Police!
No games with armed chimps

071023 Day 11 of our stay at Ton. Our new canoe is ready and we shall bring it to the dhow tomorrow morning. We had already bought new eucalyptus trees and the new folmali was lying ready on the beach. Our broken anchor would be repaired early the next day and the smith would have shaped our steel hook enforcement for our stern beam (for fixing sheets). Meanwhile two serious afternoon surfs both made our old canoe sink. It is broken totally and ready for Ton's wood fire. The outboard's leaking lower tail carter was closed, but still in one of Ton's containers since transport to and fro the dhow was now walking in underwear with any items on the head, not amusing if you are recovering from malaria.
Then...police at Ton's gate!

Photo: Old canoe now ready for Ton's wood fire

Five (5!) police, not in uniform, not identifying themselves, asked Mary about the boat, I heard when I called Ton (he had not called me about it). Of course, Mary had said she knew nothing and had not paid attention. This was police, not immigration, and police had not been particularly brutal to me last year. During that sensational misbehaviour of Mwanza government officers (Go To Surf Board), immigration officers had been the initiators. My idea was that these officers had not recognized my dhow, let alone remembered the mzungu-owner. This was simply a new action, prompted by the sight, probably on a day out at Tunza lodge, of the dhow. It would surely end in a raid like the one in Jinja, but that could last some time, since they cannot swim and fear a lake canoe as hell. Calling in colleagues is not the first option, because that would mean sharing any booty. In Jinja, the pre-raid asking-around lasted even four months! It is even doubtful whether they would ever make the link to my midnight arrest at gunpoint on Februari 1, 2006, but things might very well get equally unpleasant, what happened to me last year was by no means an incident.
I decide it is not my hobby to play games with armed chimps, to finish our shopping tomorrow and head for Musoma the morning after, 071025, before sunrise. The chance is small they will come tomorrow, if they do, we have perfect papers, and can truly say that we plan to leave for Kenya next day.

071024 A quick last shopping. We get short of money. Mwanza sports a Maestro-Cirrus ATM, which would allow me to cash in from a Dutch account. Permanently out of service, it started to work a few days go. I tried to cash the maximum, which I thought to be � 300 in Tsh. I got the transaction sheet stating the money cashed, but no money and no credit card. The ATM reported "out of service for maintenance" but got back to the welcome screen after a few seconds. Inside, staff told me this happened because my withdrawal had exceeded the maximum which was � 200. They returned my card, signed, on my request "Not paid" on the back of the transaction sheet, and I went for � 200. This time the ATM produced the transaction sheet and the card, but no money. Staff signed again: "Not paid" and I left. I went to Standard Chartered to try my VISA, cashing in from my Jinja account. This account showed a balance � 300 too low and the ATM refused for "lack of balance". While I was calculating the money missing on this account, the Standard Chartered ATM machine, which still held my card on eject, swallowed my card again and  spit out a paper

CARD CAPTURE
cardholder timeout (04)
Thank You

"Thank you too", I thought. I went inside to learn that the Standard Chartered routine is that all captured cards are going to Dar es Salaam for shredding. I phoned Crane Bank Jinja. The ATM had given the balance as on the bank's computer screen. I order Crane Jinja to block the VISA card, and go to a second Maestro-Cirrus ATM of which I was formerly unaware, indicated to me by staff which had signed the "Not Paid". There, I got away with that bank's daily maximum of � 200. No hunger until Musoma. (see also the Bukoba ATM operetta click ATM, incident 1 but scroll down for 2 and 3).
Philemon and me spread to buy cotton for the new canoe's sail, air time, a new spare halyard winch wire, cheese (!), coffee beans (!). We also buy tubes for pumps, collect the repaired anchor, iron hook bars to fortify the stern beam holding our sheets, jobs Ton had spontaneously offered to help us with, but we gradually understood he felt he was too busy with his own problems to do it. Also, after the first two days of our stay, his 7 piece car fleet, enthusiastically put at our disposal with a broad gesture at our arrival, turned our to be broken, uninsured, and/or parked by other owners except for Ton's own Pajero which was heavily in use as company and family car, and we largely started to work with taxi's. Anyway, in the past days Ton had not anymore been eager to see me on return home in the evening, as he was in the first days. Most probably the ferry problems took his mind. Towing to the dock, it was said in Mwanza marine circles, he had hit some rocks. In the dock I saw only a broken window. But Ton did not mention those further incidents to me, actually did not talk to me anymore at all. A curious imbalance: first, receiving me as nothing less than a lost child, then, a few days later making me feel useless, superfluous, and annoying.

Photo: our new canoe comes around the corner. Pure protected unsustainable Mninga wood!

Back on the dhow we mounted the new folmali, hook irons, repaired our hatch, loaded the trees for the canoe rig, and I waited to see whether Ton, knowing this was our last night, would invite me. He did not.