Karibu POTUS!
George Bush’s visit has afforded me much amusement, although I doubt that that was its purpose. There are huge posters and hoardings everywhere thanking him for his visit and generally for being super. Gloriously, they have chosen a photo of him from long, long ago, in a misguided attempt to flatter him. It is so unlike him now that I actually wondered if it was someone else. It is as if they had chosen a picture of our lovely Queenie at the time of Prince Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales. I have the enviable talent of being amused by the same joke again and again, and as these posters are everywhere, and Tanzanians are too inefficient to take them down (many Christmas advertisements are still up), I anticipate many more chortles.
And the fun didn’t stop there. His entourage – apparently 600 people but surely, surely not? - booked the entire Kempinski hotel, which is actually quite posh. Over the weekend there was a craft bazaar, aimed at giving said entourage a chance to spend some money. I vaguely knew a couple of people who I thought would be there (Dar is so small that you can be confident of this kind of thing) so I thought I’d go to ask their advice about selling things the children make. Another friend of mine was due to work on the Mama Masai stall, which sells fairly traded Masai itemry like surprisingly nice beaded things and startlingly horrible sandals made out of old tyres. She’d said you needed your passport to get in as staff, but I didn’t really register that you might also need it just to walk in and buy things. So last Sunday morning I turned up at the main gate, beginning to worry slightly when I saw loads of American military and Secret Service agenty types hanging around and started to confess my lack of documentation, professing my nice volunteer job and desire to create an income-generating project. The nice agent said “no worries, you can just go in, but they’ll need to check your bags”. But at the real door oh no. Because the Tanzanians are on duty. And Tanzanians are either totally slack or very worried about being told off, and hence more jobsworthy than you can contemplate without becoming enraged. And these ones, in the middle of the biggest excitement of their working lives, were not letting me anywhere near the artisanal goods in case I managed to fashion a weapon out of batik dresses. So I sloped off back to front gate, feeling very sorry for myself, and told the nice agent my sad news. Total result! He obviously liked my lovely cut-glass accent and post-cold huskiness, and called up the agent on the front door through his super little wireless earpiece, saying things like “Lucy Carter is coming through. Let her in. Yup, Yup. Affirmative.” Lucy Carter did not really deserve the drama of this introduction, as she was wearing a second-hand gipsy skirt, flip flops, sunglasses costing 40p, and carrying a bag with her name ineptly embroidered on it by well-meaning deafs.
But I was through to the world’s biggest terrorist target, after producing my Dar Es Salaam library card as photo ID. You can imagine my embarrassment when I got upstairs to find no-one there in the bazaar, but a well-populated “POTUS Visit Control Room” (snort). I had got the time wrong by two and a half hours and was ridiculously early. I was about to give up and slink out when my nice friend from the American Embassy came in, saw me and asked me to set up the Mama Masai stall, as they were all ill. What fun! I spent a happy hour laying out many, many beaded items and then selling an entire two key rings before I was relieved. I was a little nervous, not having much of a creative bent, but luckily my natural competence stood me in good stead and it looked great. I asked someone to take a photo because I didn’t think my mother would believe I could do anything vaguely artistic. With good reason, mind; she isn’t just being mean.
Nuns in Yoga Romps
Sunday night ended with a treat that I hadn’t experienced for a long time, namely some Germans staying, who very kindly dressed in a manner rendering me barely able to exchange the merest pleasantries because I was gawping so much. The fun continued on Monday night. I went to yoga with my friend Jennifer from choir. This is most idyllic: at a hotel on the Peninsula, facing the ocean, with a lovely breeze blowing and the sun setting. Bloody hard work, though. I love our teacher. He exhorts us to “spread your both legs” and “hold your both knees”, which I find most endearing. When I got home I told the nuns what I’d done and they immediately wanted to have a go. It was like an old Terry and June episode ie had predictably hilarious results, with them doing it in full nun garb and tripping over and getting all mixed up in veils and huge petticoats etc.
More sucking up to the Rotary Club
We had a big day at school this week. One of the Rotary Clubs came to present an audiometer. I was in charge of organising this and thank God it was me, is all I can say. Even under my iron control, the maintenance man/carpentry teacher was still drinking tea with the library windows still unmended ten minutes before our visitors were due and the teacher in charge of making a welcome sign still colouring in the last few pointless flowers he’d decided to draw after the arrival time. Still, the school band was marvellous and the dance class wiggled very nicely as they performed an interminable Zulu routine about the dangers of HIV. I was even unphased by the crowd of journalists and TV cameras that turned up two hours early. The Rotary Club had organised them but forgotten to tell me. Luckily Hugh had tipped me off, or I would have been a bit stunned when I suddenly found them all in my “office” (ante-room to Matilda’s office).
Here is the school band:
Amina news
Amina cried that day! It was awful. One of the other children punched her in the nose. Accidentally, I think. She cried and cried. Deaf children sometimes cry more loudly than you’d expect for their age, as they can’t hear themselves. And the relative silence of the rest of the pupils makes it even more heart-rending. She wouldn’t stop even for me, which was most distressing, as I had assumed that I had attained the same goddess-type proportions in her mind as she does in mine and that the merest hint of my presence would banish tears.
The dermatologist visits. Men may wish to stop reading here. I’m not joking.
On Friday, someone I met at my Ladies’ Group, who is a dermatologist, visited the school to run a free clinic. It was really sad. All the children trooped through with their various horrid skin conditions, and she said later that lots of the girl boarders had thrush because they have a bizarre tradition here of wearing two pairs of pants at once. One pair is next to the skin and is a normal quite big pant. The other, which they wear on top, is a horrible nylon item called a “skin tight” which is like a pair of cycling shorts or control pants to hold in your tummy. You can imagine (or at least the women reading this can) that in a country this hot and humid, wearing two big, tight, unnatural-fibred pairs of pants is just ideal conditions to develop the worst thrush you’ve ever had.
I felt so sad for them. Poor little things, they don’t know what’s happening, they just know they are having a bad time and are horribly uncomfortable. The only ray of light was first that one of the matrons was concerned that I hadn’t understood the Swahili discussion about all this, and vigorously mimed scratching between her legs for me so that I could fully appreciate the symptoms. I kept an admirably straight face. Second, I ended up having a management meeting with Matilda and the doctor to talk about vaginas and the need to wear less underwear. So different to PA meetings, and strangely much more enjoyable despite delicate subject matter.
Pant-o-meter
I’d like to a launch a Blue Peter style appeal for knickers! Another reason some of them are getting nasty infections is that they only have one or two pairs each, and they don’t have time or space to get them washed and dried enough, so they are sometimes putting on wet pants. We are going to make them a new washing line, but we still need help and anyway, it just doesn’t seem right that any young lady should only have one pair of knickers. My appeal is in two parts. First, could the ladies out there donate any reasonable-condition underwear that they have knocking around? There really is no need to buy any new: you can get them for about £1 a pair here and having seen what they wear, I am pretty sure my entire collection of old pants would be like a trip to Agent Provocateur for them. I also need someone to be Official Pants Co-ordinator (to receive, quality assure and then post pants to me in one big parcel rather than everyone paying separate and inefficiently expensive postage). Please email me or leave a comment here if you think you can help! A couple of quid for the equivalent of Canesten here would also be wonderful.
I am sure I don’t need to point out that thongs are probably not ideal, ditto anything like I used to wear in England ie nice silky lacy items. We are talking sensible pants.
This is a lacy thong. It is not one of the most useful things I brought with me and is an example of what not to send. But I still love it. One must suffer for beauty. Noblesse oblige. And it was a present from lovely Sandra.
To leave you feeling cheery, I’d like to report that today I saw a nun wearing silver mules. Excellent! I should have asked to check her underwear too.
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