TZ 2013, Meet Soviet Russia 1965

Swimming in Africa:

TZ 2013 meets Soviet Russia circ. 1965

Okay, I know I should be telling you about my wonderful safari, full of beautiful scenery, and incredible wild animals.  I should be telling you about various swimming exploits I have enjoyed this fall, thus earning the name of my blog. Perhaps I should even be recounting Adventures in (Not) Teaching English. But first, I want to try to give you a glimpse of what life is really like in this country.  I call this Tanzania 2013 meets Soviet Russia circ. 1965.

Monday, Jan.7, 11:00 am.  April and I are in town.  We have driven in her car, a luxury for me as I don’t have the hour+ trek via foot & dala dala to arrive.  Our mission:  pick up some packages at the post office.  Mine is for Eric Huston (and that’s another story).  April’s is from her boyfriend in Berkeley.  We also have one for our VSO volunteer, Fran.  I have a secondary errand, to replace my ATM card, which I lost on Christmas holiday in the North.

We start off the 1^st errand with Bonus points; April has been once to Customs, and so knows the way.  She tried already to pick up said packages and has been told by the PO that they need to be cleared by Customs.  She couldn’t get the clearance that she needed because there was nobody in authority present in the office to do it.  So this, the second trip, my first, is directly to Customs, and we did not have to start at the Post Office, which is 3 blocks away from Customs.  We arrive in Customs, and after a little wait, are shown to the Revenue Office on the same floor of the building.

There, the young woman we deal with scolds us because the manifests of our packages are not clear enough, they say ‘School Supplies’ and thus are not detailed enough to determine if tax is due.  But with the exception of Fran’s package, which does have a detailed manifest and on which she will owe something, she clears us for Revenue anyway, without tax.  We go back to Customs, and in red pen a woman there writes on our slips of paper that we have cleared.  We walk to the PO and, after a wait for the worker there to appear, we pay the small storage and processing fee and receive our packages.

Time:  Noon.

In the meantime, April checks the SEGA PO box and finds ANOTHER customs/revenue chit, for me.  Uh oh.   I take it, but I am now thinking about my other, more important errand, and April has finished with the PO and wants to continue with her list of errands.  We put everything in the car, and she departs for the phone company and her bank.

I go back to the government building and, feeling informed, go directly to the Revenue Office.  The woman there is obviously annoyed to have to deal with me and my poor Swahili again, but she gets out her calculator, writes on a torn off scrap of paper.  She hands it to me; she has charged me 15,000 TSch on a package which manifests a value of 32,000, almost 50% tax.  When I protest, she reminds me that she cleared the previous boxes (School Supplies) for nothing.  She is clearly in payback mode, and accuses me of being ungrateful.  I have a minor coraje (outburst).  But it’s like punching the Pillsbury Doughboy, not satisfying because they just stare back at me.  Need to learn how to excoriate in Swahili.

Oh well, it’s only $10.00, let’s move forward and get her done.  I am anxious for this late Christmas/early birthday present to come into my hands.  I’ll pay, pick up the package, and go on to the bank.  I walk back to the Customs Office and wait 15 minutes for them to make out a Revenue receipt based on Payback Woman’s jotted note, and they hand me an official document, keeping the PO notice.  I am to go to the bank next door, pay, and bring back a paid receipt which will then result in my PO notice being marked paid/cleared, and then I can take that back to the PO, pay the misc fees there and then be done.   Except for my outburst in Revenue, I am in pretty good spirits.  Thinking about lunch, thinking about maybe going to my fundi to get a new dress made from the kanga I have stashed in the car.

I’d like to be able to say that things went quickly after that.  After all, it’s 12:45, and April will want to go back to School when her errands are done.  I go to the bank downstairs, the CRDB, optimistic.  But the line to the teller is out to the front door, there are at least 50 people in it.  I wait 5 minutes at the Customer Service desk to confirm that yes, I must wait in the long line to visit a teller.  The line hasn’t moved.  There is 1 teller present for all these people.  I panic, and bail.  Time, 1:00 pm.

Re-grouping, I decide to see what I can do about my ATM card.  That bank is conveniently close by and I walk there.  It, too, sports a line of dozens waiting to see a teller. (Later, I realize that those who wish to make a deposit, obtain a money order [the only 'checks' in TZ],  or retrieve more than 400,000 schillings [$250.] from their accounts, must do so inside the bank.  The lines inside ANY bank are ALWAYS long and always slowed by fewer than needed tellers.)

At Customer Service, no queue, but the more typical Tanzanian behavior of people waiting.  That is:  people maneuvering, thrusting hands in front of you, shouldering you aside with demands for attention from the single woman representative, who never just attends to the person in front of her, but stops and starts to do the easy things, like handing out balance request forms or deposit slips.  She also occasionally answers her personal cell and has a conversation.  This is, as I have said, typical.  It is all done with civility, that is, nobody shouts or pushes, they just don’t wait their turn, nor or they encouraged to do this by the service provider.

To get a new card, I am told that I must obtain a Police Report.  I try arguing.  I have lost the card, there has been no crime committed.  I lose.  I must go to the Police Station and bring back the required report.  This is their procedure.  

As I am walking out of the bank, April calls.  She is ready to leave.  I quickly change plans again, and arrange to meet her at the grocery store so I can get her to carry some needed food and other items back to school for me.  I will stay in town, returning by dala dala.  I am in siege mode, I will get both chores done.  I abandon the pleasurable thought of a new dress, and lunch.

Police Station:  Report at the desk in front, report again at an office in back. Am given a single Official police report document and told to go to the stationary store across the street, get two copies made, and bring it back.  This is either a money-saving measure on the part of this bureaucracy, or their copier is out of service. Bring back the copies, be sent down the hall to pay a chit for the report, take back the signed receipt for said chit to the 1^st office.  Receive Official report.  (Is this beginning to sound familiar?)

At the Bank, things go more or less smoothly.  I have the required documents for card replacement and, miraculously, the required 2 passport pictures to paste onto my request for issuance of a new card, and change of account to the new card.  I win my first and only argument of the day:  the passport pictures do not have the required Blue Background.  I convince the Bank Officer, another woman, to accept my American passport pictures with white background, by pointing out that my passport, an Official American Document, sports an identical picture of me, with a white background.  I am bucked up by this triumph, and leave the bank with new card and PIN number.  However, I can’t use it until 24 hours have passed.  But I am 90% done with one errand, and it is only 2:30 pm.

At the CRDB Bank, my faint hopes of the line being lessened are dashed.  I get in line, and I wait.  And wait, and wait. No one exhibits any hurry or impatience.  Now, all who know me know how agonizing waiting can be personally for me, and how poorly I can behave.  I really try to stay composed:  I send long texts, I kick myself for not having my I-Pod, or Kindle, or both. I mentally try out schemes to circumvent this line (bribes?  Using my white skin and white hair to demand special service? Fainting?  Bailing yet again and coming back another day when I have more comfortable shoes on?)  I pull out my phone and time the wait, along with service time for individuals, on the Stopwatch App.  I keep trying not to lose it when people, who have saved spots in line, swell the last few places over and over again.

After about 2 hours, my back and feet are aching, but I am before a teller.  The teller is efficient; it takes less than 3 minutes. (By Stopwatch) I am rewarded with one of the 4 copies of the customs requisition, marked paid with an official stamp and initials.  I am asked to sign yet another document for it.

When I finish, the bank is closed.  Although banking hours extend until 5:30, they lock the doors at 4:30 so nobody else can get in line. When no employee appears  to unlock the doors so that I and half a dozen others can escape, I elicit my first laughs of the day by pulling out my phone and declaring  that I have been kidnapped by CRDB, and that I am going to call the police to come and rescue me.  Seriously, folks, this is only my second meltdown of the day, and I did manage to amuse the other customers, not horrify them by my lack of meekness.  Finally, after a couple of minutes, a woman who was on her cell phone at Customer Service saunters out to unlock the door.  I bolt out first.

Back next door at Customs, the woman there remonstrates with me because, although her office hours are until 5:00, she has locked away my PO chit and must retrieve keys, and unlock cabinets, to mark it for me and give it to me.  I tell her I was waiting TWO HOURS to pay, and she looks at me mildly, as if to say, ‘what’s the big whoop, only 2 hours?’

The Post Office is Closed.  Their hours are until 5:00, too, but that apparently is advisory only, as it is 20 minutes to. 

Just over 5 ½ hours in town to accomplish 90% of two errands, each requiring an encounter with the government and a bank.

As I make my way home, my thoughts are these, not in exact order.  The intercept between the modern world and the people is clearly taking its toll on the people.  Why do they PUT UP with having their time wasted so egregiously?  What do they do with all that paper?  Every government office I visited was dirty, needed to be painted, and was populated by broken down furniture and superfluous people who appeared to be doing nothing.  With the exception of one policeman who chatted me up in English, I dealt with women, who have clearly cornered the market on customer service white collar jobs here in Tanzania.  While not ever being able to completely understand the Swahili or be spoken to in communicative English, I did not make 1 mistake:  filled out no forms wrong, stood in no wrong lines.  Thank you, April, for getting me started on the right track.

And, I have to go back tomorrow.