Coming back to blue skies, sunshine and clean air I felt a renewed appreciation for life here. Driving back from my first day at work I smiled my way through the inevitable traffic jams and even kept my new found calm when being queue jumped in the traffic jam by the millionth daladala- Dar’s charms were well and truly back in the ascendant and nothing was going to change that.
Looking back several weeks on, those feelings still haven’t changed. This is, however a minor miracle given the phenomenal efforts of Tanzanian life to convince me otherwise! I think most people here would agree that in terms of hassle, January has been a true Tanzanian vintage!
The fun started off innocuously enough with an empty tank of petrol. I asked Abubakar our company driver to go fill the car as usual. He came back hours later looking decidedly fed up and flustered claiming that he’d been to every petrol station he knew and could not find any petrol. Incredulously, I made a few inquiries and took a look out of the office window at the BP station opposite. Sure enough there was a scene of complete and utter chaos. The forecourt was filled with cars with the resultant “queue” (term used very loosely here) stretching back up the road as far as the eye could see. Added to this were literally hundreds of people all milling around holding jerry cans in the hope of getting some petrol.
Fabulous- in a world of plummeting oil and petrol prices, in which OPEC is talking about cutting production due to the overabundance of petrol, Tanzania had managed to engineer itself a fuel crisis. Sure enough, for the rest of the week getting fuel was a game of cat and mouse- rumours come out of a garage getting a delivery and you get there before anyone else- great in theory but a real challenge when thousands are doing the same!
The shortage appears to have been due to arguments between the oil importers and the government over pricing- it caused much excitement, provoked much impotent outrage from politicians then abruptly ended a day or two later- the car pooling could end and I was back behind the wheel.
The fuel crisis went away and was promptly replaced by a mini power crisis. These are always fun for me- in addition to the blackouts and noisy generators, I get to feel the collective wrath of anyone who knows I work for the power company- best to just stay in bed to be honest! The first episode of the crisis was nothing too abnormal- a day or so of periodic load shedding (power industry euphemism for cutting people off). This while annoying was manageable since there were only a few hours of shutdown, enough to keep the generator running without it running out of fuel.
The second blow however came when some sort of fault at a local substation cut power to the whole peninsula for almost two days. This was in an entirely different league and came at a time when the water pump had packed in and the gas cylinder had run out. One happy day I came home to no electricity, no gas, no water and one very unhappy wife. We briefly explored the notion of abandoning house and going to a hotel in the town centre. In the end we stuck it out- water was drawn from the waterhole (our tank is basically a hole) and we slept with windows open. Actually, despite the fact that we’re in the middle of summer, sleeping without AC wasn’t too bad. We get a good throughput of air in our room so it wasn’t too hot. The bed was crowded with the addition of two small boys who, scared either of the dark or of the croaking bullfrogs decided to sleep with us. No power, a ramshackle house with nothing working and four to a bed- it was just like the Waltons!
The power is back now and life is good once more. Now we’re more or less done with January I think we can safely say that the short rainy season isn’t going to amount to much this time. There have been a couple of downpours- a big one this morning in fact, but no prolonged period of rain. This doesn’t bode too well for rains later in the year. Since most power here is hydroelectric, that means loads more power cuts- we’ve stocked up on serious amounts of diesel. It is pretty hot here right now and we generally stay indoors between noon and four if we can help it. Evenings are nice though and much of our social life involves sitting outside drinking something alcoholic in the evening sun. Friday nights everyone seems to head to the Dar Yacht Club for an end of week glass- the kids head off to the playground and we enjoy a glass of wine watching the sun set over the bay- a very civilised end to the week.
Last weekend was Burns Night. Last year we went to the event at the Yacht Club and ended up home by 9pm as the event (held outdoors) was hit by a flash storm which practically blew us home. No such problems this time- the event was held in the gardens of the British High Commissioner’s residence and in any case the short rainy season, usually a couple of weeks in December or January, appears to have forgotten to happen this time.
This Burns night was a special one since it was the 250th anniversary of his birth. The usual traditions were in place- lots of speeches trying to convince us that Burns was any good (he’s fooling nobody!) interspersed with haggis, neeps and tatties and copious amounts of scotch. An event like this would be fun anywhere- the Scottish have perfected the art of drinking themselves into oblivion so are great fun to party with. However, the weirdness of doing this in Tanzania added to the fun. I spent lots of time explaining to our Indian neighbour Praveena exactly what a haggis is made of, what the woman was saying when she gave the Selkirk Grace and why the English and Scots have been punching seven bells out of each other for millennia. Being Indian, she totally connected with the scotch however. The Scots are well and truly matched in their love of single malt by the Indians- my father in law is proof of that! I sit here writing this with the last remnants of a sore head working their way out of my body. I will feel fine tomorrow but will never split a bottle of scotch with Praveena again- mind you I said that last time and the time before!
Our table at Burns Night- l-r Praveena, me, Soma and Dirk
So, life in Tanzania seems to be the usual fun and games. Lots of power cuts, water shortages, breakdowns of various bits of the house along with the huge consolation of a cracking bunch of friends in a profoundly beautiful part of the world. There are lots of negatives and positives- as soon as the former outweighs the latter we’ll be on our way. Right here right now, that day seems quite a long way off.
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