Thursday, August 11, 2011

Tanzania 2011, Day 6

Another long & very busy day & I'm tired from the teaching. We have a wonderful little group, although they are extremely busy because this is the week right before classes start for them. We understand the situation completely; it's the same for us just before the semester begins. So we are sympathetic when they have to rush out of class for something or other or when they seem to come & go in & out of the classroom.

We were able to log them into our library databases today, to access our academic journals that are available in digital formats. Their excitement at being able to do this was hard to miss. They fully understand the value of good, up-to-date professional resources and so once they saw how the search functions worked it was hard to tear them away or to move on to the next topic. Our consultancy this year is so short & it's frustrating not to be able to delve more deeply into topics of interest. All we can do is to show them what's available, talk about the potential for educational online resources, & then leave them with sufficient links & ideas to get them started. Perhaps that's the preferable way to do development work anyway.

Outside of work, much of our day was spent struggling with money. I know I wrote about this in my blog last year but it's worth mentioning again; you just can't BELIEVE how complicated it is to work between North American & Tanzanian money systems! The problem (if you can frame it that way) is that we have signed up for a 2-day safari of the Ngorogoro crater. One of our overseas intern students is stationed in Dar es Salaam & she recommended a fellow named Kanuth who does these safari trips on a casual basis. The trip, including all transportation, accommodations, meals, park fees, guide, etc. etc. would cost us each a little over $1000 calculated in US funds. I know it's a lot of money but really, when would I ever get this chance again? And besides, our transportation back to Dar, our hotel fees & meals would come fairly close to that for the 3 days in total that we will be travelling. So we agreed.

So that part is fairly straightforward, but this is where the complications begin. Kanuth wanted half of the money deposited into his bank account ahead of time, & the rest of it to be paid in cash when he arrived. All in Tanzanian funds, of course. This is a bit challenging because the exchange rates between Canadian, American, & Tanzanian currencies vary from day to day so calculating what we owed him was a moving target. It would have been fairly convenient if we had been able to transfer funds into his account but (as we found out) this is not so easy if you don't have a Tanzanian bank account. A further complication -- & this is the main one -- is that the largest bill in the Tanzanian currency system is a 10,000 shilling note. Sounds like a lot of money but it's barely worth $7 in Canadian funds. Bank machines will not let you withdraw more than 400,000 TSH (about $250 CDN) at any one time. So you have to withdraw a batch of 400,000 & then another & another. But if you try to make several large withdrawals in quick succession, your bank card provider computer gets suspicious & freezes your account for a time. Why not just pay with Visa, you ask? Ha! Very, very few places accept credit cards or even debit cards for that matter. It's pretty much a cash-only society & it's designed for people who usually deal in very small amounts.

We did manage to each withdraw more than one million shillings & it was a heady feeling to be a millionaire, if only in Tanzanian currency. My purse, stuffed fat with Tanzanian bills, bulged out suspiciously & was noticeably heavier to carry. Anyway, we had to each max out our cards for several 24 hour periods & will have to go out early again tomorrow to get some more.

So tomorrow, assuming we are able to secure a wheelbarrow-load of Tanzanian money, we will head out on a trip to Ngorogoro & then the town of Arusha. It sounds like our accommodations will be somewhat primitive for the next couple of days so I don't expect I'll be able to get online to post. But I'll keep notes & post as soon as I can.

It's almost midnight; more work tomorrow, so I'm heading for bed.

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