Crtd 05-12-13 Lastedit
15-09-14
A Job And A Visa
Or
Why Tanzania Is A Serious Country
A European aspiring to live in the Tanzania, the best country in the
world, can of course not simply go there. You need a visa. To be
granted a visa,
your promise to spend all your hard currency savings in the thirsty local
economy does not do. That is not allowed. You can have
more money than the president of Tanzania on his Swiss bank account, but
you need to have a ...job ! Who the hell taught them about these
things? Why didn't those bloody westerners and Arabs just limit
themselves to teaching them how to pray and use guns?
A "job" (or what is called by that name) puts you at once in the ranks of the elite because most Tanzanians do not
have one - somehow they are all allowed to stay. Conclusion: even in
Tanzania you can't be like me: just slowly emptying your bank account while
doing nothing. I need a disguise, so there I go:
My Honorable Gentlemen of the Board!
With some of you I have already pondered whether it would be nice to boost
sailing in our cherished Mwanza Yacht Club, especially among the youth. Meanwhile, we witnessed the
happy event of one our club dinghies coming back in operation. I have already
offered to act as our club members� sailing coach without charge. Though in
later life I became a university lecturer, in my youth I have been selected for
the Netherlands national team to participate in main international competitions,
like the Kieler Woche and the OK-dinghy European Championships. I have also
taught the theory and practice of sailing at the time.
Would not it be nice if we could even get back to the situation where we
regularly have some sailing competitions? As a member, I would volunteer to
support it. Once my dhow will get moored at the club, I would be at the club
habitually, by with I could assist your Sailing Secretary to stimulate such
events, as well as to other sailing promoting activities.
Meanwhile I have been informed that for a longer term visa for Tanzania, I need
a job contract. My question is whether I could apply for Mwanza Yacht Club staff
membership as a sailing club. If I could, I hereby do. My wage could be nil; if
Law requires a wage, I will donate it to the club entirely. I will in no
occasion hold the Mwanza Yacht Club liable to any damage on me or caused by me
during any work as a sailing coach.
The Chief Officer of the Mwanza Immigration Office, who meanwhile told me he
aspires to become a MYC-member, which I think would be a good thing, has already
assured me that this job will entitle me to a visa for Tanzania. He told me the
format of the request for such a visa by the Mwanza Yacht Club. I add a draft
letter with the required documents.
Yours truly,
................
My curriculum vitae of course needs a drastic face lift
To Immigration Office
Mwanza, Tanzania
My Curriculum vitae
1951 Born Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1963-1971 Dingy sailing international competition Netherlands team
(reg.no.H337)
1969 Selected for Netherlands team European championships
1975 Masters degree in Economics, University of Groningen,
The Netherlands
1975 University Lecturer University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, Economics
1978 Masters degree in Philosophy, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
1980 University Lecturer University of Tilburg, The Netherlands
1983 PhD in Economics, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1999 Certificate Parasailing Pilot A
2001 Retired from University
2004 Moved to Uganda, sailing, writing about philosophy, Consultant Cultural
Research Centre Jinja, Uganda
2005 Sailing Coach Mwanza Yacht Club
Attached: List of Academic Publications.
Yours truly,
...
Somewhere in the heap of garbage on the photo you see when you click
here, there is a full list
of all my sailing competition prizes, now somewhere on the premises of the
Tilburg Waste Disposal. The list is anything but impressive to real cracks but
the European championship selection story is true, for a moment I was in the
Dutch top 5 in the OK dinghy - soon I got overweight. That list would have made a splendid
attachment. But you can't win them all.
There is one thing that bothers my conscience:
the club resolved to shoot a 6 meter crocodile peacefully praying on fishermen
and swimmers in our bay. The rumor has it that it took three people thus far, science claims it needs only one a month. The shooting should be done before
I start my sailing instructions. The western reader may be advised
to take six big steps and then look back to were he started. As you all know I am a peaceful
person too, and if I teach four children and it eats one, what is the problem? We
shall still have three, and we do not exactly have a lack of children here!
Tanzanians
keep swimming and washing clothes in the water, and some white Mwanza Yacht Club
members water-ski every evening, ignoring the warnings. My
desire for cultural adaptation however prevents me from ventilating my modern western
views on croc friendly eco balance.
However! There is a hitch in my visa
application procedure: MYC secretary
Markus (half European, half African) is off to Arusha (Kilimanjaro area). His
father died. False rumors say he was poisoned. Though Munisi wants to further my case,
the board cannot meet. I will have to combine the useful with the useful by
going to Uganda (by boat to Bukoba, then by bus to Kampala, Jinja,
map), have my visa stamped off,
take my motorcycle, drive the same way back and get another three months
Tanzania visa for $50. Dollars. Absolutely no Tanzania Shillings, no Uganda Shillings,
Euros OK but 50.
Before I went off I had called Ernest, who
stores my motorcycle, sells my container, en made a school rainwater supply for
some benevolent Dutch charity funders, who asked me to implement it. I was
cordially invited and well received, but the motorcycle had fallen once in the
garage, the container was not sold and there was still work at the school rain
water supply which should have been finished half a year ago. Little happens at
the side of the lake where you're not. I got a comfortable bed, though,
lovely breakfast and free theatre by his youngest Marianne, 6, a true talent,
acting out a comic film playing all roles, sitting on different chairs, my GPS,
cell phone and wallet on a plate representing the "food". She thought it better
to remix the acts from the two parts of the film but going from one scene to
the other she kept informing me whether this was in part I or part II.
Photo's: Marianne (6, right), posing in self designed positions with self
chosen partners, her father Ernest and friend Christa (4)
The next it was of course high time to visit
Supa.
Photos: Bye Supa!
Supa has now reached his adult size, I hope, that is, hope for the owners
Jonathan and Florence. He is very strong but sweet and completely peaceful.
This, though is not always understood by the children when they are run over by
him. He has not learnt to understand the effect his body movements have on more
slender creatures at the compound like children and chicken. He seems
particularly unable to grasp that the chicken do not like to play with him. So
these are locked behind a fence. If laundry items hang drying, Supa has to be
chained: he has never been able to notice that the management likes him to
refrain from jumping high and tearing them off the line, one by one. There is no
naughtiness here: he must be one of the the friendliest dogs around the equator.
He would certainly never do any harm if he would have the smallest understanding
the concept. He is the best example I know of someone who did not take the
slightest bite of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
In Kampala I had been looking for a winch to hoist my sail, not available in
Mwanza. The hoisting method
traditionally handed over here is this:
Photo: African sail hoisting
You just hire as many bloody sailors as you need to get the bloody sail up. Since
winches do not steal and my ultimate goal is to be able to sail single handed, I
feared to have to order one from far, with the risk of getting something not fitting, expensive etc.
At night I visited the ultimate Jinja experience,
Restaurant 2 Friends
(the restaurant that expelled me half a year ago from its boys quarters for
playing the wrong song on
a party) for a
"Pizza Bert Special". The fresh waiter was not informed of this
off-menu offer but the
cook remembered (tilapia fillet, red pepper, cheese and a slight overdose of
tomatoes). I met John Terril, the only leisure sailor on the lake I know. You
might understand what it means to him soon to have to share Lake Vic with me,
but he holds himself firm.
O, I have a winch, John said casually, you can have it.
Photo: John Terril, time-honored Victoria Lake sailor with his boat, my
motorcycle and, in the yellow circle, my lucky catch: his winch.
The next day, after a good bottle of beer with John, I left on my motorcycle for
Bukoba (map) with a trailer winch which, I tested,
waiting for the ferry, on the Bukoba beach, will enable me
to hoist my sail on my own in slightly under four minutes.
The Bukoba-Mwanza ferry Victoria is, before departure, surrounded by self
employed loaders, carrying a blue coat with a number testifying someone is
milking them by selling them a license. Four hours before departure their price
to load my motorcycle was $ 5, a three to five day's wage. I went back to
the beach. Two hours before departure the previous stalemate
had prepared and stiffened me. Though their price was down to $ 2, I said: "you
have no job!", climbed the ferry, lowered the gangplank (by slackening the rope
at the yellow arrow, see photo), drove on, parked against the railing and cheered: "Two
dollar! Two dollar!". Some could appreciate it. A ferry officer, in white
shirt with black and gold epaulets even passed my table for a high five while I
was enjoying quite a decent meal of well roasted chicken, rice and spinach
for....$ 2.
On the ferry I got a call from Ernest: my container had been sold.
In three days of spending time and money to keep my visa papers in order I
profited greatly from Tanzania being a serious country: I have my motorcycle,
the money of my container, a winch, and three relieving days off from my dhow
yard struggle. As a Kiswahili proverb says:
"Mwenda
bure si mkaa bure, huenda akaokota"
"The aimless traveler is not an aimless sitter, he may find something"