Everybody saa moja, even Daniel, but he is the last.
During the day it gradually seems to become the habit of the workers to call me "commander". But this commander would be impotent without Gabriel.

Picture: Moses (l) and Johnny (r) caulking the keel (grey hard blanket cloth hammered in the joints)

Photo: on one side for bottom caulking. All decks and floors almost ready for planking. Two of the tree rabbets ready for fixing hatches.
The mango tree (starboard side) now serves as access stairs. Launching in one week?

We get a visit from Feleshi, who was going to help me to get the dhow ready at the contract date December 21, who had TSh 60 000 in air time and afterward begged for TSh 80 000 for a "schoolfee problem of his son", which he got, in total a six week wage with no effect whatsoever on building speed. He looked at the dhow and said: I am verry happy.
He is driving a absolutely brand new bicycle. Asshole. But of course the biggest asshole is me.

Our lunch: Dagaa or Furu (the fish claimed to have been preyed upon to extinction in "Darwin's nightmare" but in truth abundantly present), with polenta and spinach. The real Furu lovers are the Ukerewe Islanders, who even chew and swallow the bones. No Furu fishers ever had any problem to find their catch, I was told during this lunch.

The feverish activity at the yard attracts a host of curious observers.
She does not carry a canoe peddle but a kitchen spoon, and a water can.

Since Moses and Johnny, the ones applying the dawa, are muslems, they are ready to work on Sunday. But where is the remainder of the grey epoxy paint we used for the boards? That is what we should mix with sawdust to make the dawa. Not in Daniel's store. I order Daniel to call the painters.
No, is the answer, they had exactly finished the paint.
A lie. Stupid me, not to check the thugs at the end of painting, Thursday.
No paint. No work for Sunday.

Gerald tells me if I leave the cooker on we will not share anymore equally the electricity-bill

Sunday

Finally. No alarm clock. I wake up at seven. Fresh.
Time for some thoughts.
For long, I am acquainted with the story that to Africans the world is full of forces stronger than them, thwarting their plans every day. Hence the acceptance of broken agreements, delays, and the African idea of time as a living sequence of actions and events rather than the pace of a regular machine like a clock. This week, I discovered that the larger part of this "unexpected" thwarting is not done by "forces stronger than you": when you buy bolts, they may get finished at the end of the morning. You may have to go to town to buy more. You may have no money for transport. You may go on foot (2 hours), or to go home and continue the job the next day. When the muzungu is just calculating the proper amounts of all types of bolts you need and buys them, you can continue working all day. A matter of having a clear, anticipating mind, able to write and calculate. Even Gabriel, the best builder around, can not do it properly. There is pen nor paper on the yard. If they draw, it is with a pencil on the ship or in the sand. While calculating, I sometimes see them make the figure symbolically on some surface with their fingers.
How did a man like Daniel arrive at his contract sum of TSh 13 000 000/= for the entire dhow? He can not even calculate how much wood he needs for the floor only! Since other yards asked roughly the same price, our contract price cannot too far astray. How is a money advance of TSh 1 000 000/=, as I gave Daniel several times, represented in his mind? Daniel truely feels that the accusations by Gabriel and me that he misused the money as true. But can he really know whether he misused money or not?
To cope with the situation, the muzungu now comes to the yard, saa moja, with a pickup loaded with workers, a padlocked welded metal box with tools, hardware and paint, and a fast motorcycle.

Picture: My pickup with tools, bolts and paint in its double locked welded steel box
Motorcycle for quick search of stocks of rare hardware

The motorcycle is used to search for rare hardware suddenly discovered to be necessary. Anyone with brains would have known more than one year ago that it would be necessary, but the African "suddenly discovers" a necessity. We cannot order and wait for delivery (remember a 2 day time span for delivery of paint turned out to be 21, for the same sorts of reasons). So the muzungu moves by motorcycle to the densily crowded town centre from one shop to another until he has what is needed. Since the muzungu now has to anticipate on behalf of the carpenters, he needs to do sharp interviewing, otherwize every single thing "suddenly discovered" a necessity will require a separate trip to town.
The painters were ordered for Wednesday, but could not make it before ten o'clock. Indignation all around among my saa moja people. You are lucky they will be late, I said: you did not yet put the proper screws at the places it took me one hour to mark last Monday, and we have a list of planking defects to repair. All should be done before we can paint.
That turned out to be a new thought. Feverish activity.
The next day, when the painters stood ready, the screwing and planking was not yet completely finished. Then they realized, neither had I thought about it: all screw holes should be filled with putty. Fortunately I had already bought putty for some other applications.
Putting the dhow on its port board for caulking the starboard bottom was planned for saa moja, the same time the caulkers would begin. First one took a heavy hardwood beam as a lever. After five men set out to lift is, the lever started to crack. One started to think of a jack. Of course noone had one. I did, but I told them it would be useless to try a 1 ton jack for a 5 ton ship. Indeed, they discovered the truth, fortunately without destroying my jack. Off to a garage to find a heavy jack.

Etc. etc. etc.

Less than half of the of the problem of moving parallel inertia is caused by doing nothing or little. The rest is caused but not having thought of necessary jobs in the first place, and waiting for these unanticipated jobs to be prepared for and done, that is: inability to anticipate (details).

Right now, the project culture has become a curious mix: I leave the architecture to the Africans. Thusfar, I corrected them only in decided to glue and bolt an additional keelson, the stiffeners advised by Nkaka and the deck caulking (sikaflex), and the shape and construction of the hatches. This will be an essentially African ship. But I wonder if, with only my money, and without my interference in organisation and planning, we would ever have one.

Neither do I want to think of having to build this boat without a cell phone. The Africans, limited as they are in thinking ahead, making and keeping sensible agreements, profit much more from the cell phone than other races. The cell phone softens the drawbacks of last minute awareness of impediments to their jobs, a mental feature strongly endemic in Africa. Absence of cell phones and my quick pick up and motor cycle transport and crisis shopping would prolong the dhow building ordeal with at least another year.

Daniel got TSh 11 000 000/= of his TSh 13 000 000/=. The remaining TSh 2 000 000/= I spend this week on wages, hardware, paint and wood.. Next week Daniel dives in the red. Now I have kept my agreement for handover in my pocket and simply took over without any formal step, his debt will be a hard legal claim under our contract. He will never be able to pay, but I will keep power over him, which might be useful.