The Studio

I've not encountered any government more capable at shooting itself in the foot than the Tanzanian government. Any of you who are on FB may have seen me post links related to Tanzania's electricity woes. Essentially, the state-owned electricity company has been unable to produce enough electricity to meet the country's demands for the last 9 months. This is a result of a corrupt selection process years ago, poor investment since, and poor management now. As such, there has been extensive power rationing to the tune of 8-15 hours a day. This has had the effect of bringing businesses to their knees. Companies who want to continue operations have had to invest heavily in generators and diesel to run them, cutting deeply into profit margins. Of course, when businesses lose out on profit, the government loses out on tax-revenue, which makes it even less able to address infrastructure problems with electricity production. Vicious cycle.

To compound this problem, the government in a sheer stroke of genius decides to further cripple Tanzania's economy by meddling with petrol and diesel pricing. With inflation hitting double digits and the cost of living in the country soaring, the government is naturally pressured to make living a bit easier for its citizens. A desire to reduce fuel costs makes sense and is admirable, but it must be delicately executed. What the Tanzanian government did was decide that over night, all petrol stations in the country had to sell their petrol for less than 2004 tsh per liter, an instant decrease of 9.17%. Diesel prices would be instantly dropped by 8.31%. The government felt that at the new cost, the petrol companies could still cover their costs, including operational and transportation costs, and still make a modest profit. The petrol companies disagreed, saying that at the new price, they would be taking a loss, and over night, nearly all the petrol stations in the country stopped selling fuel, feeling it would be better to not sell than to realize their loss.

The Tanzanian economy was dealt another severe blow. One thing to note is that in Tanzania, when folks go to the petrol station, rarely do they fill up their tanks. Often, people will buy a few liters at a time, so when no gas stations are open, cars quickly run out of gas. Within a day or two, the streets were noticeably empty, even during commute hours. Dramatically fewer public buses were running, there were fewer taxis, and the ones that were running were charging astronomical prices. The people who were able to get their hands on some petrol were reselling at ridiculous rates - my regular driver was able to re-purchase petrol from a large pickup truck who siphoned gas out of his tank and sold 10 liters for the equivalent of $20USD. Ouch!! Without petrol, many of the safari tour companies also had to cancel their trips; and this during peak tourist season!

So, imagine a country whose citizens are now heavily dependent on petrol and diesel because there's no electricity, yet these poor people aren't able to buy petrol/diesel!! It's like a comedy of errors that's not actually funny at all.

Through a series of threats, including having the government re-enter the petrol business or perhaps enforcing martial law at the gas stations, the government strong-armed the gas stations into selling fuel after about a week of boycotting from the petrol companies. While at least the fuel situation seems to be solved for now, one can't help but wonder what genius the government is going to come up with next to again shoot themselves in the foot and to further bring businesses to their knees...

When you're in Africa, there are times when things are just so surreal, you have to do a double take, pinch yourself, and ask, is this really happening? And usually the answer is yes, it's really happening because indeed, you're in Africa.

On a recent trip to the shamba (rural cotton areas of TZ), I had a few of these moments. The week prior to the trip, I had sent several emails to folks trying to arrange for transport from Mwanza to Bariadi, Shinyanga, and Kahama. I was passed around to a few different people on our program team, and finally spoke to someone whose organization had an available vehicle, but it needed servicing. i asked for the vehicle to be serviced prior to my arrival because I needed the vehicle pretty much immediately after landing in Mwanza.

Of course, when I arrived in Mwanza, the vehicle was not yet serviced nor was there a driver lined up. I didn't get upset because I've been in Africa long enough to expect these things, but I was fairly concerned because my training schedule was severely in jeopardy as I had scheduled everything quite tightly. I was told the vehicle could be serviced in a couple hours, but knowing how car servicing goes, especially in Africa, I knew this could take the rest of the day. I asked for the car to be taken in immediately, but also began making phone calls to try to arrange for an alternative solution. Little did I realize that with each phone call I was making, I was in essence invoking a phone tree - except that the cotton network is not so large, so the phone tree was a bit circular. Soon, everyone I was calling was receiving multiple phone calls about my transportation problems, and information was flowing faster than I could coordinate. Before I knew it, I had two viable transportation options, and the vehicle that needed servicing had finished sooner than expected and I had a driver. Cool.

when we arrived in Bariadi, a small town not connected to any tarmac roads, it was already dusk. We had only narrowly missed having to be on the roads at night time. We pulled up to the one hotel I had stayed in previously and went to see if they had rooms. I hadn't made reservations because last time I was there, we didn't have reservations and it was extremely easy to get 3 rooms. Plus Bariadi is a small sleepy town - or so I thought. Turns out the hotel was full, but one of the employees there offered to ride with us to show us to a different hotel that might have vacancy. The second hotel was also full, but we picked up someone who could show us to another that might have availability. We repeated this scene at least six more times, and soon we were a large expedition party in search of lodging. It was comical. All the while I'm texting with my contacts back in Mwanza to ask for additional recommendations and jokingly mentioning that I might be sleeping in the car. This really sets the ball in motion, as my contacts in Mwanza are now reaching out to their contacts in Bariadi. Our poor driver was zooming back and forth across town, following leads received via phone or via random "guides" whom we had picked up. We turn up at a pretty local establishment which had plenty of rooms available, for 10,000 tsh ($7) each. My colleague was a bit hesitant about whether I would be comfortable there, but I'm not that high maintenance. I could deal with the fact that there was no a/c or running water. We were only staying one night after all. There was a mosquito net, a fan, electricity, and a bucket of hot water could be brought for me to shower. The door had 6 different latch locks, so it seemed safe, albeit not all that comforting. we said we would take 3 rooms because they seemed like better options than sleeping in the car, but we would first go have dinner and meet up with one of the TCB cotton inspectors in charge of Bariadi who was instructed by his boss in Mwanza to find us lodging.

When we met up with the Bariadi cotton inspector, he informed us that he had arranged rooms for us at a nice hotel, but wouldn't tell us which one. We kept asking for the name of the hotel because we had gone to ALL of the nice ones. The cotton inspector directed us to a lot that was pitch dark with no signage, and where the guard would not let us in until someone could come vouch for us. I kept asking if this was really a hotel because it looked more like a private residence. When our contact finally arrived to vouch for us and "secure our interest", we were permitted to enter. Only then did I learn that we had arrived at a hotel that was not yet open and that was under the final stages of construction. Ha. This was where we would spend the evening, partially because the rooms were clean, the property secure, the air conditioner brand new, but also because it would be rude to turn down the arrangements since we had utilized many different relationships to get access to the property. I still didn't have running water that evening, and the tub of water that was brought to my room was cold and there was no ladle or cup to use for a bucket shower, so I had to make do with some quick rinsing instead of a proper shower. We ended up paying 20,000 tsh per room that night. Who can say which hotel was the better deal - at least we didn't have to sleep in the car.

Other shocking things witnessed on this trip:

• A big cotton truck laden with a full load of cotton plus 30 passengers sitting on top of the cotton, being pushed by 6 people. Dangerous and illogical.
• Another big cotton transporter, probably also over loaded, on its side, cotton spilling everywhere.
  
  
  
  
  
• A different cotton transporter not 10 meters down the road that had lost 10 bags of cotton off the back.
• Shinyanga town with multiple diamond companies lining the main street. Apparently Tanzania has diamonds, and virtually all of it comes from Shinyanga.

Next topic up for discussion: What makes some uninvited interactions creepy and unwelcomed and others a surprising delight? More details and examples to come...