February and March Madness
3/4/10

Its hard to believe its already March. February flew by! After returning from Tanga I spent a week in Arusha running around to meetings to finalize our grant application. Since the DC office decided that they wanted every last second to work on the grant, I was nominated to go back down to Dar via hot smelly bus to submit the packet in person at the USAID office. I boarded the bus early Monday morning and arrived in Dar in the evening. Despite the fact that the distance between the two cities isn’t too too far, the bus ride takes about 10hrs-or the travel time between West Lafayette, Indiana to Washington, D.C.!

On the morning the application was due, I finally received the documents via email (they literally took every last minute to work on the grant). The thing to remember is that Kinkos does not exist in Tanzania. Because resources are scarce, often costs for items we would never think of are quite expensive-including paper. First I found an internet café where I could print original copies of the document. Printing costs for this first round was 1,000 Tanzanian shillings for black and white, and 2,000Tsh for color. I bargained with the attendant to agree to 500 T shillings for B&W, 1,000 for color. After printing the 80 pages, my next mission was to make 2 copies of the packet. The first place I found to make copies looked promising. It was a large office space filled with Canon printers. I explained in my best Swahili that I needed 2 copies of the entire document. He understood! He took the first 10 pages of the document and proceeded to copy each page one-by-one. No, no, no can’t the documents be put through the top feeder-I worked in an office, I’m an expert at photocopying! However, this is where our communication failed. If we continued in this fashion, it may have been completed in a year’s time. Luckily I found another copy place just down the hall. Here they could make 2 sets of copies, and bind the originals in no time. After this laborious task was finished, off to another shop to have the files burned onto a CD (who does that anymore?). Without too much hassle I was able to transfer the files to CD, put the packet together, and find a taxi to the US Embassy where USAID is located. The following day, once again I boarded the bus back to Arusha. When this trip was completed, I spent a total of 20+ hours traveling and about 34 hours in Dar.

Just when I was settling back into my routine, I was thrown back into mayhem when the Books for Africa container showed up unannounced after missing for 2months. The container left the US in early November. Estimating liberally, I expected the ship to dock around the 15th of December. When the 15th came and went, I then re-estimated for it to arrive around Christmas. I was worried this would ruin my Zanzibar plans, however I sweated through the holidays without any disturbance from a 40ft container of books. In the mayhem of my first trip to Dar I discovered the clearing agent we had been assigned for the first container, whom I had been talking to regularly, was in fact NOT the agent assigned for this current container! I tracked down the agent, however when I spoke on the phone to the office assistant, she had no record of our container. After (literally) running around Dar in a panic, I found the original paperwork and was able to see the manager of the clearing office. He was aware that he had been assigned this job, had spoken to the logistics officer from the US months before, but somehow failed to communicate with me until I showed up in person. The agent then attempted to hold me responsible for charges up to $1500 for processing fees. This is a donation made possible through a USAID grant-all of these charges are handled up front, and not by me or my organization directly! Once we set aside the extortion, we were able to move forward.

Since that first meeting, I have been calling several times a week to check on the status of the clearing process. This was important as we needed to inform and organized the regional and district education officers to receive the books in Arusha. Even though it is partly the clearing agent’s responsibility to keep me informed, I recognized early on that I would be kept in the dark unless I made the phone calls. This continued for a month when in reality the clearing process should have only taken a week to 2 at most. A week ago, on my daily check in, I was told the container would be loaded and ready for departure the following day. The agent emphasized that HE would call ME once it left with the details of the truck and the drivers’ numbers. 3 days later and still no call. However, I refused to call him out of principle. Perhaps that was my mistake.

Thursday morning I received a phone call from the agent’s office stating that the container had been in Arusha since the day before and they were waiting for me to direct them. I immediately called Lyne and ran down to the REOs office. We needed a permit from the Engineer’s office in order to authorize the travel of the semitruck into town center where the books would be off loaded. We would also have to notify the district officers and organizer day laborers to unload the truck. We were aware of these steps and would have had everything in place-had we been properly informed ahead of time. Since Lyne had other meetings, she left me with Isak to make all the arrangements. If it weren’t for Isak and Heather’s humor, I may have jumped off a bridge that day! We were able to obtain the permit, schedule pick up times with Monduli and Ngorongoro district officers, hire day laborers, and contact the local newspaper.

Friday morning, we met the truck drivers in town to hand over the permit. With Isak’s help the day before, our bicycle taxi drivers/day laborers arrived to offload the truck. Unfortunately because the road up to the main hall was in a bad state, the headmaster would not allow our massive semi truck to drive up close to the building. This meant that our workers would have to carry the boxes of books 100meters to the hall. While that may not sound like a lot, carrying 580 boxes each weighing at least 50-60lbs is no easy feat. These men worked hard! After 4 hours of heavy duty work in 90 degree heat, the job was complete; however not without another hitch. In Moshi we had maybe 15 boxes that arrived unlabeled. As the first few boxes were unloaded off the Arusha truck, I instructed the workers to simply place those in the ‘unknown’ pile; the rest should be placed under their corresponding label on the wall. I expected a few to be unlabeled. In the end, approximately 300 of the 580 boxes remained in the ‘unknown’ pile. While the work was done for the day, I knew I would be back bright and early on Saturday morning to label and organize these lost soldiers.

Sat morning I met Isak and a laborer to go through the boxes before the district officers arrived to take their portions away. After awhile we found a routine. Isak would move across a section of boxes cutting through the tape quickly; I would follow prying open the flaps, determine the category of books inside, and label accordingly on top. Isak would then follow me again to retape. Then our worker friend would heft the box into the appropriate location in the room. 3 ½ hours later, the district officers were ready to collect their books and I was ready for a nap.

Now that this shipment of books is over, I am preparing to put in a request for the next shipment which will head to Karatu and Longido districts. Hopefully in the next week I will make a visit to Karatu to speak to the district education officer as well as stop by the program site for Wellshare Int (formerly Minnesota International Health Volunteers). I’m beginning to think about what will come after this job. I’ve found it much easier to network here than at home…maybe thats because I already feel a little out of my element, and can therefore be more bold than usual and actually talk to people! I also have an invitation to dinner at a woman’s house who is the director of a UMN-connected, population project here in Arusha!

Now I must go and find candles as the power has gone out again. Hopefully the pony-size (as Heather likes to describe them) cockroaches will stay away. I would hate to run into one of those in the dark!
Pictures to come…