James5

The first few times you walk down any main street in Arusha your bound to be greeted by many ‘Mambo!’s, ‘Hello!’s and handshakes from all the hawkers and street vendors on the lookout for tourists. It seems that quite a few people here are “painters” or own a store that they’d love you to come visit and get a “big discount” at.

photo source: loukreu
On a few occasions, I have struck up a conversation with someone on the street, only to then have them try to sell me something for the next fifteen minutes, during which time the price drops from $25 to $5 as long as you keep saying you don’t want it. At the end of that sort of hard sell it can be hard to say no (we have one dodgy painting in our apartment from this tactic so far).

While it’s easy enough to just walk fast and ignore them and the paintings, newspaper, maps and jewellery that they are selling, it’s hard not to feel rude doing this sometimes.

After three months here, my wife and I are well known enough so that most hawkers don’t bother trying to sell stuff to us on the streets, and the people we see at the market are now comfortable striking up a conversation with us (and giving us non-exploitative prices). In fact, Clare has even managed on a few occasions to sit and chat with some locals after doing some shopping at the markets. Her knowledge of Kiswahilii probably helps in that regard too.

I’ve been told off twice now for being “too busy” and for not replying to a Mambo. So maybe I need to start practising my Kiswahillii – Poa (cool) and hapana sante (no thank-you). Hopefully I won’t be coming home with a too many more dodgy paintings bought at crazy prices.

Popularity: 4% [?]

I was almost run over by a white World Vision SUV today.

It came speeding at me from down a pot-holed, dirt road. My first encounter with the this side of the aid agency world.

Back home in Melbourne, we usually see aid agencies via their marketing machines. Glossy brochures, flashy websites, appeals for donations. In Tanzania, I’ve been able to get a small insight into another perspective – not aid agencies as marketers, but as social welfare agencies.

I haven’t seen any advertisements for sponsorships or donations, or seen any tele-thons, but I have heard one 12 year old boy talk about how great his Canadian sponsors were because it meant he could go to school and maybe study law one day.

I’m not sure that this means much beyond being my anecdotal experience of living outside of a ‘donor country’, and it certainly isn’t enough to change my views, for example, against traditional child sponsorship, but I found it encouraging, especially given how maligned aid agencies are and how easy it is to find fault with them.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Apologies for the bad pun in the title. One of the more noticeable differences between Arusha and life back home is the amount of noise people put up with here, especially at random times of the night and morning.

We live on a street about a 20 minute walk from the city centre, so that probably explains part of the problem, but it also seems that either the locals don’t mind the constant noisy interruptions to their lives, or there is nothing they can do about it.

First, There’s the prayer call, which begins at 5am. It’s pretty loud but often melodic, so usually easy to sleep through. Worse is the habit of local street vendors to use megaphones attached to some sort of tape deck to spruik their products. They set the volume at somewhere past 11, resulting in a garbled, distorted mess of noise broadcast up and down the street. Worst of all is when one of the local radio stations is broadcast over loudspeakers. It always sounds like a combination of crazed speeches and a government propaganda machine – and it feels like the speaker is directly facing at our window. Though it’s all in kiswahili so who knows what they’re saying.

Beyond the abuse from loudspeakers, there is also a range of automotive sounds to put up with too. None of the cars and motor cycles here appear to have mufflers, and drivers also seem to enjoy revving their cars, trucks and transports up and down our road as they try to get up the hill with an overloaded car or truck. The extra weight results in the engine working overtime, producing a massive haze of smoke and noise. The cars also insist on using their horn as their main form of communication. There is one notorious dalla dalla that insists on hooting their horn for about 20 minutes outside our apartment at 7am for no apparent reason.

Finally, the dogs, which sleep throughout the day, roam the streets at night time, creating their own cacophony of barking, growling and fighting. While during the day you wouldn’t think the street was overrun by dogs, judging by the night time sounds there must be a serious over-population of fighting animals here (another reason not to walk the streets at night).

Even with all of the above, though, it’s been a while since I’ve been woken up by noise during the night. A combination of late nights, early mornings and long walks to work appears to have made me slightly more impervious to sleep disturbances – plus consumption of the bastardised ‘gin’ known as Konyagi has been known to help in this regard too.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Just a quick post as I’ve got lots of work to do now here in Chambers.

It’s been hard to find the time to keep updating this blog, especially with confidentiality requirements that means I’m unable to post about the most interesting topics I deal with, but I’ve been doing a lot of tweeting lately, so you could check there if you are interested in a more real time update.

It’s mostly updated during the working week, although not really about the ICTR. Be warned it also contains lots of minutiae, personal messages and random off-topic links.

Popularity: 11% [?]

6:30AM – Wake up itching from mosquito bites last night, get ready and hope to catch the UN shuttle at our front door. At least I get a lovely view of Mount Meru while I’m waiting.

Sometime between 7:30AM and 8:00AM – Either get on the UN shuttle or start a 15 minute walk to the ICTR (let’s hope it’s not raining).

8:20AM – Arrive at the ICTR and quickly move through the ‘security checkpoint’. I’m not sure if sometimes they turn the big scanner off for me, but I’ve had keys, a phone and a massive metal belt buckle all pass through on some occasions with no issues. Also, one Sunday there was no-one manning the checkpoint so we waltzed through without issue.

8:25AM – Pass through the many swipe pads and lock doors and get to my desk on the second floor. The lights can’t be turned off as the office with the light switch is locked and the air-conditioner, though at one point we had it fixed, has failed again.

Before 9:00AM is when the internet is fastest as everyone is still getting to work, so I hurriedly check my e-mails, Facebook and Twitter and maybe even try to upload some photos if I’m feel particularly patient.

9:00AM – Now I’ve actually got start work. In my first two weeks there wasn’t a whole heap to do, but now things are slowly ramping up. So far I’ve had research tasks – e.g. how the Chamber has previously dealt with a certain motion; going through transcripts tasks – e.g. to take notes on witness testimony; and general administrative tasks like compiling a series of reports done by the interns on a recent Chambers’ retreat.

A substantial portion of this work time is also spent struggling with my computer and extremely slow internet connection.

12:00 – Time for lunch. This can vary from a trip out to ‘Immigration Café’ (TSH1,500) or Masai Café (TSH6,500) or maybe even Picasso’s Café (only if I’m feeling particularly generous to myself, TSH10,000). Or it’s avocado and peanut butter & banana sandwiches, samosas (TSH500) and some cake (TSH1,500).

And then it’s back to work for another few hours. I’m now on to actually drafting decisions on motions, which is quite exciting and at times overwhelming when you think about what it is you are writing.

5:30PM – Head down to the UN shuttle departure area and try to work out if any shuttle is going near Fire Rd. This usually takes upwards of half an hour and is very frustrating. I also once took a shuttle that went in an entirely different direction and it ended up taking about an hour to get home. These days I’m usually too frustrated to navigate the shuttle maze and end up taking a brisk walk home. Brisk walks are better than slow walks as they signal to the street hawkers that you won’t be buying any of their artwork today, although now many of them remark to me how I’m always too busy.

6:00PM – Home again, but not before I pick up our five liters of drinking water (TSH1800) to last us through the next two days.

Popularity: 9% [?]