Happy Independence Day

Today is Sunday Dec 9, this is Tanzania Independence Day, 51 years ago they too kicked the brits out of their country and became independent. I have not seen much in the terms of a celebration where I live, but the day is not yet over. But I’m guessing it will not be like some of the parties I have hosted or gone to in Washington or Oregon, with kegs of Widmer beer and trips to the Indian reservation for illegal fireworks.

Last night the “guys” got together for movie night. Part of our project is delivering presenter boxes to the rural schools where teachers can show content on a big screen. We decided we needed to test one of these presenter boxes at the house to make sure they work and don’t overheat. We had a visitor here from one of the server hardware suppliers. One of the servers that we are installing had some issues so he came from Lisbon to help fix it. So there were two brothers from Palestine, one person from Germany (but he is American), one from Portugal and me all crowded around to watch Skyfall, the new James Bond movie.

Ken using one of the presenter boxes in the school, it has a projector, speakers and laptop. 

So you ask how I can get copies of Skyfall when it’s still in the movie theatres. In Dar you can buy pretty much any movie or any series for about 3000-4000TSH, $2-3, most of the time the movies are in excellent condition and look great. Sometimes you get ones that truly suck, voice does not match or filmed with a shaky handheld camera in the movie theatre. In that case you bring it back, tell them it sucks, they give you another one that may have been filmed or pirated better or you just get a different movie. Seems everyone has several movies always around and exchanging with other.

Skyfall, truly sucked, filmed with a bad handheld camera. So that one is going back, maybe in a week or so we’ll get a better copy. So we watched the latest Bourne movie, good shoot em up stuff. Note – I still have not seen Skyfall for anyone that is worried.

So before we watched the movie we all walked up to the local Mexican place to get some take away and bags full of beer. Movie night ended at midnight and I went home for a much needed sleep knowing I did not have to wake up the next day and head to the warehouse. I slept until 7:30am, you ya!

So today being Sunday I walked 20 minutes up to the local breakfast place that has the most amazing pastries, croissants, and lemonade. The lemonade is made with mint, so it’s like a great mojito without the rum, great on a hot day. I went with the guy from Lisbon. Afterwards we checked out Sea Cliff and walked back.

Where I live is called Slipway, there is a nice area with a few restaurants, small grocery, hotel, bank and a hookah place. I’m sitting at the waterfront writing this today, nice breeze and ocean view, life is pretty ok. The local grocery story is called Shirijees, but we all call it Squeegees since we’re not really sure how to pronounce the real name and it sounds much more fun. It’s a pretty small store, but it stocks my favorite juice and beer, so I visit them, a lot.  The funny thing is they never have small change, or for that matter, any change. The biggest bill in Tanzania is a 10,000TSH note, (about $6.25) every time I use one I get asked, “do you have anything smaller?” I usually don’t and there is a scramble to get me change, even when the change is 1500TSH.

The Slipway area

View from my table at one of the restaurants at Slipway

Chicken soup, don't they usually take the bones out.

Squeegees Market

My favorite juice and beer

A few weeks back I went to Mtwara for the install. Since I did not have a travel agent, nor was sure how to book I asked one of our partners to book flights for Matt and I. No issue, the tickets were about $250 each. So when I got back the agent wanted payment, I asked could we wire from the US, they said no and wanted cash, shillings. So I went to the money changer and got 775,000TSH, in 10,000TSH notes. I felt I was doing a major drug deal with the huge envelope of money I had to pass along. Then I heard the story of someone buying a car, it was all in cash, they had 3 backpacks full of 10,000TSH notes.

Laundry 2.0

Now I’m learning how the laundry works here, its 20,000 for a week of laundry or about 10,000 for a load. Much more in line with my expectations and pricing, so not to overwhelm the cleaning person, I put a fewer smaller loads this week. But the sock issue continues, pick your battles. Now I have to figure out how to pay her since I have only seen her twice since I have been here. I can also better track my clothes since they dry in a room that is next to our kitchen and I can see them. Hope I don’t have to knock on doors next week to get my clothing back.

I can see my laundry is safe

Apartment
I live in 15A of the Slipway Apartments in Dar, the apartments are nice except for the occasional room crashers. But I have learned to live with the cockroaches much as I lived with the snakes in my front yard in Redmond. I have published rules, follow the rules we are OK living together, break the rules and you will leave or be taken out with the flip flop, no exceptions and a one strike policy. But these rules have led to a new dance, it’s the late night cockroach dance craze. It usually happens when you get up at night or open a door and a large cockroach darts around as we are both startled, they are so big they scare the crap out of you and you start jumping around trying to avoid them until you realize what it is, but I’m sure it looks funny and the cockroach is laughing his ass off. So one night this week Matt, my roommate informs me that these cockroaches have wings and bite, WTF. Time to re-look at rules. Sometimes there is TOO much information.

My apartment in DAR

Speaking of the Redmond house, got an offer, accepted, working on the inspection issues and expect to sell the house Jan4. Now, where do I want to live next?

Back to Tanzania

So the transport here comes in several ways, you have a vehicle, you catch rides with people that have vehicles (that is what I do), taxi, moto taxi (nice name for a motorcycle), or Bajaj. The Bajaj is a three wheeled death mobile, it’s great that is does not go very fast. They are named after the company that makes them, Bajaj, clever. These are the same three wheelers you see all over the world with different names. The Bajaj stand is right across from my apartment. So EVERY time I leave my apartment or go home they ask “Bajaj? Bajaj?”, I say no, sometimes I reply with “I live across the street”. You think they would get this after the first month being here and most times it’s the same guys, I can even recognize some of them. One day I’m going to say yes, and ask how much to get to my apartment, hahaha. What I want to do is ask if they’ll let me drive one that would be fun. Note to Mom – I’ll ask if they have a helmet and seatbelt. Note to everyone else – I know they don’t have any.

“Bajaj? Bajaj?”

Training

So next week I start my last week in the warehouse. Finish my training classes and clean out the lab. Then I’ll start to get ready to go into the field with the install teams.

On Saturday I had to work, this is my office, notice the double fan action, it's 93 degrees and 70% humidity

My training class, this is the lab where they learn to install the Desktop Lab solution. The Desktop Lab will be used in the teacher training centers.