

Right, that is enough of my disjointed rambling, and seemingly abrupt trains of thought. Let me tell you about the lack of events this week.

As I have said, much of the week has involved doing some work on the report. However, during the moments of power outages and the evenings of seamless boredom, I have tried to get out of the apartment here and there. Possibly one of my favourite discoveries during these jaunts out and about has to be the monkeys! There is a troop of monkeys that live on UDSM campus. If I am not mistaken they are vervet monkeys. According to the Lonely Planet guide to Tanzania, the vervet monkeys are the species of primate that epitomises East Africa. They are a black faced, light brown backed, off-white fronted, long-tailed monkey that has some fantastic blue and red colouring that flares up when the monkey gets excited! As I have only seen one troop so far, and they are near to the northern gate of the campus, I would not hesitate to guess that there may be more hiding around! The campus of UDSM is huge. There are trees, and grassy areas, a road that meanders through the grounds, occasional houses (owned by the lecturers), large tower blocks which house the students who live on campus, and then there are the smaller buildings which are where the learning happens. The campus is probably about 5km squared. There are lots of little paths leading off from the main road, and each one looks like it could lead anywhere on campus! When I head up to UDSM I am usually in a dalla-dalla and I don’t tend to get out until I am up on the hill and right outside the computing building. I think that I will have to head off the beaten track and explore some of the mystical paths!

I go running a couple of times a week, and I normally run up to the university on the same route as the dalla-dalla, but this week I broke that habit and went running along the dirt road that is just off from the main campus road. It’s a flatter route, and easier to run but it uncovered a couple of small lakes that are part of the university campus. There are a variety of huge birds that nest around the lakes, and I have made it my mission to try and photograph them when I venture off the campus next. The dirt road eventually comes out to the main road, south of the apartments. I had planned to walk along the road and see what was along there, but now I am glad that I didn’t. There is nothing of interest when you head in that direction, nothing except a road and cars.

I think that these two excursions are actually a bit dull. I am sure you’ll be fascinated to know that I have been buying local papers to keep up with current affairs. By local papers I mean East African editions of the Guardian and I have bought one copy of the Express, just for a change. The Guardian is of a similar vein to the Guardian in the U.K. It basically sits back with a gentle nonchalance occasionally making the point that perhaps something should be done to ease the suffering of those who aren’t located in the stately home. On the other hand, the Express has done nothing but appal me! It is less a newspaper, and more a scrapbook of articles that should have made the news several years ago. The lack of journalistic talent is displayed as subtly as the number of teenage pregnancies in Portsmouth. ‘Articles’ litter the first 7 to 8 pages telling you absolutely nothing about the current political discussions, instead they will discuss the facts behind Princess Diana’s death, and the growth of some trees that were planted several years ago. Flipping the paper over to see if anything notable has happened in the world of sports, once title struck me as breaking news...”Ferguson is not sorry to have let Beckham go”. Having moved to Real Madrid several years ago, and then ventured across the Atlantic to play for L.A. Galaxy, it seemed odd that this story was making its way into the paper. The only thought that I have that could possibly explain this strange way of reporting the news is that as the Express is a weekly paper they are catching up on all the stories that they may have missed when they actually happened. Having enjoyed reading this historical document, I turned to the puzzles section, on a page called ‘Kiddies Corner’. Here were some easy puzzles that may have been designed for kids, but I am not so sure. The spot the difference which is meant to have 5 differences only has 4, and yes I have thoroughly examined it, the crossword had some very bad numbers place in it, and spelling mistakes littered the clues. But most importantly, the opposite page has content that may not be suitable for children. A large picture of a ‘glamour girl’ is present, and so are some rather inappropriate jokes. These jokes were the sort of thing that you wouldn’t even see in The Sun. It was like the newspaper had managed to put down a discussion that you would from some vulgar builders, who happened to be sitting in Weatherspoons. Now all in all, this is not a crime, but to put it right next to the page that the children will be attempting to find the missing difference in the pictures...that is borderline child abuse.

Now with that rant out of the system, I think the majority of the ‘interesting’ events have been discussed. I’ll leave you with the thought that a mango that I had purchased was filled, rather pleasantly, with teeny-tiny maggots. Yummy.

Oh no, hang on....wait a second. I did have something else to tell you. I went over to the Professors house on Tuesday night and had dinner with some of his friends who live in Arusha. There was a local lady who moved to England with her husband (the husband was not present), her daughter Victoria, and a Dutch woman called Harriet. The evening was quite enjoyable, and it was good to have some of Charles’ cooking again. I’ve missed the bananas and beans, and the curries and spinach and all of the other yummy goodness. The Dutch woman was possibly in her mid-40s and she was incredibly irritating. She was under the impression that several local guys, who were around 25-30 years old, were completely taken with her. She is not an attractive lady, physically or personality-wise. I wonder whether she was exceptionally deluded and if she was in a perpetual state of drunkenness. She started to attempt to flirt with Kim, the Professor’s son. This was concerning. Victoria’s mother (I can’t for the life of me remember her name) and Victoria had been living in England for the past few years, possibly since Victoria was born, judging by her accent. And as conversation went on, the inevitable question of where I came from came up, I said Brighton, and they laughed. This concerned me, and my immediate thought was relating to the stereotype of many Brightonian dwellers. It turned out that they live in Eastbourne, so my paranoia was unnecessary. It was nice talking about England with people who know it, but conversation ended up drifting back to more African issues, such as, how to prepare grasshoppers in different ways. That was a less exciting tale to regale to you than I thought it would be.

On a final note, the Swahili word for bug or insect is mdudu. Remember it, it is likely to come up in the test.