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I just finished up a week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's coastal capital. I was there to brainstorm with some techie colleagues on our upcoming plan to create a mobile-phone-based guidance program for Community Health Workers (CommCare), meet folks at any NGO that was courteous enough to return my emails, and show up unannounced at the others whose Tanzanian receptionist prefer to hang up on me than speak English or find someone who can.
I also went to Zanzibar.
After a week of meetings which were quite educational--in the Socratic sense by which Socrates felt himself to be wiser than most men only because he knew exactly how little he knew--I was ready for a bit of a break. And so I arrived at the Dar ferry port, the tourist bottleneck, the gauntlet through which all those heading to Zanzibar must pass.
I knew there was a 1 o'oclock ferry, but because I was coming from work meetings I arrived just after 1. The ferry was still there, but the engine was running and it was clear that it would leave shortly. In my haste to be aboard that vessel, I allowed myself to be steered into a ticket office and ripped off. But here is the question -- was I ripped off?
For non-residents, a ticket on one of the fast ferries is 35-40 USD. As I was paying in Tanzanian shillings (roughly 1200 per USD often with a worse exchange rate at touristy spots) I had already decided I was ready to pay about 50,000 (given a little rounding up -- unfortunately, you have to buy your ticket through one of a number of ticketing companies intent on charging you as much as possible).
So they said: 50,000, quick the boat is leaving!
I paid it, and I made it onto the boat.
I made it onto the boat and quickly realized that this was not one of the fast ferries, this was the one remaining Slow Ferry. The Flying Horse which, as Lonely Planet notes, does not fly at all. The price for the the slow ferry is about 20$. So they got me. I paid double what I should have.
In contrast, when I came back from Zanzibar, I arrived at a ticket office without time pressure and was able to use my Volunteer Visa, and as much Swahili as I could muster (Swahinglish, really) to get the resident price for my return trip -- 19,000 on a Fast Ferry. Though the fast ferry still took about 2 hours while the slow ferry had taken only about 3 hours.
So was I ripped off? I paid what I expected to pay, and got on the boat that I wanted to get on. So what's the big deal? I think that it has something to do with that feeling of being bested. But that's just ego. The more difficult, but undoubtedly more admirable thing to do, is to recognize your privilege for what it is and give more than you have to, knowing that you'll still be privileged tomorrow.
A colleague of mine -- Neal, an American computer science pHD plus MPH who is working on CommCare and has spent much of the last few years of his life in East Africa -- occasionally refers to his spending habits as O.T.I.: OverTipping International. It's happened that we've haggled for a bit for a taxi fare, and then as we're dropped off he'll throw in a few extra thousand anyway. I've also heard him referring to overspending as a an Income Generating Activity, a term lifted from the development world where it generally refers to small-scale business alongside subsistence activities. 'It's okay. It's an income generating activity.'
I can't help but think that he's onto something. After all, with such a mindset, could he ever be ripped off?
Unfortunately, I don't know that it's that simple. Because who is getting the money? The taxi driver and the tour operator? What about the orphan and the farmer? They have no services which we privileged would pay at all, much less overpay. It's somehow unsatisfying to give a few extra dollars to a tourist tout, when I would never reach into my pocket for as much money when I pass a beggar. So if I haggle with the tout and toss only coins to the homeless, where does that leave me?
Occasionally getting ripped off and doing less good than I probably should.
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Next topic -- another gem to add to the international cast of characters which I've been developing.
It turns out that I decided to visit Zanzibar at the beginning of the Monsoon. It wasn't so bad, really, but it rained on and off. My first night in Stone Town...
...the sky opened as I wandered the skewed streets. Inasmuch as I am water resistant, I decided to hoof it to the indian vegetarian restaurant I had passed earlier. I arrived soaked and ready for Thali. And a good Thali it was. Mango pickle. Mmmmmm. That moment was brought to you by the fact that as I write this I'm hungry.
Anyway. Being trapped by the monsoon turned out to be quite entertaining, as I was trapped with an interesting gentleman. His name was Steel.
Steel is a 60 year old brit stonemason who has spent the last 40 years restoring ancient monuments and is currently managing a UNESCO project to reclaim one of Stone Town's ailing sea walls.
He looked a bit like an aging Mr. Clean, and it was impossible to ignore the two hairs which sprung near perpendicularly from the tip of his reddening nose.
His father was a coal miner, and a unionist. He espoused socialist sympathies, and admitted that he enjoyed telling Africans that he had not had shoes until the age of 12 (which, of course, they don't believe).
Over a growing tally of beers (I drank Safari, he Kilimanjaro), he professed the sort of paradoxical dislike for the UK which I generally reserve for various things American. We discussed rambling topics relating to philosophy, stonemasonry, politics, working in Africa, and his recent brush with gangrene following a scorpion sting in Tajikistan and treatment in a Russian Military hospital for an "allergic reaction" which ended when a German medical student recognized rampant tissue necrosis and got him airlifted to Geneva. He also asked for advice on wound care. I was happy to oblige.
Karibu Africa.
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Also: never let it be said that you can't learn something at any time. There is genius everywhere.
Have you ever been annoyed by way your soap gets all waterlogged and slimy in it's holder or on the sink edge? and then when you use it way too much soap smears off on you? It happens! To me at least.
Anyway. In the bathroom of the Radha Food House (finished Thali and merry Steel in the bar area behind me) I learned a solution. Bottle cap. Stick it in the bottom of your soap. Place soap bottle-cap-side down. Problem solved.
Genius.
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