Two of the three main stages in acquiring the car have been achieved, i.e. we have chosen the car and sent the money to pay for it. Unfortunately the money has not yet arrived, so (understandably enough) the vendor isn’t keen for me to take it away. So now I sit and wait in the lobbies of hotels or in friends’ spare rooms, whiling away the time. Suze has had to go back to Mtwara to get on with work, whereas my work, or the little that I have, is flexible enough to be done from anywhere with an internet connection.
We managed a trip to a water park called "Wet ‘n’ Wild" on Saturday, which was fun and/or funny, partly by virtue of the fact that we never thought we’d do something like that. I have always felt a certain amount of (I’ll admit it) snobbery about theme parks. Whenever colleagues or neighbours have announced they are flying all the way to Florida to visit Disneyworld I can’t help thinking that’s odd. I would travel for hours to avoid such a place, the idea of travelling all night and spending a thousand pounds so that your kids can get wet/sunburnt in a queue that is essentially indistinguishable from the queues at Alton Towers is somewhat perplexing. However, it seemed like it could pass an afternoon, not usually the way I like to choose leisure activities, but we needed to wait for the banks to reopen. So off we went.
The attraction of a water park is certainly increased in 30C heat, and from a training point of view it had a fantastic benefit in the shape of a huge hoop-shaped pool that must have been almost 200m in circumference. This was a great chance to practise a few of the things that I’ve been trying in drills or in a small pool, and compare times over about 3 minutes of continual swimming. The park, it must be said, would not have been allowed in Britain, for reasons quite apart from being named after a local brand of prophylactic. Pointy things were to be found in too many places, the water was dirty and the floor uneven, but I guess these things serve to give another perspective on the balance of safety/responsibility/nanny state (delete according to when you last read the Daily Mail) which we have currently in GB. But the flumes were pretty well maintained and the water provided welcome cooling. I think there was also a dancing competition, which involved numerous bikini-clad teenage girls gyrating provocatively in an open-plan shower, but with hindsight I wonder if that was just the Larium affecting my head??
I have also been to the local gym, where day membership is a bargain and the equipment is almost spanking new, and have read cover-to-cover a relatively recent copy of the Guardian. This sort of thing becomes a great luxury after months away. As do cheese, bacon and good coffee. And incidentally, if this post is starting to become boring, that’s partly intentional, as I am bored. Fingers crossed for some good financial news today...
[A few days pass while the internet connection is fairly rubbish]
I have returned to Mtwara, and in accordance with Murphy’s Law, received a call about 24 hours after I arrived here to say the money has cleared, when do I want to pick up the motor? Fortunately I have another trip to Dar already arranged through some work I’m doing for the African Palliative Care Association, so can collect in about 3 days’ time.
To balance this, a small piece of good luck. We have been learning to take on the local fish market (soko samaki). It’s not far from our house and the fish (and vegetables) on sale are fairly cheap, but it is noisy/busy to the point of being mildly frightening and the stench of fish guts drying on a hot beach is quite unforgettable. You take a deep breath as you walk in, both literally and metaphorically. The way it seems to work is that the fishermen come in, and auction off their catch to local women (We have never even tried to take part in this). The women then give them a quick clean and, depending on which way the wind is blowing, either sell them on fish by fish at a small mark up, or refuse to sell them for any price. I think.
The best fish that we’ve found so far is the "kori kori"; it’s tasty, has big (ie easily found) bones and is big enough to feed two. It is the opposite in all these ways of the "changu" (small, spiky bones, floury, not good). So when a woman turned up at my door today with a bucket of lovely fresh kori kori (or Corrie Corrie?) and offered to sell them for 500 TSH less than I usually pay, there didn’t seem any point bargaining for a lower price, even if I did have to gut them myself.
Finally hats off to our clever friend Jillian who has pointed out (re: the previous post) that the Escudo was itself a nearly-worthless coin in circulation in Portugal, before the arrival of the (currently far-from-worthless) Euro. If only my general knowledge had stretched this far I could probably have tied the last post up with a witty play on the word Escudo, if only.
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Thursday, 22 January 2009
The price of everything, the value of nothing
We have found ourselves in possession of a large handful of 5 shilling coins, thanks to a mini-market not having any 50 shilling coins to give in change. In fact chengi (change, many Swahili words are English words with an “I” on the end) is often as hard to come by in Tanzania as it is in WRVS shops of British hospitals. So in theory having some small coins in your pocket should be useful, but there’s small and then there’s pointless. The 5 shilling piece may (I am pretty sure they do not mint anything smaller here) be the lowest value piece of money I have ever held. I would put it forward as a candidate for the most worthless piece of money outside Zimbabwe. I mean this is seriously “Pass the blowtorch” territory, as the metal it is made of must be worth more than 5 shillings. Dinner here will typically cost about 10,000, which is also the largest denomination in circulation. A single mango (having been picked from a wild tree and then transported about 10km by ancient bicycle, i.e. almost no cost of labour involved) costs 100-200. Most shops and restaurants, regardless of whether they have ever seen you before or even if they don’t know you from Adam (or Mohammed depending on their favoured mythology) will ignore the last 100 shillings either way, instead smiling and promising to make it good next time. A car costs anything from 10 to 40 million. In other words, 5 shillings is about as much good as a farthing is in London today, whereas if you “max-out” at the ATM you actually cannot close your wallet, the wad is so thick.
If it sounds as though I am going to go on and link this in some clever way to Britain’s continuing refusal to join the EU or the imminent collapse of the US dollar, then sorry to disappoint but I’m not. This isn’t thought for the day, who apparently did their first Humanist TFTD recently, about chuffing time. But no punchline or message here. I’m just observing the value of stuff, and maybe thinking that the Tz government could do with melting down all the 5 shilling coins and printing a 50,000 or 100,000 note, for instance.
In other financial news, we have found and bought a car. I was all set up to get a Nissan Patrol, and looking forward to this, my first legitimate excuse to drive an enormous 4x4. Because I am human and I am a bloke, so as much as my green ethics made me despise SUV drivers in London, my testosterone still gives me a firm, male bonding type boot in the arse relating to big butch vehicles. And living at the end of an unmade road which is full of potholes and rocks in the dry season and massively worse when it rains, is exactly what high, long-wheel-base 4x4s are actually good for. Then, at the last moment, Suze and I got lost and accidentally found Lara, and she gently shook me out of my macho dreams. Lara (as in Croft, natch’) is a Suzuki Escudo (called the Vitara in GB, I think) with proper 4x4 including the low-ratio option that always used to cause Land Rovers to stall, in my memory. Air con, five doors, decent luggage space and a bloody good stereo, roughly in order of importance. And the fact that she has a piddly 2 litre engine instead of the 4.2l turbocharged monster that drove the Patrol had to be put aside as she is in almost showroom-new condition, with 5 new tyres and about 2/3 the cost of the Nissan. [Sigh] The midlife crisis will have to wait another year or two.
If it sounds as though I am going to go on and link this in some clever way to Britain’s continuing refusal to join the EU or the imminent collapse of the US dollar, then sorry to disappoint but I’m not. This isn’t thought for the day, who apparently did their first Humanist TFTD recently, about chuffing time. But no punchline or message here. I’m just observing the value of stuff, and maybe thinking that the Tz government could do with melting down all the 5 shilling coins and printing a 50,000 or 100,000 note, for instance.
In other financial news, we have found and bought a car. I was all set up to get a Nissan Patrol, and looking forward to this, my first legitimate excuse to drive an enormous 4x4. Because I am human and I am a bloke, so as much as my green ethics made me despise SUV drivers in London, my testosterone still gives me a firm, male bonding type boot in the arse relating to big butch vehicles. And living at the end of an unmade road which is full of potholes and rocks in the dry season and massively worse when it rains, is exactly what high, long-wheel-base 4x4s are actually good for. Then, at the last moment, Suze and I got lost and accidentally found Lara, and she gently shook me out of my macho dreams. Lara (as in Croft, natch’) is a Suzuki Escudo (called the Vitara in GB, I think) with proper 4x4 including the low-ratio option that always used to cause Land Rovers to stall, in my memory. Air con, five doors, decent luggage space and a bloody good stereo, roughly in order of importance. And the fact that she has a piddly 2 litre engine instead of the 4.2l turbocharged monster that drove the Patrol had to be put aside as she is in almost showroom-new condition, with 5 new tyres and about 2/3 the cost of the Nissan. [Sigh] The midlife crisis will have to wait another year or two.
Sunday, 4 January 2009
No news is good news
As I believe Suze has mentioned below, the usual greeting in East Africa is “Jambo”. This is an abbreviation of “Hujambo?” meaning, fairly literally, “Nothing happening?” The polite reply is “Sijambo” meaning “No, nothing happening for me.” No news, then, is definitely regarded as good news. However, not only is this the polite reply, it is more or less the only reply. It is usual to say a few words to anyone with whom you interact, along the lines of “Hello, I hope there’s no news/nothing is happening today/nothing happened on your journey” etc, and the reply is always to say that nothing is happening, everything is fine and your journey was good. Even if said journey was actually delayed 5 hours like our flight here, or whatever other misfortune may have befallen you, you say it is all fine.
So, when yesterday we went to swim off the same pier we have swum from before, and met the Security guy who is always sitting at the end of it, we said Hi and established that nothing was happening for him, nor to us, and nothing had happened on the way there, etc. Marvellous.
So we proceeded to dump our towels on the concrete pier and remove shoes, shorts and other chattels, only to look up and see the Askari (security) making his way down the pier to speak to us again. Between us we had a little Swahili and he a little English, and gradually we understood that the police were on their way; “one man dead in water now”, he explained while pointing to an empty and unattended fishing canoe. I distinctly remember how he stressed there was one man dead, as if we might still want to swim providing there weren’t more of them. Or perhaps it was just that, even though this wasn’t quite nothing happening, it was still better (i.e. less) news than 2 or more men dead.
We walked away a little shocked, although relieved to have been told the small (?) but undeniably bad news before we swam out and saw the figure on the sea bed. Eventually we came to realise that this is, while no doubt a great loss to his family, still small news, locally speaking. I guess the thing is that very few people here have pensions, and almost nobody has the “opportunity” to die in a nice clean bed in a retirement home, or whatever other euphemism you want to use for such a place. We’ll never know for sure, but he was probably not the mid-20’s drowning victim you read about in the British local press, most likely he was a elderly fisherman, who had fished here for decades. But everybody’s heart stops beating eventually, and for whatever reason his had done so while he stood up in a canoe.
Finally, so as not to end on a negative, and following the unprecedented success of the “name that fruit” competition (apparently it was a sweetsop, by the way): a mystery object round. What is this? This time we know the answer, so I can give a clue or two. Most households locally have one, but despite this the Bajaji driver was amused that I had bought one. I’ll even tell you its name, it’s an mbuzi.
[Darn it, picture to follow... You have no idea how unsophisticated the 'net connections are out here. Someone give tell the mule to walk faster, I can't upload!]
So, when yesterday we went to swim off the same pier we have swum from before, and met the Security guy who is always sitting at the end of it, we said Hi and established that nothing was happening for him, nor to us, and nothing had happened on the way there, etc. Marvellous.
So we proceeded to dump our towels on the concrete pier and remove shoes, shorts and other chattels, only to look up and see the Askari (security) making his way down the pier to speak to us again. Between us we had a little Swahili and he a little English, and gradually we understood that the police were on their way; “one man dead in water now”, he explained while pointing to an empty and unattended fishing canoe. I distinctly remember how he stressed there was one man dead, as if we might still want to swim providing there weren’t more of them. Or perhaps it was just that, even though this wasn’t quite nothing happening, it was still better (i.e. less) news than 2 or more men dead.
We walked away a little shocked, although relieved to have been told the small (?) but undeniably bad news before we swam out and saw the figure on the sea bed. Eventually we came to realise that this is, while no doubt a great loss to his family, still small news, locally speaking. I guess the thing is that very few people here have pensions, and almost nobody has the “opportunity” to die in a nice clean bed in a retirement home, or whatever other euphemism you want to use for such a place. We’ll never know for sure, but he was probably not the mid-20’s drowning victim you read about in the British local press, most likely he was a elderly fisherman, who had fished here for decades. But everybody’s heart stops beating eventually, and for whatever reason his had done so while he stood up in a canoe.
Finally, so as not to end on a negative, and following the unprecedented success of the “name that fruit” competition (apparently it was a sweetsop, by the way): a mystery object round. What is this? This time we know the answer, so I can give a clue or two. Most households locally have one, but despite this the Bajaji driver was amused that I had bought one. I’ll even tell you its name, it’s an mbuzi.
[Darn it, picture to follow... You have no idea how unsophisticated the 'net connections are out here. Someone give tell the mule to walk faster, I can't upload!]
Ironman: He once turned to steel, in a huge magnetic field.
Who’d have thought that Ozzy Osbourne could become television’s most celebrated and endearing mumbling drunk, as well as arguably heavy metal’s most iconic frontman*, with such a flawed comprehension of atomic structures?
I am not turning into steel, more like turning into a fluid as it is sometimes impossible to tell where the sweat stops and the triathlete starts. But with all due modesty I think I’m toughening up a little. Although I don’t have the kit here to test it, I’d say that I’ve lost a couple of kilo’s and that body fat levels are now closer to my aged-mid-twenty’s 11 or 12% than my early-thirty’s 14-15%.
Incidentally, I think I have “disclaimered” these IM blogs before as probably of no interest to anyone I know, or anyone I don’t except perhaps another triathlete who has stumbled across this column. I predict that this will continue so I wouldn’t bother reading this if you are unlikely to do the whole swim-bike-run thing yourself. Speaking of which, I have been asked (although thankfully not often) the question: Why do an Ironman?
There is no answer to this. If somebody asks the question, in my opinion, they will not understand the answer. I never asked anyone why and I never had to know why. I was initially amazed/borderline horrified by the idea. Amazement gradually became awe and then inspiration, and there was a very swift transition (pardon the pun) in my head from the moment when I thought “maybe I could” to the realisation that “in that case I must”. There was and is no “why”.
So, without further ado, an update. Cycling is a delight. The roads are open and mixed providing opportunities both to practise and then challenge good technique. Drivers generally leave reasonable space as they pass – certainly no worse than in Britain – and use their horns, to my amazement, the way the Highway Code suggests: As a brief warning of their presence rather than an irate and futile audio-punishment. My mountain bike is ideal for the dust or gravel roads I am riding on, and I glide easily past most other cyclists, perhaps unsurprisingly with Hope hydraulics, ShimaNO XT/XTR and RaceFace bits which seemed cool in GB. Now they feel a little odd/conspicuous considering the bolts which hold my wheels on cost more than a local bike… The air movement over the face and body helps to keep you cool even in the heat of the day, although fluid intake is important/difficult, and when you stop or slow down you are aware of an almost constant thirst. I’ll have to get some electrolyte drink sorted for longer sorties, or Stokers’ cramp becomes near-inevitable. Yet another reason I wish our freight were here with sports nutrition products and bicycle spares, but we’ll be unlikely to see that for another month or two. Last ride I ran out of fluid and ended up stopping to buy fruit from a woman with a roadside stall. I was pretty sure she said mangoes were TSH100 each (5 pence, although not the highest grade of mango it must be said), so having a 200 coin handy I got two. She looked puzzled, and with hindsight I am not sure if I under- or over-paid for them. I guess I will never know, and it doesn’t change the fruit; which in my limited knowledge of both Swahili and physics makes her the Schrödinger’s kitten of roadside fruit vendors.
Swimming makes slow progress, in every sense, but I have learnt to love progress of any kind in this discipline. Recently had to do a 200m-ish open water swim as part of my ongoing SCUBA certificate (more of which will appear soon in the other blog sections, no doubt). This was a good chance to have decisions and worries removed for a moment and swim out into deep water under pressure. It was tiring by the end, which clearly 200m should not be, but for now I am content to finish it without ever feeling in danger, and reassure myself that I’ll have 6 months more training, and a wetsuit, on the day.
Running has become the most arduous of the three, which is surprising. I start out as a decent runner, with a half-marathon time that is out of reach of most amateurs. In theory I need only push my durations bit by bit while maintaining anything close to the same pace. In the real world, the intensity of the heat and humidity here, coupled with a “road” surface that European runners would call “cross country” make anything beyond 40 minutes seem intimidating. But to take the positives again, I do not yet need to go further in my training plan, and the humidity should subside after Feb/March’s rains.
Finally, I must mention the continuing support of the Mrs. She hasn’t asked “why” but has offered encouragement and ideas all the way. Recently she has secured access to a plastic kayak, immediately volunteering to paddle alongside me to support and reassure on occasional longer swims.
*If I ever discover that the rumours of Bruce Dickinson being an Olympic standard fencer are true, then he may outdo Ozzy in this respect, but Black Sabbath will always eclipse Iron Maiden artistically.
I am not turning into steel, more like turning into a fluid as it is sometimes impossible to tell where the sweat stops and the triathlete starts. But with all due modesty I think I’m toughening up a little. Although I don’t have the kit here to test it, I’d say that I’ve lost a couple of kilo’s and that body fat levels are now closer to my aged-mid-twenty’s 11 or 12% than my early-thirty’s 14-15%.
Incidentally, I think I have “disclaimered” these IM blogs before as probably of no interest to anyone I know, or anyone I don’t except perhaps another triathlete who has stumbled across this column. I predict that this will continue so I wouldn’t bother reading this if you are unlikely to do the whole swim-bike-run thing yourself. Speaking of which, I have been asked (although thankfully not often) the question: Why do an Ironman?
There is no answer to this. If somebody asks the question, in my opinion, they will not understand the answer. I never asked anyone why and I never had to know why. I was initially amazed/borderline horrified by the idea. Amazement gradually became awe and then inspiration, and there was a very swift transition (pardon the pun) in my head from the moment when I thought “maybe I could” to the realisation that “in that case I must”. There was and is no “why”.
So, without further ado, an update. Cycling is a delight. The roads are open and mixed providing opportunities both to practise and then challenge good technique. Drivers generally leave reasonable space as they pass – certainly no worse than in Britain – and use their horns, to my amazement, the way the Highway Code suggests: As a brief warning of their presence rather than an irate and futile audio-punishment. My mountain bike is ideal for the dust or gravel roads I am riding on, and I glide easily past most other cyclists, perhaps unsurprisingly with Hope hydraulics, ShimaNO XT/XTR and RaceFace bits which seemed cool in GB. Now they feel a little odd/conspicuous considering the bolts which hold my wheels on cost more than a local bike… The air movement over the face and body helps to keep you cool even in the heat of the day, although fluid intake is important/difficult, and when you stop or slow down you are aware of an almost constant thirst. I’ll have to get some electrolyte drink sorted for longer sorties, or Stokers’ cramp becomes near-inevitable. Yet another reason I wish our freight were here with sports nutrition products and bicycle spares, but we’ll be unlikely to see that for another month or two. Last ride I ran out of fluid and ended up stopping to buy fruit from a woman with a roadside stall. I was pretty sure she said mangoes were TSH100 each (5 pence, although not the highest grade of mango it must be said), so having a 200 coin handy I got two. She looked puzzled, and with hindsight I am not sure if I under- or over-paid for them. I guess I will never know, and it doesn’t change the fruit; which in my limited knowledge of both Swahili and physics makes her the Schrödinger’s kitten of roadside fruit vendors.
Swimming makes slow progress, in every sense, but I have learnt to love progress of any kind in this discipline. Recently had to do a 200m-ish open water swim as part of my ongoing SCUBA certificate (more of which will appear soon in the other blog sections, no doubt). This was a good chance to have decisions and worries removed for a moment and swim out into deep water under pressure. It was tiring by the end, which clearly 200m should not be, but for now I am content to finish it without ever feeling in danger, and reassure myself that I’ll have 6 months more training, and a wetsuit, on the day.
Running has become the most arduous of the three, which is surprising. I start out as a decent runner, with a half-marathon time that is out of reach of most amateurs. In theory I need only push my durations bit by bit while maintaining anything close to the same pace. In the real world, the intensity of the heat and humidity here, coupled with a “road” surface that European runners would call “cross country” make anything beyond 40 minutes seem intimidating. But to take the positives again, I do not yet need to go further in my training plan, and the humidity should subside after Feb/March’s rains.
Finally, I must mention the continuing support of the Mrs. She hasn’t asked “why” but has offered encouragement and ideas all the way. Recently she has secured access to a plastic kayak, immediately volunteering to paddle alongside me to support and reassure on occasional longer swims.
*If I ever discover that the rumours of Bruce Dickinson being an Olympic standard fencer are true, then he may outdo Ozzy in this respect, but Black Sabbath will always eclipse Iron Maiden artistically.
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