Nancy Lands Dead Center - in Tabora

I’ve been in Tabora for a few days now.  This is really my first serious trip into the field with my new job.  It has been really interesting.  I just feel that warm, fuzzy good thing you get when you really know you’re in Africa.

My first morning here I jumped out of bed to throw on some power walking clothes to see the sunrise.  It was 6:30 when I hit the pavement.  Me and EVERY SINGLE STUDENT in Tabora.  That is no small number let me tell you!  This little metropolis of 200,000 citizens surely has more schools per square kilometer than I’ve ever seen.  There is one of the few National Teacher Training Colleges here.  Then of course there are a gazillion primary and secondary schools each with their own uniforms—I’m partial to the school that sports the wild purple pants and ties but a close runner up are the students wearing the bright orange pants making them look vaguely like the prisoners who often work on roadside projects.  Then there is the Shule ya Furaha—the Happiness School.  There is a large school for Deaf Education and Audiology but I haven’t seen anyone signing yet.  Then there is a special school for Physical Education.  Also the Public Service College is here and those students have some very smart uniforms which make them resemble flight attendants.  Can you imagine telling college students they have to wear uniforms??  And of course there are schools for Catholics and Muslims and Baptists and Mormons.  At any rate, it was a gorgeous sunrise and soon after 7 AM the streets started to clear except for the latecomers who were really hustling.

04/25/06    Seeds of Corruption

Many bus companies in Tanzania are accused of importing buses declare ‘totaled’ in accidents elsewhere.  Cobbled together just enough to list down roads like boats healing in high winds, wheels splayed, careening sideways into on-coming traffic, these ‘phoenix buses’ race hell-bent towards the ends of their second lives.

In fact, the highways are littered with their carcasses, caved-in from tumbles or burned-out shells.  Some roll down deep escarpments, others connect in head-on contests of stubborn wills.  And the real tragedy isn’t the ugly remnant of these accidents – the splattered glass smeared with rust-colored blood.  The real heartbreak comes from the realization that, here in a country with less than one private vehicle for every one hundred people, phoenix buses are the only ride in town.

02/19/06    A Prayer for Rain

 The Anatomy of Drought:  It isn’t what you think, you know, not unless you’ve experienced it yourself.  Sure, it’s about a lack of rain, it’s about dust and withering crops, but it’s about way more than simply that.  That’s like the science of drought, and a drought, well drought is all about effect.  And the effect, now that is something else…

Take my friend from Monduli: his family are nomadic herders, Masaai, up in one of the areas hardest hit.  His father has – had – two hundred head of cattle, a herd he’d been developing for more than twenty years.  The animals have been dying since about Christmas and he is already down to fewer than fifty left.  He says there is still water in the salt lakes so the animals can drink, but there is nothing at all sprouting from the hard baked earth.

12/05/05  The Fundi

I had the misfortune of finding out the derivation of the old expression ‘to drop a transmission’ yesterday, and I was surprised to find it isn’t nearly as metaphorical as I’d thought.  The spinning metal shaft beneath my car looked like it was determined to find oil and it was pretty evident to me that I’d be out a little gold.  But at that moment, the most pressing issue was just getting me and the old Rover cum oil derrick back home.  And that’s where the Fundi comes in…but, for the moment, hold that thought.

Fundis in disguise

Here’s what’s broken down this week (and I’m not bitching, I’m just making a little list):

• The water pump – not as bad as it could be, we always had a little trickle (and the porcelain is clean!)

• The car – but I’ve mention that

• The dryer – okay, no skin off our noses, but it’s breaking Anna’s heart

• The air conditioners – more on this a moment for herein lies the tale

• The light bulb in the bathroom – okay, this sounds minor but it is the second time for the same bulb in the same week and it’s not like they just ‘go out’.  These puppies are in absolute light bulb heaven, they get to go out with a truly startling Bang (not to mention the hail of flying glass!)

• The telephone – and annoyingly, it can still ring but when you pick it up the line is always dead (yes, thank you, I did finally figure out that I could just unplug the phone).