That report was for Daniel to sign before we even would start to consider under what conditions he could get some more money.
I waited not only till Daniels ultimatum had expired but even well until after the time he had said he would go to court: Grand Finale Day 18 evening at dusk. Then, I went to the yard. I told Daniel I wanted a private conversation. My Kiswahili - with of course preparation and exercize at home -meanwhile was good enough. In it, I told him he ought to have known all the time that Kees had nothing to do with it, certainly not now I was here myself for two months watching very little happening. I gave him the bilingual letter to read. He called his brother Charles, an older sympathetic man, speaking some English, with some education. Charles looked at me with understanding. He explained Daniel what was in the letter. Then, I told them that I had had money and contract ready Friday but brought my money back to the bank after hearing about his threat to Kees. Now I gave Daniel my report about payments, delays, wood loss, exact contract obligations etc.. Daniel maintained that all wood had been used for my dhow.
Impossible. No way. I had already feared this wood loss, having seen some smaller mninga boats being built on the yard. Before the arrival of my mninga there had been no building with mninga at all. I had no doubt: we lost 30% of the wood to other jobs and possibly sales.
Daniel still insisted he was in his rights to demand money. He wanted Jeremia and Kees to report and explain themselves.
I said we could discuss a modification of contract, I did not need Jeremia, but neither did I object. Kees had now become impossible. He would not come because he was now very angry, I lied (Kees feared).
Charles understood this and explained it to his brother.
I proposed Feleshi, saying, in truth, that he was the one suggesting I should simply pay TSh 2 M now.
Then I showed Daniel our the original contract - and attachment to my report - and pointed exactly where he had signed that I for "final payment of the wood" "finishing the hull" , "painting" "launching the dhow in the water" and  "finishing the dhow".
Daniel asked me for the contract. He had lost it. That was good luck for me because bloody Kees had forgotten to skip the word DRAFT from the contract's title page, so he had been signing a "draft contract" with Daniel.
Daniel got the entire report, including a copy the signed contract where I had erased the D-word. I told him to read it carefully because he would have to sign it before there would be any talk about conditions further money advances.
We agreed to meet with Feleshi the next day at noon.
I go home and call Oscar Munisi, commodore (president) of the Mwanza Yacht Club, to ask whether he would be willing to attend a signing ceremony of the modification of the contract two days later.
He is ready.
Grand Finale Day 19 noon: Feleshi is present. No Daniel. I decide to create a little "African Inland" problem. It it true that Daniel has two wives? I ask Feleshi.
No, he is a good Christian, he has one wife.
One time, I tell Feleshi (in truth), I missed him at home and the children said he had gone to his other wife.
No, no, Feleshi replies, he is a good man.
I act as if I set that story aside.
I give Feleshi airtime for his cell phone and return home.
I decide not yet to call MYC commodore Oscar Munisi to cancel the signing ceremony tomorrow. Instead, I report to Kees.
While at Kees' house, Jeremia calls me. Daniel had told him I was going to sue him. Jeremia wants to advise me what to do.
You do not need to tell me what to do, Jeremia, but you will have no problems with me. Bye.
Same Day Five o'clock evening Feleshi calls. He has found Daniel. I go to the saw mill.
Daniels speaks about a sick wife, explains his legal aggression on his "Daniel's" Friday with the urgency of his debts (among which TSh 130,000 to Feleshi's African Inland Church saw mill).
But Daniel, if I am going to pay you, it will be for finishing my dhow, not for paying your debts.
I say this in English, Feleshi even refuses to translate.
Did Daniel tell Jeremia that I was going to sue him?
No, Daniel said, he did not.
Feleshi gives inspiring speeches and gives ample guarantees to both parties.
Daniel again refers to the need to buy wood.
I again point to him and to Feleshi where exactly he signed for "final payment of the wood". I add I have paid even for launching.
Daniel denies.
I point at the exact place where he signed for "launching water".
Daniel did not bring the report I gave him and demanded him to sign, but of course I brought a copy.
With a lot of pressure of both Feleshi and me he signs, but only after adding some sentences which leave open a slight possibility he might later claim he did not agree completely. OK, I thought, we shall repeat the crucial phrase of full agreement with the report in the modification of the contract, and add the report as an attachment.
I take the signed report and give copies of the draft modification of the contract to Feleshi and Daniel.
That is too much for both gentlemen. Couldn't I pay my TSh. 2 M now?
No, I explain, tomorrow at noon I come with Mr. Munisi, a very important man in Mwanza, then we all sign and I pay. Moreover, I lie, I even can't pay. It is six o'clock now, we agreed to meet at noon, and since Daniel did not show up and banks close at three, I brought my money back to the bank.
We agree for tomorrow at noon with Commodore Munisi. I give Daniel my Kiswahili the draft time table, detailed building instructions and the draft contract which now contains dates when external experts will inspect work that should be finished by then, 2 year guarantees on painting and one year guarantee on wood work. It also puts me in the position of permanent supervisor of the yard, with authority to give orders as far as my boat is concerned. After more than one month of further delay (after Februari 1, 2006) Daniel will pay a fine of TSh 50,000/= every week, after more than two this will become TSh 100,000/= every week..

I go the the Yacht Club, hoping to find Munisi, but end up in the company of some Australian gold mine drillers. Australian is not a difficult language. Instead of "I have been drinking sufficiently, I am going to retire", just say: "Fuck, I am fucking choked by that fucking beer, I fuck off to my fucking house". They carry the latest high definition screen palmtop cell phones tucked with porn movies. After an unwise attempt to keep up with their drinking speed I end up in the toilet with the wrong hole down.

            Photo: Gold Mine Drillers in Action on Mwanza Yacht Club:
                           Say Fucking Hello To Fucking Mam!
                 2'nd from right you wouldn't believe it: a philosopher

Grand Finale Day 20, The next day I buy a bottle of whiskey for my guest of honor, the MYC commodore Munisi, take money from the bank (for the first time, to be honest), print the contract - repeating the statement of full agreement with the report -  and attachments 5 fold. I had agreed to meet Munisi at MYC and go together to the saw mill. On our way to the dhow yard and saw mill 5 km north of Mwanza town I call Feleshi. He is still in town! But he will quickly take a taxi. Munisi proposes take the opportunity to show me his house, which happens to be near the saw mill. After a beer, we go to the saw mill. No Feleshi, no Daniel. I show the dhow to Munisi. We do not wait any further: almost two hours after the agreed meeting time we leave and decide to give the gentlemen one day to think and then give them a last chance if they come to the yacht club at a time we would be there anyway.
On the way back to town I call Feleshi.
Where are you now? he shouts through the phone, agitated.
Does not matter, Feleshi, there is no Daniel here, we can do nothing. Mr. Munisi is a very important man, we are now two hours late, he could not wait any longer, and I came with his car, so I can change nothing, sorry, call you later.
I hang and switch off.
Grand Finale Day 21. I had slept well, since this was a day entirely devoted to bring Daniel, hopefully with the help of Feleshi, in another state of mind simply by being absent and unreachable. In the village on the top of my hill is an election meeting with a lot of noise. Since I have TSh 2 M here, and more, and since all my neighbors of all ages are up there and thieves can know that, I have to stay home, sleeping a bit in the company of Greeneye, with whom I recently became friends. Our favorite game is to look threatening in each other's eyes. The one who starts to sweat first pays a fish. I always lose (click here for a picture).
In the evening I call Feleshi to hear what Daniel had said. His wife now even hospitalized (I still have a hard time to believe it, which one? I can't help asking Feleshi). Daniel also had said he had been unable to excuse himself: my telephone had been blocked and Feleshi's one (another provider) also. Not credible.
Daniel was willing to sign the contract.
I simply tell Feleshi that Daniel now has to come to the Yacht Club and take him, Feleshi, and his brother Charles.
Feleshi wants to meet the next morning at eight at the saw mill. I agree to come at 9:30, only to agree for a meeting with Commodore Munisi at the Yacht Club.
I call Munisi, who proposes 19:00 the next day. If I am there and the gentlemen arrive, he will come
 

Photo: building six weeks in a standstill, dhow now serving as an election billboard....and they don't use glue!

The next day, Grand Finale Day 22. My dhow is now in use as billboard for the coming elections, the poster attached with firm nails. No Daniel. I was prepared for that and hand over to Feleshi a last warning to Daniel: be at the MYC at 19:00 and take Feleshi and Charles.
In the afternoon Feleshi calls and asks whether I could not come to the saw mill. Daniel is there.
I tell him I am not coming. MYC 19:00 please.
At 18:59 hrs Daniel and Feleshi report at the Yacht Club. No brother Charles.
I call Commodore Munisi. His neighbors are morning a dead, he cannot come but called MYC secretary Markus.
I call Markus. He had heard only of some meeting and would come in an hour.
I offer my guests a drink (which was seen as an invitation to order an amazing amount of drinks on my account the rest of the evening). Time to discuss details. Now the time table is not any longer a loose phrase to lure me into paying, Daniel takes a closer look, but remarkably ends up at delivery at Christmas if I now pay TSh 2 M and the remaining TSh 2 M on delivery. Left and right he is negotiating some penny's and cents, that I whole-heartedly make available. Finished. Agreed.
MYC secretary Markus arrives. We made too many handwritten corrections, he holds. We had better reprint the contract.
I prepare to go home to do it quickly. My business partners inform me they are hungry. This is meant to say they do not have the three dollars for the food. I tell them to order on my account.
After an hour I return with a corrected print of the contract.
Now, Markus claims my Kiswahili might cause problems. My business partners might find escapes in it.
Can't we correct this by hand?
You are in a hurry, but you should not be. Go to a lawyer.
Markus, I realize, is right. I want to strangle, so now I should be prepared to make a quality rope even if for a good price.
I tell the news to Daniel and Feleshi, acting out a defeated face.
They accept fate.
I pay the bill. A fortune to Mwanza standards:

I offer to bring them home.
Feleshi takes Daniel and me together and complains that he is working like us but there is nothing in it for him.
Sure he would never have come if that were true, so I console him with the warm friendship that is rapidly growing between us, he can always call me when he needs me. Neither does Daniel show any sign to consider reaching in his pocket for Feleshi.
I drive them home. Daniel first. After he has stepped out, Feleshi says: I have asked Daniel about these two wives, he said yes, I have two wives. He giggles a bit.
Good, I think - in silence of course - a little common secret enhances discipline in the African Inland Church. At least, I hope, until Christmas. After that, my dhow is now supposed to be ready.
Grand Finale Day 23. Rafael, the MYC manager (highest of paid staff), was ordered by secretary Markus to take me to lawyer A at 11:00. However, Rafael had called the commodore about it, who decided for B. Rafael had again called the secretary, who complied. Both A and B are MYC members. Something is going on here which happily is not of interest to me, as long as this puts the prestige of the entire Mwanza Yacht Club at stake in the finishing of the dhow. My B however was aiding C in campaigning for the ruling CCM party (see the picture of my dhow above) in the country. C is also an MYC member. C would probably come drinking tonight.
But he is not around. I go home, a potent cold is taking painful grip of my nose and head. For the first time in my life I take paracetamol.
Grand Finale Day 24. I really should have stayed home with this very bad cold. But I go and find lawyer B's (Faustin - great name for a lawyer - Malongo) cell phone number. He asks me to leave the draft contract at the Yacht Club for him to pick up tonight.
Grand Finale Day 25. 08:00. I am still sleeping. Lawyer Faustin Malongo calls to tell me he needs the original contract that we are now modifying. As expected, he is now eager to take the whole job of drafting and passing the contract, not with a Yacht Club Board member but with a another witness-lawyer. As expected, he is not talking about price now but I know he will write me a fat bill. I resign. At least, for the first time in building this dhow I am not the one who is doing the waking up. At 9:00 I am at his office to give him the papers. An impeccably neat western style lawyer's office, including the notorious impressive bookshelves, computer network and even the well known pedantic paintings of the the founders on the wall. The Mwanza branch of a 35 staff Tanzania wide lawyer group. Faustin is a young staff member. With brains. We talk.. To my satisfaction the contents of my Kiswahili draft for modification of the contract is fully clear to him without much further explanation. He will rewrite it in legal Kiswahili, and agrees it is a good idea to append the rest of my Kiswahili paper work (report and building instructions) which he deems good enough in its present form. In the afternoon the draft contract is ready, now in legal format. I bring copies to Feleshi and Daniel. I agree to meet the next day 11:45 hrs at the saw mill, to take them to the signing ceremony on the lawyer's office.

Grand Finale Day 26. 11:30 hrs. To the saw mill. Fearing, naturally, to find no one. But both Daniel and Feleshi are around. Feleshi is busy walking around with papers, asking me to wait just a little bit. At 11:55 hrs. I start lying that the lawyer will charge me for delays. At 11:59 hrs. he boards my car. Taking off, I call the lawyer's office to announce us ten minutes later.
In the office, Daniel draws his copy of the draft contract. With his ball pen he had covered it completely with notes. That was of course astonishing me, first because its contents was identical to my draft he agreed with at the yacht club. The only problem had been to make it legal Kiswahili. Second, how could he think he had anything to negotiate?
After having listened and rejected some of his proposals for change I told the lawyer that we were now still under an old contract according to which Daniels had signed for receiving money for all the wood, for finishing the hull, caulking, painting and launching, none of which had been done. That I saw a lot of notes on Daniels draft contract but was not prepared to sit here the entire day listening to his objections. This contract was what I had on offer. If Daniel would not stop quickly consuming our time, we would stick to the old contract.
For another hour, Feleshi and the lawyer did the talking for me while I was silently waiting to see Daniel cool down. I was not dissatisfied with spending that hour sitting there and listening to the conversation. First, I had already agreed on a fat fee for the lawyer (TSh 240,000/=). Second, it was in my interest that his saw mill boss Feleshi and my lawyer Faustin Malongo got thoroughly fed up with Daniel. Third, Daniels resistant behavior made clear that some more disciplining and cornering was utterly desirable. So, unlike the others, I sat out the session with patience and interest and without irritation. Only every now and then I had to repeat I wanted no stories and no more tampering with my reasonable conditions or else there would be no modification of the contract hence no money.
Daniel was especially inventive in trying to remove guarantee conditions: "a mast can break any time, no guarantee is possible".
I: "Daniel, you don't guarantee the mast will not break. You only guarantee that if it does within a year, you will put a new one for free". etc. etc. etc.
Daniel: "He brings the paint. How can I guarantee the painting if he brings the paint?"
I: "I need the guarantee, but I can give you the money for the paint instead, do you want that?".
Daniel is no longer interested on his own argument. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Lawyer and Feleshi yawning every now and then. Daniel lost size every minute but it went slowly. Finally, a long speech of Daniel was translated to me by the lawyer as: "he fears the word 'buyer' (mnunusi)". In the header of the contract, behind my name, there was the familiar phrase "henceforth called buyer". I did agree to change 'buyer' in 'Mr. hamminga' everywhere. The only concession. We did maintain the statement of complete truth of my report (attached), in which the wood lost is calculated at 31%. From now on he has no chance in whatever court case, though it is not clear at all whether he understands this.
Finally after much more than an hour we sign, I pay.
Then, Daniel has a question for Mr. hamminga. Now is is bound to this strict time table, is he, he asks, bound to use dry mninga wood, or can he use undried?
I tell him he had ample wood supplied by Hamadi in May, hence it had had four months to dry (!), but he had squandered it. That he has given me this time table himself, without speed pressure from my side and without any mentioning it was a strict one; that the contract has been signed now. Whether he will do his job properly with the proper handling of wood shall, according to the contract, be judged by experts. That now after signing I do not answer any more technical questions. He is the expert, he should know how to build properly, if he doesn't it will now cost him a lot of money.
Standing outside, Feleshi and Daniel agree they are very hungry know. Shall we go and eat somewhere?
OK, I say, if you have money, I spend all my money with this lawyer.
That changes the matter. The hunger is not too unbearable after all. The gentlemen decide they want me to drop them at the ship yard and saw mill.

Picture: The new points of the Perfect Inertia Graph (explanation of graph) are white triangles 8 and 9 above.
White triangle 8 is what Daniel told me to lure me into paying.
White triangle 9 is what he signed for 15 days later at the lawyer's office, asking whether he could use undried wood now because of its tightness.
Note that the trend line through last four white triangles (stretching over 80 days) is again perfectly inert (horizontal)

This Grand Finale of the process of drying the yard was 26 days of hard work for me, from Daniel's first token of drought "Nataka pesa" to the contract this day.
The lawyer line (the thick brown straight line in the Perfect Inertia Graph, ) is the line below which Daniel will be in serious trouble (and knows he will be). The lawyer line points at Christmas for delivery.
At goodbye from Feleshi I payed him TSh 10,000/= for helping us today and told him he will receive TSh 100,000/= if, as the contract says, on November 12, 2005, my experts will approve the hull, and another TSh 100,000/= if, as the contract says, at the latest  December 28, 2005, my experts will approve the dhow as a whole. May God help us.
Back home. I call Commodore Munisi to thank him for helping me out. He turned out to have mentioned apart from Faustin, two more lawyers instead of A, proposed by Marcus. Those two B' and B", I conclude, have fallen off the bandwagon between the commodore and me. Who were they and who dropped them in the hunt for my TSh 240,000/= lawyers fee? I wish it would have been apt to have a chat with the commodore about that. But luckily enough, I do not seem to have to understand all ins and outs of MYC to have the club behind me. Commodore Oscar Munisi explains me how Faustin's office is embedded until deep in high Tanzanian politics. And most of the staff is Mwanza Yacht Club, including the probable after-the-elections CCM parliament member whom Faustin was told to be campaigning with. That  makes me decide to cherish the picture above in my files.