Crtd 06-02-28 Lastedit 08-09-12

Putting The Mast

Wednesday 060222
The morning after my a imprisonment and grilling I call my lawyer, starting to say we are probably tapped and listened in right now, and ask him whether my purchase of a dhow with a visitor's visa is legal. He understands the game and elegantly mentions the law paragraphs under which I am legally operating.
Then, I buy, after a quick chaotic motorcycle tour through town - to shake off possible followers - a second cell phone with a new SIM card. My car, now a security risk because the Mwanza crime scene was allowed  as public during the full detailed investigation of it in the police court yard, only leaves the Mwanza Yacht Club compound for bringing my staff saa moja morning and taking them home saa moja evening. My  "police" phone stays in the car. Its plotting will show I am bringing and collecting my staff (this is legal, according to my lawyer), and the rest of the day I sit at Mwanza Yacht Club

Thursday 060223
We work on deck, we continue the struggle to get our box of Sikaflex (deck caulking kit) out of the claws of the customs officers which is reported on a separate page (Sika Struggle) to avoid making our story as chaotic to the reader as it was to us.
On my way to collect my staff at sunset, after work, saa moja, I spot Gabriel, walking home in agitated march tempo. He has worries, he says. Marching home is his way to cope. He complains Daniel is slow. Daniels wife "has too many words", he does not want to stay there any more. He worries about his children's school fees, his job as a reverend, and his wife at home. I tell him I have other problems now, but will help him as soon as I can. My indignation about Daniel reaches record level: Daniel, having cheated, lied, broken a contract, is helped out by his brother Gabriel from what should be the most serious and dangerous problem ever in his life. Then he starts misbehaving to this brother and even refuses to discipline his wife. And imagine: Gabriel moves to the house of a colleague reverend and keeps helping Daniel to get out of his predicament.

Friday 060224
In the morning, Gabriel, after I dropped them, keeps me talking at the dhow site. It does help if I say this is dangerous. The stories are chaotic, the questions have no relevance to him or his work, the worries for the different types of dangers we are facing are wrongly proportioned, he even is unaware of the most important ones and deeply ponders completely imaginary dangers. Gabriel, I conclude, is unsuitable for his role as my head of building in this crisis period, what do I want? A good man, and a reverend! It even is a miracle he is still alive in the Tanzanian eco niche. But there is no alternative. Daniel is a thug and a fool, and the rest are fools anyway. I try to buy Gabriel out of his confused overly verbal agony by putting my brightest face ever, telling him he should not worry, I am in control, he should just make sure the boat sails Monday, and promising him to pay the euro 350 school fee debt for his children. It works. He cheers up.
On returning to MYC from the mooring site I meet Philemon and his men. I turn, and bring them to the dhow. I think I spot officers. Philemon sets his intelligence out and finds they are not.
In Hotel Tilapia I tell Mandjit they will find nothing in the seized property and that the case will die.
Mandjit: do not let it die. I go with you to regional commissioner (RC, direct deputy of president in Mwanza region) next Tuesday.

Saturday 060225
We buy some more wood for the small boat Gabriel is going to build for me. Work at the rudder.

Sunday 060226
Daniel and Gabriel do not work. They fear police, but apparently fear God more. Philemon and his men, Muslims, working seven days a week, also on their holy day, continue preparing mast and gaff. I join them, but not long, to evade being spotted there doing something, which immigration insists on considering illegal. The rest of the Sunday I spend with Eberhardt and Ingrid. They were my neighbouring campers at Mwanza Yacht Club. Arrived from a bad and long mud road journey at the Mwanza Yacht Club Camp Site with their customized Volkswagen diesel (watch, on the photo below, the five 20 litre jerry cans of diesel mounted port side of the car!). Eberhardt caught and prepared some sato (tilapia) and I did have many a good moment off from my monkey taming job. Eberhardt is 79, Ingrid 71.

Photo: in the midst of the ordeal with Tanzanian police and immigration,
Eberhardt catches and prepares me a sato

Monday 060227
Work on mast foot beam, deck, floor. 
Treasurer Mushi of Mwanza Yacht Club tried to convince me I should behave restrained and respectful. When I stubbornly kept saying these were guys that could not be left behaving as they did, he fell out of his role. To convince me of the danger I was in, he told me that he himself, the treasurer of Mwanza Yacht Club, was intimidated by Mwanza Yacht Club members to "stay clear of the mzungu, not to help him". Other formerly reserved MYC board members radically shift to enacted joviality, clearly to make sure I would not think they were involved. [Surfboard on Tanzania Immigration harassment]

Photo: Philemon (left) teaches my mentally deficient contractor Daniel how to make a mast foot beam (mustamu)

Tuesday 060228
Morning: we put the mast!, Eberhardt and Ingrid leave.

Photo: for raising the mast. Gabriel 3d from left. Daniel (2nd from right) felt he had to pay the same wage p.p. as for launching: TSh 10 000 ($9). The men deemed the job harder. And who was in charge? Philemon! (not shown)

Putting the mast, I later heard (I was on the airport for the sikaflex struggle), created anxiety if not outright panic. Philemon was in the lead and had to discipline Gabriel half way, who started to shout: "Somebody is going to die here today, I feel it!". The mast had to be half erected on the deck, then lowered through the deck to the keel, then put upright completely.

Photo: final result, mast mounted on mustamu

Wednesday 060301
Mwanza Yacht Club Commodore Oscar Munisi fakes surprise at my information of my arrest. Not only is it unlikely he does not know what the whole club is talking about, he also is a very bad actor. Then, he decides to go for the statement "If you are clean you have nothing to fear", suddenly displaying a surprisingly deep trust in the entire Tanzanian government machine for someone who had said, unasked, after my first arrest by immigration on November 30 that this arrest must have been solely inspired by the desire to get some money from the mzungu. Of course, nobody will hear me say Oscar Munisi's brains, acting talent and courage fall short of enabling him to be Commodore of Mwanza Yacht Club, but if some experienced Tanzanians would infer this from the facts I would not be surprised.

Thursday 060302
Mandjit makes an appointment for me with the regional commissioner for Mo 10:00. We buy more wood for dhow and small boat, I run out of money and cannot wire to my Mwanza account because police had seized my e-bank security calculator. My parents wire me enough to bribe all thugs in Mwanza. disclaimer Bill Geach, English head of a security company and hiring out race-fishing boats from MYC, where he even is the beach master board member, reports I now suddenly have to apply for mooring and the mood in the board is “fifty fifty”. Of course, now having seen the deplorable lack of civilized morality of the typical adult male negro in the hard core of the club, my own mood is considerably lower than that. I will not apply. I leave the licking of their asses to Bill Geach of Knight Security. He needs the mooring there. I do not.

Friday 060303
Saa moja. Only Doi is in time. Gabriel’s cell phone even off. Daniel is too late I let him walk.
So, I leave the mooring site, dropping Doi only. It seems we are not anymore afraid of police. Otherwise we would be in time. On return to MYC Gabriel calls me. I do not even answer the phone. Daniel later turns out to have carefully concocted a fine lie to explain himself. Since I have enough trouble I fake understanding. I prepare for a quiet day at MYC and behind one of the Hotel Tilapia computers now storing my temporary files. I decide not to call police Mgussa to ask why he delays returning my property before I have Brinkhorst, a ship builder charged by the Dutch Embassy in Tanzania to represent the Dutch in Mwanza. I plan to go with a computer expert and Brinkhorst to retrieve the seized property.