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Crtd 06-01-23 Lastedit
15-09-14
The Kamkala Soap
Overview
In October 2004, on a reconnaissance trip around the lake to find good dhow
builders, I met, on the quay of the Mwanza industrial harbour, a tall slender
grey haired mzungu, fellow
Dutchman Kees van Vianen (Author meets Kees van Vianen), welding some meters extension to what to western standards should be called a
written off 30 m cargo ship. All this on what was, to say the least, an
improvised site, harbouring one 15 ft container and a twenty year old
Landcruiser.
His company carries the name of his girlfriend Jane: Kamkala Sinnautic Ltd.
I decided to have my dhow built in Mwanza. Kees agreed to hold my deposit for
payments to the dhow yard and represent me in checking my controller Jeremia.
The contract for the dhow was signed Januari 2005. It was agreed for delivery
end of April.
End of April not even the wood had arrived on the yard. Kees advised to wait.
In May I suggested I might come myself to do something about it. Kees was not
enthusiastic. He proposed to leave my dhow for a while. He was busy and would
receive guests. Operating from my car, camping on Mwanza Yacht Club, I procured
wood (No
Wood). When the wood was about to arrive and I needed my money, it
took me over two weeks of daily pressure to make Kees pay me. But then he did.
In August the dhow had made little progress, and I decided I should be around
permanently. I could stay with Kees. He gave me a room in a house he had rented for the brothers of
his girlfriend, staff of his company (Isamilo
Life). Gerald, one of my housemates, started an intensive loan and repayment
traffic with me which required my daily administration. After a few months, with great effort, I got my money back one hour
before he left to his wife and children in Dar es Salaam for an unknown period.
Not long after my arrival in the Isamilo house vague promises to pay me "end of next week" that kept
being phrased so for some weeks (Where
is My Money?) made clear to me that the remainder of my deposit,
$3500, had been
used for the halfway process of building a patrol boat for the Tanzanian government by Kamkala
Sinnautics (see
My Money Is Unavailable).
All I could achieve, and even that by mere chance, was an agreement in which I
got $1000 immediately and the remaining $ 2500 on October 15 at the latest (see: .
Wetting The Wrong Shipyard).
Then, I had heard bad news about the liquidity of Kamkala Sinnautics. I wrote my
claim off. But surprisingly I got it back (An
End To Wetting), as TSh 2 520 000.
Five days later the money was stolen from my room (Money
Stolen). No traces whatsoever of breaking into the house. Curious detail:
the money was put in a box in one packet with another TSh 300 000, a
rubber band around the packet of TSh 2 820 000. But the thief had left the TSh
300 000 in the box.
I made some attempts to find the money, but Jane
and Gerald did not like it. Jane blocked Kees' compound for my car.
Nobody made any attempt to help me or give me any information that might be
helpful.
In January, after Gerald had started to complain about my forgetfulness in
switching off the cooker and threatened to increase my share in electricity (I
was, in our three person household, paying close to a 50% share on average, but he had
forgotten), I told him I wished he was just as thoughtful about other people's
money as he was about his own. Gerald went to Jane, who wrote me a letter
(see:
The Letter): on the ground of information from her
brothers she was terminating my rent immediately and charging me with an
additional three months rent, because "We Africans may be poor but we are not
stupid". I ignored it. After all I staying with Kees, I would not
formally rent a room. By way of compensation I had six chair and a dinner table
made for the house. This all was between me and Kees and of course it is
not my business which girlfriend he has at some moment of time.
A few days later Gerald came home dead drunk at five in the morning and started
a fight with his brother Victor. After I had entered the scene to see if things
were not going the wrong way for Victor - who never drinks, lends, begs or - I
firmly believe - steals, I was the new target. Though Gerald is weak and fat, he
managed to break my room door in two (photo).
After that,
I did not get support for my idea to lock Gerald out, neither from landlord
John, nor from under-landlord Kees, nor from Victor. Meanwhile the Isamilo
transformer was burnt total loss due to transformer oil theft. No power could be
expected for three weeks, hence also no water since we load by electric pumping.
My dhow should be ready for habitation within three three weeks.
That meant the end of my Isamilo life. I moved in my pickup truck and camped for
some time at Mwanza Yacht Club while finishing my dhow.