Here Comes the Sun

When Anande reached out about me coming back to Tanzania this year, I picked October as the month because it gave me enough to prepare AND it was the end of the dry season with the jacaranda in bloom.

The most important part of that sentence are the words “dry season”.

The sky should be bright and the ground should be dry!

It is supposed to be the dry season. The short rainy season shouldn’t start until the week after I leave, with the occasional short shower leading up to it. However, Mother Nature had other plans. Maybe it’s the cabin fever or maybe it’s because I just think it’s hilarious and I can’t stop laughing about it, but I began to compose those fake Civil War letter tweets to myself.

Dearest Martha,

It has been five days, 13 hours, and 26 minutes since I last saw the sun. The solar power is getting low, and I am now resigned to taking cold showers as a result. It would be warmer to run naked through the rain but apparently my neighbours have a problem with that.

Dearest Martha,

Due to circumstances, I am forced to wear proper shoes instead of my beloved flip-flops. My only hope is that I grow webbing between my toes to make the 20-meter commute easier. No one tells you about the out-of-season rain, Martha, and I feel that I have been lied to… despite this not being the first time I have experienced out-of-season rain.

Dearest Martha,

Today, I told the locals that even the mzungu was cold. They laughed. Then they told me to drink more kahawa and chai to warm up. But drinking so much I pee on my leg every 10 minutes isn’t going to solve the problem which is that everything is cold and damp.

Even with the downpours, patrons and students still found their way to the library.

Part of this is of my own making. Playing the odds and making room for all the donation items I was bringing, I cut out pretty much all my warm clothes options. Heck, it was just a last-minute decision that I’d want jeans on when I got off the plane coming home that means I even have a pair of pants to wear during these cold days. My jeans that I left in my knapsack because I wasn’t going to need them until my trip home.

On the upside, while it was still lightly raining when I woke up, it has stopped since and the sky is bright. There is still a cloud cover, but it’s not the dark clouds we’ve had for the last week. I am optimistically hopeful that the sun forecasted for Sunday might arrive a little early. Goodness knows, we could all use it.

UPDATE: When I wrote this, we were without power and Internet. Since then, both have returned along with the sun! Sing it with me, folks!

The other downer is that I had to cancel my weekend trip to Kigali. Well, didn’t have to, but it made sense. In my jetlagged state upon arrival, I forgot to ask for a multi-entry visa. It’s an extra $50US, but that’s what would allow me to leave for a weekend and come back. Instead, I got a single-entry visa which means that if I leave Tanzania, I must reapply for a whole new visa upon re-entry. That’s $250US because I need to have a Business visa even for unpaid volunteer work.

The staff get a delivery of hot tea (chai) every morning. The milk comes straight from the cow.
Luckily, the tea is brewed in the milk as the milk is heated so my stomach doesn't rebel as result.

Every time I come here, I think that maybe this is the time I just do the paper work for a Class C Residents Permit. That would mean 5 years of being able to come and go without getting a visa every time, but the paper work to get a Class C Residents Permit is a pain in the rear and I’d have to go to Dar es Salaam for part of it because I’m not actually living here for those years, and if I have to leave before the process is done – highly likely – then the whole thing gets scuttled and I’m back to square one on my next trip anyway.

Went for a walk today (Sunday) around Ngongongare and ran into two of my
coworkers, Rena and Liz, as they were coming from from church.

At any rate, I spoke with people who know the visa situation in Tanzania better than I do and reviewed all the options. When time and money was factored in, they were all too much: too much time going in and out of Arusha in the hopes they might change my visa to multiple entry, too much money to get a new business visa for only a week and a half of volunteer time left.

I’m disappointed, but I’ll survive.

Just another reason to come back!

Happy Sunday, Everyone!