Moves and Missionaries

A few days ago I began to write a post about the many things that have happened to me recently. It didn't take long before I realized I was meandering well beyond the point at which anyone would find the information entertaining. Anyone, that is, except a small subgroup of my readers who are obliged to find me entertaining and have a spectacularly high tolerance for inane detail. Which is to say, except my Family.

Therefore this post will work as follows. Those interested in a quick update, feel free to read through the initial segment, ignoring footnotes, and continue with your lives. Those interested in extra information should refer from the text to the Supplement, as directed.

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I have a home. I have a baisikeli. Not in that order.

Finding a new home has been a bit of an adventure. It has involved friends, hovels, and homes. Bikes, canadians and missionaries. Also not in that order.

As of Sunday past last, I was rather perturbed. After having seen a number of survivable but not attractive lodgings (1) thanks to my friend Issa (2), I had finally seen a room in a wholly livable little 3 bedroom home. The other two bedrooms were occupied by the Nursing Officer and the Laboratory Technician from one of our project Dispensaries (3). I was fully packed to move and working on organizing transportation when I was informed that I would not be able to move into the room. It turns out that the landlord was not comfortable with my moving in (4).

Still, I had planned all variety of shopping endeavors that day to allow for my move. I had priced beds (6), bicycles and other key home improvement equipment (7). While it was clear that certain acquisitions could now wait, I decided to buy a bike anyway (8).

I am now the owner of a lovely (Figure 1) bicycle. It's a Mountain Bike. This does not mean that the bike has gears -- only imported used European bikes have gears -- just that it has straight handlebars instead of the wide U-shaped cruiser handlebars. (9)

Note the lovely green coloration, the non-matching pedals (see future post) and the decals (figure 2).

It's a Nahaco Sport Bike. Sport! I'm so sporty when I ride it's ridiculous. At least I have to assume that's what the ruckus is about.

I bought the bike from a gentleman named Karim, who regretted not having any rooms available (10), but who referred me to Pastor Tim: "An American!"

Moments later I was in Arkansas. There were no rooms available in Arkansas, but there were Southern Baptist missionaries and sweet tea (11). Arkansas referred me to England, in the guise of Dr. Ruth (giggles intended), the brit doc who runs a clinic for the Anglican Church of Tabora.

The next evening I was picked up by Dr. Ruth and taken to her home for a feast of a dinner (12) attended by missionaries including but not confined to Tim and Kim (the Arkansans) (13), Dr. Ruth, Jill (14), and David, an elderly Anglican minister who needs to turn up his hearing aid, John (15), 3 twenty-something Canadians (16, eh?), me, and a Tanzanian named Gayo.

I'm living with Gayo (17). Here (Figure 3).


Coming soon -- Bicycle Maintenance and Home Improvement.

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(1) These rooms were Standard Tanzanian Rooms. I had seen two. These rooms were 10$ per month. Yes. 10$. One was medium-smallish, in a flat with three other rooms (each of which housed an entire Tanzanian family), with outdoor pit latrines that were also showers (which is to say that is where one would probably choose to pour water on themselves), and a kitchen that was a room where each family had their wood-charcoal burning stove (more of a glorified bucket). The other was "self-contained" in that it was quite small, but had a small closet with a western style toilet in it, and also a shower head and a hole in the floor which was obviously created with a sledge hammer for the purpose of drainage. The kitchen was the inner courtyard, also replete with wood stoves, and half flooded from the recent rains -- you had to walk across on a series of bricks, while ducking the many laundry lined at roughly ben-neck level. I wasn't excited about either, but was working on convincing myself that with a bit of furniture and a kerosene stove I would be fine.

(2) whom, because I had met and spoken with him on the street twice, is one of my best non-MVP Taboran friends. He's a tall gentleman, probably in his late 50s or early 60s, with the paunch of a man who has worked for years in the offices of the National Railway, and retired recently because of (likely cardiovascular) health reasons. For no reason other than hospitality and free time he took upon himself to find me a few rooms.

(3) basic clinics.

(4) something something contract they had signed something something person that the landlord had not met something something but the landlord lives 700km away something something = people are afraid of living with and/or being landlord to the white guy. (5)

(5) actually, even one of the landlords for the 10$-a-month rooms decided he could not offer it to me. HA!

(6) foam mattresses

(7) like kerosine stoves and mosquito nets.

(8) The city is set up such that the Market is on the opposite side of town from the project office. My hostel was close to the market, and the day I walked back from the office it took about an hour -- maybe 4km. I figured that if I ended up living near the market I would need the bike to get to work, but if I found a place near work I would need it to get to town.

(9) Like all bikes here it also has a sturdy luggage rack over the back tire for carrying charcoal, harvests, and friends (not always in that order and not always separately).

10) the Tanzanian-born muslim-Indian bicycle store owner. He actually did have a newly renovated storefront destined to be a photo studio, which he offered to rent to me, since its future tenants were delaying on their move. I declined. The store was located next to the Mohammed-Trans bus depot, which is actually just the lobby of and the area in front of an old movie theater. Karim's family owns the theater, and despite the collapsing roofing, and rows of moistening wooden chairs, one can imagine it formerly lit by nightly Bollywood films and attended by Tabora's considerable Indian population -- a population which swiftly dwindled a few decades ago when the country began to socialize the property of rich Indians. Out of considerable property holdings, Karim's family was left only with the theater (which, presumably, no one could figure out anything to do with and was worthless without it's Indian clientelle) and the corner apartment in one of the many buildings they owned (from which Karim is now awoken by Mohammed-Trans' daily engine maintenance).

11) Generally acknowledged to be more frightening than getting lost in the bush. My misgivings notwithstanding (they had CNN international on the TV, and I was terrified that politics would come up), like all children of god, they were spectacularly nice.

12) our phone conversation and the "why don't I pick you up for dinner tomorrow and we can discuss housing possibilities" didn't really prepare me for this....

13) Southern Baptist

14) Anglican

15) some denomination of Irishman, doing something that has to do with running the town dairy (I've found yogurt and cheese!) and other god-related business enterprises.

16) It actually turns out that they're here volunteering in an orphanage and are not missionaries. I didn't find this out until later, however, because I was afraid to ask and thereby bring up religion, abortion, premarital sex, contraception, George W., and other stories in search of redemption.

17) He is an IT (internet technology) guy, who went to University in Uganda, speaks excellent english, and has more electronics equipment in his room than the rest of Tabora. So far so good!