Month: January 2011

Of money and projects

One group of farmers that I’ve been working with abused the funds we gave them for their project. Blatant stealing by the only two male group members out of 7.

I won’t go into details. But there’s been a lot of complications and the big showdown is on Monday. I wonder how it’ll turn out.

If you ask me, there were a lot of things wrong with how the project developed in the first place. But it still doesn’t make me feel less sad at the fact that it has to turn out this way.

As much as I hate to generalize, I really think there is a culture of ‘corruption’ or abusing of power here. It goes from the very bottom to the very top. There is a sense of entitlement, that it’s ‘natural’ to abuse your power once you have it. No one should hold any grudges because, hey, if you were in my position, you would have done the same thing.

Sometimes, well most of the time, it’s a little bit more than mind boggling.

I’ll write more updates once the showdown on Monday happens and the verdict is out.

Why here? Why anywhere?

What is it that I like about Dar es Salaam?

I don’t really have an answer, except that I feel as content as anywhere else I’ve lived. Isn’t that enough?

There are ups. There are downs. There are happy moments. And sad moments. Good people. Annoying people. And everything in between. What is there not to like?

** well I’ve actually been a bit negative lately, mostly from stress of maybe being jobless soon and a bit homesick (or let me rephrase that – missing my parents and close friends). But other than that, I’m quite content to live here. Actually, probably anywhere in the world.

Mango heaven

I’m super loving the in-season (for at least 1.5 months now) mangoes! I don’t think I can ever eat the pineapples, mangoes, or any other tropical fruit back in Canada anymore….so spoiled.

The mangoes here are huge, juicy, fresh, sweet, and cheap…jealous yet? Indescribable taste and texture…mmmmm….

I’m think I should do a food post. I have some interesting food I like here :) I guess I just need photos of all of them.

Of electricity and generators

Five out of seven days of the week, there’s no electricity from when work starts until the sun sets (8 am to 7 pm). Call it whatever you like – rationing, failure – it makes no difference. There’s actually a schedule put out by Tanesco (the para-statal that controls the electricity distribution) telling people at what time which parts of the city will have power cuts. In true Dar style though, the schedule is rarely followed.

Currently, it’s the hottest part of the year. Sitting in an office without even a fan is equivalent to a non-functioning brain. Of course, when there’s electricity, we get air conditioning; such luxury.

So, generators are essential. Not only to power our laptops, printers, and telephones, but to maintain our sanity. Unfortunately, due to an unequal office sharing agreement, the generator at my office is sometimes turned off without notice. Plus the generator breaks down without notice either. I’ve had more than once when I’ve nervously watched the minutes pass on my computer clock, crossing my fingers for the electricity to come on so I can print documents needed for a meeting. Thank goodness for a laptop with an 8-hour battery.

The fact is, this doesn’t happen because Tanesco is unable to provide reliable electricity. When I first arrived in August, there was electricity every day and night, dry season notwithstanding. It’s because the elections have passed and the politicians can’t be bothered anymore. Rumour has it that Tanesco signed a contract with an electricity provider, paid all the money in advance, and the provider squandered it all. Now the whole city is down. Can you imagine paying that much money in advance for a whole year of electricity for a city as big as Dar? Especially without anything to hold the provider responsible if they don’t provide as agreed? I simply can’t even fathom it. Of course, the government doesn’t admit to this rumour. I’ve only heard of it from my friend who is a reporter who heard of it from her reporter friends (yes, that’s how things work here, you hear it from someone who hears it from someone).

I take so much for granted back home. It’s humbling to be here, to experience how dependent I am on things to run as normal. There’s never a normal. At the most important timing, what can go wrong, will go wrong. We’ll just have to deal with it.

** Plus, the price of electricity went up by 18% after the elections. Surprise much?**

Land frustrations

Land tenure in this city is just so messed up. Coming from two places where privatised individual ownership of land is the norm, it’s really, really hard for me to get my head wrapped around how badly the land reform was done in Dar es Salaam.

The fact that the urban farmers I work with don’t actually farm on legal land is old news. But I recently heard that the ferry terminal downtown is going to be teared down, because the terminal owner doesn’t actually own the land!

Can you imagine? Pour money into building a huge ferry terminal, just never bothered to make sure you owned the land that it’s going to be built on.

The land actually belongs to the Tanzanian Port Authority (TPA). And now the authority wants it back to build their new office complex.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I’m sure the story is more complex than that. It’s probably because the TPA didn’t want to sell the land, then the terminal building people paid someone in some high place, then they got the rights to build. But in the end, the land never officially changed hands, so now the TPA can come back to demand the land. Corruption seems to always crop up in stories of land. In fact, I heard that 95% of the planning department staff of one of the Municipalities in Dar got fired due to corruption charges. 95%. Blows your mind, doesn’t it?

I don’t think it’s possible to develop this city any further without a serious and coordinated attempt (with teeth) to formalize land tenure. If you want to work on a capitalist economic model, private ownership of land is one of the first things you need to get right!

According to this article:

“The success of the land reform is often mentioned among the factors which laid the groundwork for the “economic miracle” of the 1960s and 1970s, a nearly unprecedented transformation of once rural and impoverished Korea into a modern and developed nation.”

The thing is, there is so much corruption and not enough checks on people in power (i.e. whatever people in power say gets done, no opposition, no consideration of what feasibility studies say is the best to do) that without a strong political will from the high leadership, a good land reform would never happen.

I’m starting to doubt if making Master Plans actually have any effect at all. What’s the use when people high up can just simply say “no” after the whole process?

short personal update

Sorry I haven’t been posting recently. I’ve been feeling a bit down; one part homesick and two parts stressed at what’s going to happen after this internship ends.

As of now, I still don’t know if I would be able to stay here for another year. I would really love to keep my job, since it’s work that I’m interested in, can learn a ton from, and it’s in Tanzania! But it will all depend if we get funding from one of the embassies that we applied to. Basically, if we do get the funding, there will be a large chance that I can stay with Sustainable Cities International (we changed our name) for another year. The announcement deadline was supposed to be in December… and then it was pushed to January. As with a lot of things here, deadlines pushed a few months late are nothing to be surprised over. Although it really doesn’t help my anxiety. And as per normal Tiffany behaviour, whenever I’m anxious or stressed, it’s hard for me to focus on work (or anything else for that matter). But my concentration is coming back, so I’m happy.

But maybe because of the anxiety, I’ve been (again) in addicted to dramas mode. Except this time it’s Korean dramas, not Japanese. Although watching Japanese ones would help me keep up my Japanese (goodness I haven’t said or read anything in Japanese for so long), Korean dramas are too awesome! I also use the excuse that I can study (simplified) Chinese with the subtitles :) and I’m picking up really random Korean words and somehow figuring out some basic grammar structure. Seriously, I almost wished I was learning Korean. And Swahili.

Anyways. More later.

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