Making Mast And Gaff

Saturday Feb 18 Finishing Deck, work on floor and mast foot beam, Immigration Harassment continues

Visit to the head of Mwanza Immigration, Mr. Msellem.
Mr. Msellem, did you order your two little thugs to start harassing me again, as they told me you did?
No. Mr. hamminga. You know I was in Geita.
They told me personally.
Mr. hamminga, I...
I did not believe them, Mr. Msellem, I just want to inform you about what they told me. Mr. Msellem, if you want to send officers to me, please select other ones, Beta and Kappa are known to my security who has the pictures I have taken of them. These officers cause unrest among my security people, which is dangerous, especially to themselves. It is even better, if you need me, to...
...phone you myself, Msellem finished my sentence.
Do you want to see my visa Mr. Msellem?
Yes, please. Msellem studies the routine visa .with great care, checking all dates of entry and exit. After failing to find an error he continues: Mr. hamminga, with this visa you are not allowed to any type of activity. Since you are supervising the building of your ship I advise you to take a business visa.
Mr. Msellem, if as a tourist I order a shirt and tell the maker how I want it, do I need a business visa?
That is part time, Mr. hamminga. You are full time. How long will it take to finish that boat?
Three weeks. After that I will be at Mwanza yacht club and finish the ship at my ease in my own tempo with my own hands, just buying timber and hardware in town. Can I do that on a visitors visa?
No, Mr. hamminga, that is business. You will need a business visa for that.
Since this is Saturday I agree to come back to the Immigration Office on Monday for a business visa. The nice coincidence is that I will go to court with my lawyer on Monday morning for Jane's Tribunal. It seems to me that accepting to take a business visa is dangerous because with that I might concede to do business, thus get harassed by the Tanzania Revenue Authority. Hence I wonder if not I have to file an official written application for the business visa in the Immigration, on the occasion of receiving a business visa:

To the Immigration Office Mwanza.

Today, though in possession of a valid visa, I apply for a business visa for Tanzania. I do so solely on advice of you, the Immigration Office Mwanza. I do not do any business in Tanzania, and never did any, and it is my firm intention to refrain from doing any business in Tanzania for the infinite future.

Lambertus hamminga

I realize I now have needed my lawyer against three assaults on my Mzungu money: Daniel, KST Ltd. and Mwanza Immigration (I lost count of the total number of assaults if I include all attempts to beg, overcharge, sabotage, blackmail, steal and rob). Msellem's is of course in the same category as that of Mr. Fat, that of sabotage and blackmail: he pretends to save me from trouble, but the trouble can only come from the office he is heading himself, the mafia "protection" method (more: surfboard: immigration). But it is still possible that Msellem is of good will, simply does not have his blackmail/sabotage-officers under control and is trying to help me against them.

Just to illustrate the inventiveness of negroes when it comes to avoid doing anything useful: my first encounter in East Africa with the blackmail/sabotage method was a man who had the habit to put himself after rainfall next to a mud road, at a place where it unexpectedly becomes bad and has mud pools, wearing a good nice clean Sunday suit. He had a reserve army around the local bar, willing to act as "angry crowd" for a small fee, and good repertoire of threats with court cases etc. for cars inadvertently splashing him, and used make several times the dry cleaning cost, especially with whites. He would have several suits in a case next to the road, his "capital investment", so he could "do" several cars before returning to the dry cleaner, who was of course his business partner. But that is story is nice for creativity. The standard pattern is sufficiently illustrated by a story from Harare: a young adult approaches the tourist and asks for "protection money": there are many dangerous thugs. He can protect. The tourist refuses. Then the young man says: "in that case I will have to hit you myself"... In general, negro government officials act on the same thoughts in their efforts to earn a living above the standard of their salary. The idea is: create a problem and cash in

Photo: This Mzungu, according to Chief of Mwanza Immigration Mr. Msellem, requires a business visa...(more: surfboard: immigration). Behind the car you see the rice field dike that serves as nightly ant track .

In November Mwanza Yacht Club Commodore Oscar Munisi was quite determined to bring sailing back to the club and give me the unpaid job as sailing coach  - that would also enable me to apply for a permanent visa for Tanzania. I decided modestly to wait for news and not press on Munisi. I was now waiting for almost three months and concluded there had been a hitch Munisi was shy to inform me about. Just to avoid starting getting my visa title elsewhere and then being offered that sailing coach job anyway, one night on the club, I put myself next to Munisi. He completely avoided involving me in the ongoing conversation. I held on. The man even seemed to try giving me no chance to turn myself to him. Nevertheless, after half an hour, I did, more or less by force, told him I was set to find a title elsewhere put did not want to embarrass him in case he was still seriously working on the installment of a sailing coach.
Munisi told me, eyes off, that the sailing coach idea was not good because the new Kikwete government was "against foreigners taking jobs".
Clearly, Kikwete would have little against foreigners taking unpaid jobs and training Tanzanians who later might have paid ones. Bullshit. There should have been some lobby against me in the club Munisi was shy to inform me about. Since this was a visa issue, I started to suspect involvement of Mwanza immigration. I now long understood extortion of foreigners depending on them was the private business of those behind the scenes of Mwanza Immigration [surfboard on Mwanza Immigration harassment], but why would they think I would not pay them? Or should I have paid them already now?
I decide not to eat at the club, if only to keep my appetite.
In Mwanza hotel I dine with a Dutchman, unknown to me, who has been in corrupt countries all his life and claims corruption is social security: typically, an official distributes corrupt money income down (NOT: up) the ranks. He gives some of the money to the smaller men, and even retains a small fund to pay for needs coming up in the ranks below him (hospitals, funerals etc.). Thus the holder of corrupt funds buys loyalty and becomes the spider in the net.
Social security. A new perspective. Not much security for the victims of course. The idea has some charm to me as a philosopher, but not as the guy they prey on. This absolutely careless, impolite, disinterested and hypocritical ("government against foreigners taking jobs") MYC commodore behaviour shows him a loyal part of the negro government official eating ring. His logic: a mzungu has money. He should pay. If he does not pay me and I hear the same from my friends in Mwanza, why should we do something for him? Why is he in our country? Occupying the place of may be another foreigner who is more ready to meet our needs. May be he is a spy! The commodore really makes me annoyed with Mwanza elite adult male negroes generally. Most of them, now I come to think of, have nothing to offer you and are a pain in the ass due to their continuous begging, preying, and smaller and larger extortion attempts. I decide not even to apply for any more visa, give a good party at the Yacht Club on arrival of my ship and then sail off to Uganda as soon as possible with all my assets, and continue enjoying my life there in less questionable company.