My last week in Tanzania

Trip Start Aug 13, 2006
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Trip End Nov 13, 2006


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Monday, November 13, 2006

So my last week in Dar was spent helping Ruth go to the police office since her wallet was stolen the night we got back from Zanzibar.  When Ruth woke up, and found out her wallet was missing, we called Kari immediately.  He tells us that he'll send Yuster, his wife over.  An hour and a half later, after turning the house upside down to make sure someone didn't stash it somewhere, Yuster (sounds like yus'TA) still hasn't shown up.  So we go to the police station for Bahari, which is about 300 feet down the road.  Now my swahili is decent, but the police officers didn't speak any english, so after we explain what happened, they send us to "the main" police station.  we start off on a bike taxi, but it starts to pour, so i call my friend Gerald, who English is impeccable.  He drives us over to the Tegeta police station, meanwhile, Karis is no longer answering his phone, so there is no help from him.  Thank goodness for Gerald, he is AMAZING!, he translates for us, and helps us out the entire time
01. The Gang
01. The Gang
.  SO the Tegeta police tell us that we have to go downtown to pay a 2000tsh fee, then we can come back to fill out the form.  GRRR, the African effeciency, so we drive another hour to DAR's police station, where Gerald bribes the police officer with 2000tsh to just write the report there, instead of making us drive another hour BACK to tegeta.  He was awesome.  Just as we getting the form, Nellie calls us, and tells us that they "found" the wallet. 
We race back to the house, and Nellie tells us that the gardener "found it" in her clothes pile. But Ruth was smart enough to take pictures of everything, and the it was obvious that the gardener pretended to find it in her clothes, so we showed Nellie the pictures and told her that he was lying.  So she says that she is going to fire him. Well and hour later, after she talked to him, he's still hanging around the house, and we're all about to leave, so we tell Nellie that he has to leave NOW, b/c nothing is safe with him here. He was our guard/gardener, and we can't even trust him.  So until he goes, nobody leaves the house.  So she finally told him that he had to leave, and if he came back, she's call the police.
Now I didn't find this out till later, but the punishment for stealing, according to unspoken local law, is to be doused in gasoline, confined with a car tire, and burned to death.  It's true, it happened, several times while I was there, thank goodness I didn't see it
02. Like, Oh my gosh, Look at my HENNA
02. Like, Oh my gosh, Look at my HENNA
.
After that, the rest of the week, I just packed, and repacked trying to fit everything in,  hung out at the beach, went to the movies, and said goodbye.  I was sad to leave, sad to leave the amazing people I met, sad to leave Bagamoyo which was an incredible experience.  If I had been there the whole time, instead of working with a corrupt organization, I think my experience and feelings about it would be entirely different.  But I guess it's part of the experience, taking the good with the not so easy. Now as I look back, it was an amazing trip, and I would reccommend the Zukri Foundation as a volunteer site to anyone.  Africa is amazing, and I learned so much about myself, and the culture. 
As an American, I used to have this outlook on Africa as "oh, poor poor people, let's give them all the things I think they need", but this experience showed me that these people are content with their lives, yes they may need help, but who am I to tell them what they need?  I learned that they are the best judges of what they need, and sometimes, though I make think they need help, they are content with what they have.  Something I hope I will take with me.
If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me!
Good luck, and I hope what I saw will inspire you to see it for yourself.
Dar es Salaam hotels Slideshow

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