TZ4

The UDSM campus always has beautiful sites.  Here is a sculpture on campus near the law school. 

It was the week of computer woes...

Mind you, the idle PC [remember, let sleeping dog lie…] that Roberta begun using did provided us with some more adventures.  Last Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) we had our appointment at the US Embassy (part of the drill for Fulbright fellows).  Given we were heading into Dar, we also took the opportunity to pick up a RAM upgrade for Roberta’s PC. [Amazing what 25 years of desktop evolution includes.]  Her 2002 Optiplex Dell had 128 Mbytes of RAM, enough to boot up her computer, but would hardly satisfy a Word/e-mail/internet warrior like Bert.  This is Africa and so we were in pursuit of big game, 1GB as they say around here.  A two hour orientation starting at 9:45 ended at ~2:15; even though it is the US Embassy, we concluded it’s Africa!  At least the embassy event included lunch and air conditioning and we got cool security id cards that will let us in without the long queue in the hot sun. 

Then the RAM upgrade hunt was on.  Our first try brought us past an intersection with a white uniformed policeman directing traffic with a functioning traffic light, which, by the way, the light and policeman were never in harmony.  [I really need to do something with my conventional expectations.]  The policeman was impressive in his traffic dance, given the mid-day heat.  While we were waiting at the intersection a series of motorbikes came up. Some paused, others didn’t, went through the intersection and seamlessly weaved through the cross traffic without raising an eyebrow on the policeman.  Roberta and I again were thankful that we would never drive in this city.  Well the first shop was a bust for the RAM, but they really tried hard to sell us a mouse.  Hmm…  Next on our shopping list was KVD in the heart of downtown.  The KVD shop was hard to find, but in the end it was the real deal.  You walk ten feet into the shop and are faced with floor to waist counters, a six-inch open space and then white painted steel bars to the ceiling.  Behind the counters were floor to ceiling boxes, storage bins and stacks of goods for sale and limited walking space.  The 1GB RAM request was met with the lady pulling open a draw full of printed circuit RAM boards, her sorting through a handful and presenting us with a 1GB board.  We brought the desktop processer with us and after slotting it into the motherboard we said that we wanted to test it.  It was off to the back of the shop, out the door and around the corner.  We were taken to a hot and sweaty room crammed with computer and audio-equipment and two young Africans guys working away on something.  They immediately plug in our computer, unplug their monitor and attempt, unsuccessfully a boot up.  Lots of discussion ensues, where we have no idea what was going on, but our hopes were feeling dashed.  An older fellow, in the alley and working on a partially assembled sound-mixing unit, was called in and he says to bring the processer into his shop.  I was told to follow him into the shop, but was reluctant given the floor was completely covered with various wires, clearly some of which were power supply lines.  After clearing away some space on his workbench, with an amazing degree of heavy handedness, he positions the processer vertically on the bench quickly plugs, pushes, turns and clicks and moments later we see the familiar hard disk on the monitor.  [I immediately deleted any images in my mind of me with an anti-shock wristband and clean hands on the circuit board!]

Hooray, we were back in business!  Now back to the office (after an hour+ on hot, dirty, sweaty roads).  Setting things back up in the office went smoothly and, given the heat and lateness, we decided that tomorrow would be the best time to check things out completely on the PC.  In the morning following the reboot, the computer automatically began requesting updates and this took a good hour or so (and pretty much sucked out all of the download time on Roberta’s modem).  Then the next phase of heartbreak hard disk began.  This PC has more viruses in it than your standard bush clinic.  Attempts to update the virus protection software (last updated Nov 2006) were fruitless.  Insights from Todd in MD and virus protection uploads from various websites were for naught, the software pirates off of the coast of East Africa had boarded our PC and had us hostage.  We wait now (after a 3^rd valiant attempt to repel viruses from Todd failed) for Monday and the crew at UDSM to come up with more help.  We’ll keep you posted, or perhaps look for us on CNN some night.

Now, I might as well tell you about the adventures in shipping. J  Before leaving Italy we packed up a box of books and summer clothes to be shipped to TZ.  [Of course we ran out of time (really we didn’t want to go) and the box left Italy two weeks later on the 9^th of Nov.]  Also, as when we were leaving UMD for TZ we asked Sandy to ship us some books from our offices.  The former was shipped via DHL and the latter via Fedex.  Well, this week brought the joy of the UMD package, which took only ~2 weeks, and provided us with a gift (TOG-Crust) for Shukrani (one of two professors here who we are working with).  The DHL package is a little bit like the computer saga.  Within 3 days it is in TZ at customs (Bologna-Leipzig-London-Nairobi-Dar, wow), where it begins its incarceration.  We could watch it on the web and kept asking DHL about why is being held at customs.  [Now mind you, our Italian hosts paid close to $650 US to ship this package – Roberta and I could readily lift the box, we don’t know why it ended up costing the same as a plane ticket to Dar from Italy!]  Magically, on 25 Nov it is released from Guantanamo-east and could be delivered to us – key word “could”.  Hopes are high on Friday AM, when we read that the box is with the courier.  By mid-afternoon, the DHL website lists the box as being denied by receiver – OMG.  No one here knows anything about the box and someone has been in the Geology office all day.  A call to DHL and the driver says that they tried to deliver it to the wrong address.  They will try again later and not to worry about what the web-tracking info states.  Fears return again when no sight of it on Friday is followed by a Saturday AM listing on the DHL website saying that they are trying to deliver it on the weekend when the campus is closed.  OMG^2!  It wouldn’t be such a problem except that it contains summer clothing that Bill, in particular, is very short on (how many days in a row can/should you wear the same pair of shorts?).  Monday, hopefully, will bring lots of good moments.

Well, enough of these sagas.  Our daily routine is well established, quite like the early evening visit to the back of Geology by the local troop of ververt monkeys and the small group of banded mongooses (or is that mongeese, or mongai?).  [Somebody will probably correct me and tell me that a group of mongooses are referred to as a gaggle or something like that.]  Also, our walks to Mlimani Center always have some interesting sights. Yesterday we saw a beautiful, 2-3 foot tall black-headed heron, who was just watching us until we got within about 25 feet of it; the bird simply flew off and landed another 25 feet or so further away to an area where we were not going to walk past and the bird simply went back to searching the grass.

Then there was Thanksgiving.  We celebrated this fine feasting holiday in grand fashion.  As the Thursday holiday, late afternoon was upon us, Shukrani knocked on our office door and asked if we wanted some tilapia, a new shipment has arrived and his friend is distributing them now.  It was a quick departure from the office.  We drove across campus on this dirt road, down to its southern gate, which somewhat permanently blocks this entrance.  The houses at this gate are homes for some of the staff employed in the University’s Estate department (we’d called it buildings and grounds).  These were some big fish, frozen, but just flew in from Lake Victoria.  A fair number of folks descended on the house just after our arrival.  We purchased one fish (weighing in at 2 kilos) and Shukrani bought two.  I just needed to proudly display the fish in our kitchen before the cooking began!

 Immediately we head home and began the impromptu preparation of our feast.  Scales went flying, as I did my best to imitate Julia Child and prepared the beast.  Two thirds was save as two separate packets for freezing and other meals.  In the end, our feast included Lake Victoria “turkey” (aka tilapia), green beans with carrots and onions, brown rice and baked wheat rolls accompanied by a South African Chenin Blanc.  We were very thankful.

Finally, this weekend we were guests of Makyena Maboko’s at the University’s graduation ceremony.  Makenya, who we did a PhD program together at ANU in the 80s, is the distinguished one in blue regalia below.  Once a year with the start of the new semester in November, the university has a campus-wide graduation ceremony and yesterday’s was for some 4300 students, including about 20 or so PhD students.  We got down to Mlimani Center at 8:25 AM rushing to get into the mall’s restroom in order to change from our sweat-dripping clothes into shirt and tie attire for the formal event.  We then walked over to Mlimani Convention Center, the largest in Dar, for the ceremony and were in our place by 8:35 AM only to read that the formal academic procession would not commence until about 10:00 AM.  The room was easily 98% full with about half of the graduating class (there was an afternoon session too) and about 95% of the family members were outside in the sun surrounding the center listening to event on loudspeaker.   

The start of the ceremony began with the entry of the marching band that played the “Battle hymn of the republic”, complete with a lead carrying 4 foot long golden colored mace (or some sort of academic wand) followed by the bandleader cheerfully waving his baton to the beat (video posted on Facebook).  Members of the band were in full uniform and following them were members of faculty, the common professors, followed by those who were readily recognizable by their feted regalia and later separation on to the front of the stage area, including our friend Makenya, who is a deputy Vice-Chancellor here.  It gave Roberta and I all sorts of ideas to bring back to UMD for our ceremony.  After ducking out of the ceremony following the completion of the conferred PhD degrees, we slipped over to Mlimani Center, bought the standard fare of weekend groceries and for the first time, took a taxi back to our flat, given our fancy dressed condition.

That evening we left our flat and hiked the 20 meters to our next door neighbors place, the Vice Chancellor’s residence, for an evening soiree (smiling with Makenya above) with the upper echelon of the University, as well as staff members and choir singers who all helped to make today’s graduation event a success, as well as a few government ministers.  A fun evening was had and we got to meet lots of folks and dance to African music.  At one time Roberta noted that she would never expect to see our UMD Provost (their Deputy VC for academic affairs – Makenya) or President (their VC) dancing away the evening.  We really enjoyed the night.  The above photo of Makenya and us was taken by the VC; the one below, taken by Roberta includes R. Mukandala, the VC on the left, a most colorful visiting US professor (Beverly Vaughn) from Atlantic City, Bill and Makenya.

I realize that this posting is too long, but there were good and bad highlights to be told.  BTW, we have been reading the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson; they are great books and we highly recommend them (think Christmas gift!).

                        Kwaheri and tutonano, Bill and Roberta