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It’s never easy… [2015-10-04]

Here we are, back in Arusha again!  It’s wonderful to see good friends again and so many familiar faces around town!  Having said that, we’ve had a few trials so far as we always seem to at the beginning of each Africa trip.  We’re just trying to shed our American mania for multi-tasking and high efficiency and slip into the mode of patient acceptance of things beyond one’s control – a state in which much of the world must live with no choice.  I feel so much again how unbelievably fortunate we are in America and don’t really realize or appreciate it.

The trip kicked off well enough.  Priscilla, Justin, and Anil arrived right on time Thursday morning to help get us and our gear (nine boxes, 2 big duffel bags, and carry-ons) to the airport.  We checked in smoothly, with everything a comfortable pound or so below the weight limit.  We boarded a little late, and then waited on the ground for a while.  We were getting rather nervous at this point, since we had a very short connection time in Amsterdam.   Sure enough, we had to sprint through the Amsterdam airport to make it on time – but we did!

As we waited to go through the three lines to get our visas and enter Tanzania, I kept peeking over to the baggage claim area to try to catch a glimpse of our boxes.  Our large white “Manila Box” boxes would of course be unique here in Tanzania, but there was no sign of anything.  Sure enough, not a single piece of baggage made the connection.  So, after another long wait to file a missing bag report, we finally exited the airport and had a very happy reunion with our friend and partner David from the Arusha District Council office.  The District had provided a driver and car for us, but there turned out to be a lot more room in there than we had expected with no baggage to transport.

We were on a bit of a mission Saturday morning to pick up the locally purchased computer equipment, get sim cards for our phones, get drinking water, and other first day tasks.  Shops close early afternoon Saturday and are not open on Sunday, so anything that needed to be done before Monday had to be completed that morning.  The electricity went out shortly after we left the Lutheran Centre where we’re staying.  The bank ATM crashed while I was trying to get cash (thankfully it coughed up my card but it also seems to think that it gave me cash – another issue that still needs unsnarling).  At least the neighboring terminal worked, so after getting some cash it was on to the next task.  Buying sim cards here means surrendering passports for photo-copying, which of course was not possible without electricity.  We managed to navigate that hurdle and after an hour or so had sim cards.  We picked up our equipment (4 UPSs, 2 boxes of Ethernet cable, 52 mice, 4 keyboards) at JR Electronics, and the very kind proprietor gave us a lift back to the Lutheran Centre.

Meanwhile, David was trying to ping the KLM baggage office about our lost bags without much luck.  Finally late in the afternoon, he was able to establish that they were on the flight and would be arriving around 7:45 p.m.  Given that we were likely to have to explain all of this stuff to customs, David recommended that we go there to get it instead of waiting to have it delivered.  The airport is about 45 minutes away from town, so it’s no small matter to go out there.  The District office again generously provided transportation, and we were joined by our friend Edward who drives a taxi.  It turned out that we had to wait until everyone on the flight picked up their bags before we could go in to get ours, so this ended up taking a really long time.  Then they would only let one of us in to round up everything, so Neal did this part.  But… only 10 of the 11 pieces showed up.  Then Neal and I switched off, and I went over to discuss this pile of equipment with the customs folks.  I had to open up one box, but they were really very helpful and let everything through.  In the meantime, I was frantically going through bag stickers and lists and trying to figure out which box was missing.  In my jet-lagged and anxiety-ridden state, this took far longer than I care to admit!  Then I had to report back to the KLM baggage office.  They weighed each box again, took down the report, and finally let us leave the now-deserted airport.  We piled everything into the District pickup and Edward’s taxi and headed back to town – it was 11 or so by this point.  The guys all helped us get the boxes and bags up three flights of stairs to our room.  We were so thankful that the electricity had come back on at this point!  It would have been quite an adventure doing this in the dark.  And of course, we were MORE than thrilled to at least have 10 of the 11 bags and boxes now!

Sunday morning dawned with no power again, and as I write this, it is 4:30 p.m. and we are still without electricity.  Neal charged a couple of the UPSs yesterday evening when we had power, so he did manage to do a basic check of the server, monitor, and network switch we hope to be installing tomorrow.  We’ve sorted out the equipment for each of the four schools, and we’ve decided how to triage the missing box.  It has laptops and adapters, so it would be a big blow to lose it and reduce the number of units we can give to each school.  We’re hoping fervently that KLM can figure out where it is and get it to us soon.  One other funny little glitch – the keyboards we got seem to be for a different country (France maybe?), so some of the keys are located differently from the standard.  We are hoping we can get those exchanged tomorrow.

The major concern at the moment is the electricity situation.  Evidently power cuts have been a frequent and unpredictable part of Tanzanian urban life in recent months.  Initially it was reported that the situation would improve by the end of August, but that time came and went with no change.  No one really seems to know the underlying cause and what is being done to fix it, but it is truly crippling the community and businesses.  Some larger businesses have generators, but it is very expensive to run a generator day after day.  Small business owners are really suffering; for example, fishermen can’t count on refrigeration being available.  Once one’s livelihood becomes dependent upon electricity, it is truly catastrophic to lose it unpredictably.

The impact of this on our work remains to be seen, but it is surely going to make things much more complicated than they already are.  In the grand scheme of things, we will do our very best to finish our projects but recognize we may not be able to – and then we will return to our home in California.  But it’s truly heart-wrenching to see the impact on the people here who have no other choice but to deal with it and adapt as best they can.  Life already is difficult enough without this additional challenge.

[We’re on 2G internet right now, so no photo today…]