Kagunguli
Doi's home village in Ukerewe; ferry visit to Mwanza

070929 Straight after mooring, Doi heads to the local village leader to tell them he comes to visit his family with a dhow. He returns with a page torn out a school exercise book, hand written from top to bottom and stamped and signed twice: we are allowed to stay for an entire week, no fees! Fishermen planning to illegally sail out long nets to be pulled back to the shore with long lines from the beach come to complain about our dhow's position. They are not from the village. Villagers, the Mooring License Issuing Authority included, come to tell the illegal fishers to fuck off. All in Ukerewe language (villagers), and Kijita (fishermen). Philemon (fluent in both) cools the row and we move a bit, even though the fishermen lost this issue on all scores, a fine example of one of our Gestures Of Almost Biblical Greatness (also to reduce the risk of our anchors being cut at night).

070930 My visit to Doi's family is planned for today. It is 4 km from the beach, along a footpath. I am mainly interested in Doi's mother, and brought a colourful kitenge cloth for her (used as over-skirt, to carry a baby on your back, or as kerchief). But during visits to an African family the man is receiving you and you are supposed to converse with him from a distance seeing the wife and older daughters work hard in the kitchen. Men and women even eat under different trees, here thirty meters apart. We had lovely duck (it was informed whether I would like to eat duck; the duck's son walked around our lunch table) with home grown rice.  Fortunately, after lunch the women and even the children joined the men under the "men's" tree. I can have some conversation in Swahili, but of the local Ukurewe I understand nothing. We hear some crying somewhere at the neighbours.  boy is sent to report. A baby died. The conversation continues. This is normal.
Doi, his twin brother Kurwa and his mother fled to Ukerewe for her first husband, the usual African alcoholic male. This is her second husband, with whom she now has six children. They are building a 10 by 3.5 m. house, but this is halted by lack of money. Meanwhile they live in a 2 by 4 m shed.

Photo: They are building a 10 by 3.5 house, but this is halted by lack of money. Meanwhile they live in a 2 by 4 m shed (background). Left with red crew cap: Doi in front of the kitchen.

Photo: Guest of honour is offered a cock. Yes, you feel it breathing just like a baby

I do not know the appropriate length of the after lunch meeting, but it should be long. I normally would not venture myself anymore in such situations, but this is Doi's mother. I simply wait till Doi makes some moves indicating it might be time to say goodbye. This was after four hours. As the guest of honour I got a cock, and we were ushered out of the village and on my request, they showed their land. Its the surface is two or three soccer fields, mainly featuring cassava, but there is some maize and even rice. Of cause all digging and ploughing is done by Doi's mother and the children. What his step father is doing all day is, as usual in Africa, not clear, though I saw some brick-baking activities and first attempts to dig a deep toilet put. For finishing the house he needs a fundi (specialist), he said, but he does not have the money.

Photo: As usual, all digging and ploughing is done by Doi's mother and the children. I would like have only them in the picture, but the children thought it inappropriate to pose and I failed to prevent the father and Doi's brother Kurwa, who had no part in the work to run - in front! - in my image's reach.

On their land we say goodbye after we are offered the routs of one cassava stem, Philemon's favourite, because Ukerewe soil is still rich enough for good cassava taste. In his district Majita, where everybody also eats mainly cassava, the root tastes bitter due to ground depletion.

Photo: we say goodbye after we are offered the routs of one cassava stem. Finally: Mama takes the initiative for a photo setup and puts herself in front with the cassava!

The yield of the family's ground is totally consumed, there is no surplus for selling. The oldest of the six children looks like 14, the youngest 1.5. That means that within a few years the land will be too small to feed the family. I do not have the impression they think of it, and I feel pretty sure this youngest will not be the last baby.
Going home, Mobile phone provider Vodacom turns out to have broken the small units record in airtime: to load 6 euro = 10.000 Tanzania shillings, I get vouchers @ TSh 500 with a bonus of TSh 100 added. The bonus requires typing a separate charging code. I type 304 numbers to get the 6 euro airtime in my phone.

071001 Philemon and I go to Mwanza, buying a phone, meet the builder of our new canoe (will also sail), pay him an advance, shop some items rare on country side beaches such as cheese, tin cans, peanut butter, honey. Then Philemon will sleep at home, I will go to Ton Bronkhorst, a Dutchman who did many things in his life and now is building a 80 passenger 1400 hp 40 km/hrs. catamaran ferry for Mwanza-Bukoba. The next morning early we will return to Ukerewe. 

Photo: On the Mwanza ferry jetty (of course we visit Mwanza incognito: left Philemon who did all he could to look like me, right: me, ably disguised as Philemon)

Of course, getting up early is no problem with a cock in the hold. Of course, to avoid recognition by Mwanza Immigration, the Kamkala mafia and The Mwanza Looting Orgy Chimps, we go incognito. In Mwanza digital cameras turn out to cost more than twice the price for which you buy them on the internet, and when I tell the shops, they refer me to Tanzania customs authority. I largely believe them, and after reshuffling my ideas on cost and benefits (this is Tanzania, and I want to make good photos NOW) over a beer and a pizza, I decide to get tough on the price of a SONY Cybershot DSC-S650 ($138 at Amazon) and buy ("at 14% discount") for $240 (only 73% overpriced). The effect is remarkable: our photo above is the first one with the new camera, taken on the Mwanza ferry jetty on return (reduced to same the file size as previous the web site photos taken with the mobile phone, see the difference!).
Of course we want mninga wood for our canoe, but this illegal unsustainable hardwood, with which the entire dhow is built, is going to cost us an astronomical fortune. As a result, the just over 5 m heavy hardwood hull of our traditional African sailing/outboard/paddling boat is going to cost 335 euro (painted), and mast, gaff, steering paddle and cotton sail will cost 28 euro. But now we paid 66% advance and we have seen nothing yet. For the sequence of events normally to be expected in such cases click Perfect Inertia, Towards A General Model Of African Business Planning.
Unfortunately I am recognized by the owner of the house rented by Kamkala for its staff, in which I was given a room during the Kamkala soap. He asked me immediately whether Gerald had been behind the immigration operation against me. I told him my true belief: that to my information it is well possible, but not certain. I told him I would be in Mwanza for one day, hoping to avoid exciting fear in people with bad consciences on news I had "returned".
I am clearly not suitable for secret agent: a Tanzanian angrily entered my one-person-only ATM room. He claimed I took too long getting my money. I did not want to spend a lot of time discussing with him, so I called security and police to pick him, telling  them the man intended to read my PIN. Of course he denied, but he got, as I had hoped for, in troubles when asked by officers why he had attempted to enter before I was out. I used that discussion to disappear. No doubt, the entire incident, my bad lie included, is on the bank's videotapes from three sides and my VISA card number, read in the ATM at that moment, would have allowed them to find me if it would have been worth it.
Time to visit Philemon's house and family. They live in Kirumba (see Mwanza map, and Westward panorama photo from high hill behind Mwanza), the North shore of the bay which features most of Mwanza's  mooring facilities. The South side of his house looks over the bay.

Photo: Philemon's house (picture taken South)

Strange to meet for the first time, the wife of someone you know so well.

Photo: Philemon's house (picture taken North from remote ferry with new camera)

There is a rumour that government wants to destroy this district. Official reasons are obviously hypocritical, in that they apply to every district of every town district in Tanzania so government might as well destroy all, but there seems to be interest in building a tourist complex on this slope.
Ton Bronkhorst received me with enthusiasm. I will write more about him on the occasion of the dhow's visit to Mwanza. Planned over one or two weeks. To avoid conspicuous display of our conspicuous dhow we will then moor on Ton's beach, 7 km North of Mwanza.

071002 Though we where in the line for tickets before the start of sales, we did not get them. This means, I calculated, the people before us on average bought 20 tickets per person, or something even shadier had taken place. I retired in Hotel Tilapia reading Goethe's Faust with cappuccino, Philemon bought tickets for the afternoon ferry and we arrived at the dhow at sunset. Town is nice, but lake is better. By phone we had already ordered the slaughter of our cock.

071003 We did the walk to Doi's family once more, to say goodbye. Got treated again on lovely rice and, this time, chicken. I thought how good is was to go, since otherwise we would have finished the family's poultry in a few days.

Photo: Our cock, enjoyed after our Mwanza visit (Doi)