Home in Pemba
The lights came on sometime around midnight, by which time I was in a kerosene coma. I turned off the lantern and turned on the overhead fan. When the alarm went off at 5:45 there was no way I was getting up. So much for my early morning 6-mile run. I was dreaming that I was trying to hail a cab on 77th Street and Columbus at rush hour. None were available. I was supposed to see a doctor about a sinus infection but I decided to blow it off. Then I was someplace else talking about how I was always late and I wasn’t going to the doctor. Then I woke up, wondering why 77th Street, since I know perfectly well that it’s harder to find a taxi the further south you go. And 77 is, after all, saba saba, the national holiday for Zanzibar.
I am now set up with an office at the PHL/IdC. It’s really quite nice – with an overhead fan, plenty of light, private bath, big desk and wireless access. I am trying to get myself organized, set up meetings and finish the plan for the next two months. I see now that time will pass very quickly here. Despite everything – the heat, the dirt, the electricity, the toilets – it will all be over too quickly.
I had lunch at the one local restaurant – which I heard about from one of the two German doctors (married, I think), who are here on a grant to study cholera and something else. I left the compound and first headed to the right, where several boys in red pants, white shirts and red ties, were heading away, as if going to or from a school. I asked one if there was a restaurant. Not that way, he said, the other way. He then escorted me to the outskirts of Chake and pointed out the restaurant. At first, I said (out loud, I’m sure), “That’s not a restaurant!” But he didn’t hear me. Lucky, because of course it was a restaurant. A local place, where the choice for lunch was something I didn’t understand when the man told me about it or the skewers of meat he was grilling. I went for the meat and chips. Each skewer was 200 shillings – or around 15 cents. I asked for three and chips. The bits of meat were tiny but delicious. Grilled lamb, no doubt from one of the animals wandering around here. People in less wealthy areas have no screen that shades them from the animal they raise and the food they eat. There is nothing antisceptic in that process and they don’t romanticize animals the way we do. Although I have seen some very tame cats who seem, like most cats, to expect attention and admiration, if not affection.
Just got back to the house – I walked home from the PHL but then got lost on the way and had to call Lorenzo. I started walking, pretty sure that I was heading in the right direction – the road to Wete. I remembered some of the buildings I passed along the way – the computer school and the mosque. But I was looking for the blue house across from the interesection, where I expected to turn right and see the big orange house. Seemed like I had been walking a long time and the kids following me were getting more aggressive. Asking for money. Leering a bit, I thought.
So I called Lorenzo. Turned out that mosque is right near his house, and he walked out and got me. I had already walked to far back in the other direction and then some little kids followed me and said, “Your husband is looking for you.” I turned around and followed them, assuming that they meant another mzungu. Then I wasn’t sure if they were teasing me. But there was Lorenzo. I walked with him back to his house and then Yaya took me home so I could get some dinner. I walked back there around 8:30. There were lots of people out on the street, just strolling along. It was a nice evening with a cool breeze and an almost full moon. Most people seemed to be going about their business and I hoped I would be almost invisible amidst the ordinariness of an evening’s promenade. But there were a few young men who seemed subtly or even not so subtly menacing. I made it without any major incident – just one young man on a motorbike who wouldn’t leave me alone until I virtually yelled at him. Then the little kids had to show me which house was the doctor’s. They all know Lorenzo – and of course, he’s been coming to Pemba since 1979.
The evening’s conversation was really animated. Lorenzo, who had gone to the beach for the afternoon, had lots to report about the conversations he had had with people from Kiuyu Mbuyuni. Apparently they are beginning to unite in opposition to the government. Tensions are mounting here about the voter registration process. So many things I wouldn’t have picked up as an outsider: When I showed Lorenzo the picture of me with the Sheha, for example, he immediately homed in on the green shirt the Sheha was wearing. Apparently that’s an outfit only a government operative would wear. So now the Shehas throughout Pemba are refusing to grant identity cards to members of the village – because most if not all are in the opposition party. People are beginning to organize. Yesterday while I was eating lunch at a local restaurant, a car with a megaphone drove by exhorting people to show up for a rally about voter registration. Then just now, sitting on the ferry on my way to Dar for a couple of meetings, I read in the paper that the battle is getting violent. The opposition planted landmines around Wete – trying to blow up the bridge that connects Wete to Chake Chake. The bridge was cracked but no one was hurt. So far. I have no doubt that this will become more violent unless the government backs down and starts to recognize people’s basic voting rights.
One thing we have going for us – at least in our single village project – is that in order to start a Millennium Village you need to do a population survey. And that requires being able to identify members of the community. How can we do that efficiently? Simple: the Sheha has to give every member of the community the appropriate ID card. That should be a condition of our starting the project. So we have some potential leverage.
The PHL/IdC team is really enthusiastic about the project. Lorenzo thinks $300k a year – equivalent to 360 million Tanzanian shillings – will go quite far. And Saidi and I spoke at length about the facilitation that needs to take place amongst the stakeholders. What I’m hoping is that we can get everyone focused on their common aspiration to support themselves and their families, to raise their standard of living, to be able to see and enjoy the products of the labor, to raise their children in good health. I need to check my idealism periodically. Luckily, Saidi is both optimistic and practical. Yes, it’s possible, he said – with really good facilitation.
