A picture is worth a thousand words

The fairly wobbly (and massively overpriced) internet connection at my Tanzanian hotel meant that I had not yet had a chance to upload all my pictures. For those of you who want to see more of the Zanzibari sunset, the Tanzanian tingatinga art, or Africa's pick for the American presidency, you can now have a look here:

Tanzania 14-26 Aug 2007

It's the final countdown

Barely back from Tanzania I am preparing once again to pack my bags. Or rather, to pack my moving boxes. In 3 days from now I will be back in the country where the trains are yellow, the cows black and white and the royals Orange.

Since my arrival here almost two years ago, the original collection of my local belongings has expanded from a single suitcase to a room full. Getting everything to the other side of the Channel proved either a logistical or financial nightmare or both. Carrying things with me by plane was a definite no-no. Too much stuff, not enough luggage allowance. Going through a shipping company was no option either. Too expensive. Royal Mail might be cheaper but errr... let's say I value my belongings too much and I'd like to see them again. This decade preferably. Fortunately there is always super-mom to the rescue! She has graciously offered to drive all the way here to London to collect me and my belongings. Of course I suspect she just wants to make sure I really do come back so she'll do whatever it takes but still...

I am quite looking forward to being back. It will be wonderful to be closer again to some people I have seen too little of these last 23 months. But I will miss London too. Moving closer to some friends means moving away further from others. Not that I will stay away from London very long anyway though. Less than a fortnight after arriving in Amsterdam I am due back in London for a few days for some meetings. I dread to think of my carbon footprint these days. At least in Amsterdam I will be greenly pedal-powered again. Only, the bike I left behind has since collapsed and died. I don't suppose any of you has a bike for sale?

Scintillating Zanzibar

Of course there are also times when I simply have the best job in the world. This weekend a 2-hour ferry trip transported me to another world all together. I've had the opportunity to spend time in the island that put the zan in Tanzania: Zanzibar.

The old part of Zanzibar city, Stone Town, is completely unlike Dar es-Salaam. It's Lion King meets Aladdin. Having been ruled by Omanian sultans and as a once focal point for the slave trade between East Africa and the Middle East, Zanzibar has a unique character heavily mixing Arab influences with Swahili culture. The Arab influences are most clearly visible in the local architecture, in particular the town's famous carved doors. Stone Town itself is a maze of little streets in which you will inevitable get lost. Not that that matters as each alley way brings its own charm and sooner or later you are bound to end up somewhere familiar again. To be fair, it is quite touristy here and at times it feels like the whole town is just one big curio shop but the atmosphere is wonderful nonetheless. The fact that it is right on the deep blue waters of the Indian Ocean certainly does not do it any harm either.

Doors of Stone Town, Zanzibar

To my sheer unadulterated pleasure my hotel was also one of the cutest little boutique hotels I have ever had the good fortune of staying in. No insomnia this time in a beautiful 4-poster bed surrounded by netting and lush pillows. Mixed with a wonderful dinner and the sun on my face I have had an unbelievably relaxing weekend. Zanzibar also has some magnificent sandy beaches and reputedly is a paradise for water enthusiasts. I wish I could give you a firsthand account of all that too but a weekend is simply not enough to experience all the island has to offer. Tanzania on the whole is too big and interesting a country to be done in weekends and forgotten hours. It is a good thing then that I will have to come back here. If I can manage at all at any point I will certainly try to add on some holidays.

International Wait

Don't get me wrong, I love getting the chance to work in places such as Ghana, Russia or Tanzania, but it does come with a few downsides too. The part of the job that really clashes with my fairly gung-ho nature is the endless waiting and excruciating slowness of everything. My idea of a useful visit is to go in, do my thing as efficiently as possible, maybe relax a bit and come out. The reality is more go in, wait a while, do a little bit, wait some more, do another bit, wait again and finally agree to "follow up soon". Especially where procedures and bureaucracy are involved it is just the nature of the game called International Aid (IA). Since I work in academia still rather than directly for an NGO, I know I have even only experienced the tip of the iceberg. Many NGOs are renowned for their syrupy procedures and tortoise-like velocity.

You may think that waiting is not such a bad thing if you get to spend time in exotic places but unfortunately that is not quite how it works. Since you never know when things suddenly will kick into action you have to remain on standby, pretty much confining you to the hotel. Perhaps that is why IA workers tend to be found in the most expensive hotels in town. Giles Bolton in his book Poor Story refers to this group somewhat cynically as the "345ers", for their:

• 3 course meals
• 4 wheel drives
• 5 star hotels

It's not entirely fair of course as it suggests that IA people are pampered out-of-touch little princes and princesses but neither is it wholly untrue. As those of you who know me will be aware, the 3 course meal is hardly my thing anyway and though my current hotel has a pool, it does not exactly qualify as 5 star. I did, however, yesterday have dinner in what is easily the fanciest hotel in town and, for sure, there they were: the IA conference delegates rubbing shoulders with attendees of the ministerial meeting next door. The 4-wheel drives on the other hand are spot on even for me. So far, in almost all places I have been, I find myself being picked up by these high-wheeled monsters with all sorts of important looking logos encrusted on their doors.

So here I am again: waiting in my hotel room for the 4-wheel drive to come and pick me up to do my bit for today. Bit by tiny little bit we are moving forwards but by now it is already clear that I will have to come back here pretty soon to do that infamous follow-up. By the looks of things, I may not get to spend much time in that longed for Amsterdam apartment of mine after all!

Time out in Tanzania

Just like I had hoped I have been able to recharge my batteries very nicely this weekend. Although I worked a bit in the mornings, I have had the afternoons and evenings to relax and enjoy. In the end I did not go to the beaches, which proved a bit more difficult to reach in a limited space of time, but I certainly managed to take full advantage of the hotel swimming pool. Ocean view lunches and tasty dinners are definitely not a bad way to spend time either. My, it's a hard life!

The mystery of Dar Es-Salaam's apparent well-off state is beginning to unravel a bit. As I suspected, the neighbourhoods we have come through are not entirely representative. Dar is a rather schizophrenic place. Along the ocean front there are some very, very posh looking villas. These mainly belong to diplomats and other well-to-do expats. Then there is the old colonial part of town which is around where I am staying. Here the streets are all paved and surprisingly clean. Much cleaner than your run of the mill London street in fact. Houses are decently looking and often brightly coloured. Aside from the frequent power outages and water shortages it strikes me as really not such a bad place to be. This part of town and the neighbouring areas are not populated by African Tanzanians either though. This is little India. Eastern Africa has a fairly large population of Indians, mostly as a result of the former British colonial rule. The Indians are in general far better off than their African counterparts. They are the entrepreneurs running the corner shops and small businesses.

The African part of town is clearly less developed although visibly new buildings have sprouted up left and right. You can see the direction the town is headed but there is still a long way to go. The upshoot of new middle-class type houses does, however, make you wonder what happened to the people who used to live in these areas. Given that Tanzania is still a very poor country it is unlikely that the once poor have en masse joined the middle classes. Rather, the poor have been pushed further out of the centre to the slum parts of town, out of sight.

Despite these large discrepencies I still think Dar has a fairly pleasant feel to it. Unfortunately, it is also rather dull. Compared to the chaos in Accra, Dar is incredibly sleepy. In the evenings the roads are deserted and it doesn't feel like there is much to do around. This may be the capital but there is not much more going on than in most European country side villages. Tomorrow I will be travelling for the day into one of the nearby districts. I suspect this may give me a truer flavour of what the country is really like. So much for the relaxation; tomorrow works starts again!

Karibu!

On Sunday I was still breathing in the fresh Norwegian mountain air. Today I am inhaling diesel fumes in Dar Es-Salaam. I’ve arrived early this morning after an exhausting overnight flight. I seem to have picked up a touch of insomnia lately and my body is protesting in all sorts of ways against the less than 2 hours of sleep it has been getting in the last 48 hours. Especially since I already started working within hours after stepping off the plane. My interview techniques were definitely a bit blunted today by sleep deprivation so it is a good thing I will have all weekend to recover and prepare.

First impressions of Tanzania then… Not as hot as I was expecting at all. In fact, it has been raining down quite spectacularly for part of today. Day temperatures are pleasantly below 30 degrees. I may not have seen quite enough of the town to fully warrant this judgment but so far Dar Es-Salaam strikes me as a bit more modernised than Accra. Buildings look newer and cleaner, traffic is still chaotic but somewhat less suicidal, and poverty is not as blatantly in your face. Then again, according to the Economist’s latest figures for the Human Development Index Tanzania is worse off than Ghana so probably my comparison applies to the respective capitals only. Also, I may just have seen the better parts of town so far.

I have already glimpsed the ocean but have not really seen a beach. For that you need to get a little bit further out of town. I might try to drag myself over there this weekend. I haven’t read my guidebook well enough yet to map out exactly how I want to spend my free time. For next weekend though I am considering making the crossing to Zanzibar. It is not that far and it sounds like it is definitely worth the trip. I really wish I had time to go further land inwards where the big game reserves and national parks are as well. My guidebook has mouth watering pictures of all there is to see and do there and it’s a crying shame I will not be able to do any of that as I need to be back in London before the end of the month. Perhaps next time my boss ships me off to Tanzania (a by no means hypothetical scenario in fact!) I will be able to get in a few days to roam wild. But before I visit any other countries I am dying to visit that most exotic of places: Dreamland.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow. [from: Romeo & Juliet, W. Shakespeare]

Up until a week or two ago I had mostly just been excited about the prospect of moving back home soon. However, although I am still just under a month away from leaving behind the Big Smoke, my hectic travel itinerary for August means that I effectively have only a handful of days left in London, and thus I have had to start saying my goodbyes to a lot of people with a heavy heart.

Over the last two weeks I have said auf wiedersehen to a number of dear friends at occasions that more often than not involved bottles of champagne. Unfortunately, the relative suddenness with which everything has unfolded has meant that I haven't even been able to wave adieu at everybody in person. I hope to be able to make this up by visiting London soon again. Even at work I have yesterday packed up my desk, handed in my key card and said my so longs . The office is in fact getting very empty as the ripple effect from my boss' decision has been a mass migration to greener pastures. Come September there will only be a handful of people left.

I have arrived in Norway late last night and will be enjoying a short holiday here for a few days. As we are moving further up North this evening I will actually find myself completely cut off from work, unable to answer any emails. Given the flurry of those that I sent and received in the last few days, trying to get all my ducks in a row, that will be unnerving and cathartic at the same time. Time to let go, at least for a couple of days.