TAN: Sandrine Arrives

Maina arrived at 9 a.m. to take us over to a house in the area that he had looked at previously. It turned out to be right around the corner from Hanif’s. Although the house would need a great deal of clean up, it was much better than the one we had looked at in Msasani. The only thing preventing Maina from getting the house is the owner insisting that he have his work permit. To date the permit has been held up in the Ministry of Labor. Every time we had enquired about it, the response had been that it would be out in a day or two. Eventually we gave up on asking.
Back at the office, we ran into Jack, who seemingly knows everyone. He did indeed think he knew the owner of the house and agreed to see what he could do to smooth things over. He also agreed to see what he could do to speed along Maina’s work permit.
We worked for a bit before heading over to the airport to pick up Chantal’s friend Sandrine. We were delayed a bit by the motorcade for the former president. Fortunately Sandrine had only just emerged from the terminal when we arrived. The white-knuckle ride back to the DTP office didn’t make a very good impression on any of us.

Have seen this little guy on many gas tank covers. Not sure how well the cars would run on his loving offerings of urine.

You can get everything you need from the street vendors at all the major intersections. A small sampling might include soap, mugs, towels, plush toys, coffee makers, hair trimmers, plastic toys, TV antennas, rolling tables, hand tools, car jacks, bags of water, and countless other things. A wide variety of TV antennas are available on the roadside.

Sandrine wasn’t in the best of spirits after a roundabout trip from Paris via Bahrain and an overnight stay in Oman. After a bit more work at the office we headed back to Micocheni. We decided that leaving during rush hour wasn’t such a good idea. The taxi driver, although agreeing two 3000 shillings at our embarkation point decided at our destination that 3500 would be better for the really long distance. We left him grumbling with 3000. A two-hour power outage began immediately after our arrival. The house wasn’t all that pleasant without the fans running. We started dinner in the dark and were happy to have the lights and fan back on for the end of it. I spent the rest of the evening reading and working on the computer.