TAN: Maji Safi (Clean Water)

The low background noises of the morning are pierced each day around 7 a.m. by the shrill cry of a woman who seems to be complaining bitterly about her eye. Her call of “Hey, my eye, my eye e.” [my_eye.mp3] was a mystery until I caught sight of her a couple of days ago. Her eyes seemed to be quite fine, but she had a huge stack of egg flats on her head that she was selling. According to Maina, hardboiled eggs are a breakfast staple here.
At some point during the night we ran out of water at Hanif’s. Fortunately we were aware that the tanks were almost empty. Maina arranged for a truck to come by and give us a refill. A canary yellow tanker rumbled up to the gate and after some fiddling with the fittings on the pump, we were in business. Three 2000-liter tanks were filled for $25. The reason for all the tanks is that the municipal water supply is highly unreliable. Coupled with a neighbor closer to the water supply continually cutting the kilometer long pipe that runs to the house, it is easier to fill up tanks.

Some quick repairs on the pump fittings and we were in business. Filling up 6000 liters of water tank.

Maina came by the house at 9:00 a.m. and we headed for the office. Chantal and Sandrine would catch up with us later. My hope was to get some more files uploaded onto the Internet. Once again however, my efforts were thwarted by a dead connection. I was finally able to get underway around 11 a.m.
Chantal and Sandrine’s arrival at the office was quickly followed by Mwanga’s. Vlad popped by for an unexpected visit. He was in town to bring someone to the hospital. We made tentative lunch plans with Vlad and had a long Q and A session with Mwanga to see what sort of projects Sandrine might be able to work on during her stay.
We went over to Mwanga’s office after a quick lunch of matoke, sans Vlad, over at the Falcon. I think we had all imagined the worst about Mwanga’s office and were pleasantly surprised with the sparse, utilitarian feel of the space. The office was in a very well kept compound in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We spent the best part of the afternoon watch some of the projects he had worked on and going through some footage of his family and village far to the north on the Kenyan border. Mwanga has a brother and nine sisters. His father was the chief of security for President Nyerere, but died of complications from ulcer surgery in 1969. Some felt his unexpected death was a politically motivated murder. The highlight of the family footage was Mwanga’s grandmother who is well over 100 years of age. She is still going strong and lives in a traditional hut surrounded by family.

Chantal and Sandrine waiting in the gutter for Mwanga’s driver. Lots of people made comments to us and about us because we were right on the edge of an area where lots of seemingly homeless people camp out. We didn’t understand a word of what they were saying, so it was all lost on us. The offices of Kwanza Productions are spacious and well lit.

The rest of the day was spent computing and communicating. I was able to get my blog caught up at long last. We finally called it quits at 9 p.m. and headed home to make some dinner. We seem to be getting better with our ratatouille. We had some good avocados to start off with and a lovely pineapple to end the meal with.

Ratatouille, its what’s for dinner.