The end of African story. Almost.

January 12, 2009 was my last day in Tanzania as a student in university of Dar Es Salaam. Who knows when will be the next time I will lay my feet on African land. I just feel that it is not going to happen too soon. Not because that I didn't like it, simple there are some very important things I will enjoy doing back home. Otherwise, exchange program in Tanzania was a valuable experience.

It was not about getting new knowledge or striving for excellence in studies. It was not about going out everyday with other exchange students just to have fun in some club. The heat and humidity was sometimes just killing, especially on those weekends spent in an empty campus after the university was closed. I got used to neverending water and electricity shortages, only rice and beans for lunch and wild animals in the bathroom. At first disturbing local people reactions, quickly became normal and at the end I was almost missing it. Beaurocracy, safety issues and too much focus on religion - never paid too much attention...

Instead, the most exciting experience was two journeys that I did together with few friends. The first one around Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and through Kenya I described before. The next journey lead me to the south: Malawi and Zambia, almost to Zimbabwe. Hundreds of hours spent on the road, huge distances travelled, new friends made and lifestyle experienced. These are the memmories, although sometimes very ordinary, that I will hardly forget. These are the memmories I will tell to my grandchildren if I happen to have some :) After all, Africa is not so different from the first sight, especially large cities like Dar Es Salaam. However, this continent is unique in its nature and culture. If have not travelled, the whole exchange would have missed most of the nice things that had happened. Then I would not be able to tell to a friend: "look, I saw this and I know how it feels there" while watching a movie about refugee camps in Africa.

I will try to find some time to post the remaining bunch of memmories from the second trip I've done in Africa. But for now I am closing one page in this book of Tanzania and openning another about my ordinary life during the economic crisis in the Baltics.

p.s. I would also like to thank to all the special people, who missed me while I was "lost" in Africa. I missed you too! ;)

Arbitražas

Dar puikiai atsimenu, kaip universitete mokiausi, kad arbitražas, ypač valiutos kursų ir dar paprastam žmogui, yra sunkiai įmanomas dalykas. Transakcijos mokesčiai, automatinės prekiavimo sistemos ir tt..

Va šiandien, ruošiantis kelionei, ištiko dilema: išsiimti iš kortelės Tanzanijos šilingų (TAS), t.y išleisti sąskaitoje esančius litus, ar eiti į keityklą ir išsikeisti užsilikusius dolerius. Pagal finansų teoriją, didelio skirtumo, kuriuo būdu gauti TAS neturėtų būti. Visgi, nusprendžiau pasitikrinti valiutų keitimo kursus, ir atradau neblogą arbitražo galimybę.

Gruodžio 19d. 1 USD kainavo 2.3945 LTL, pagal lb. (Pora centų brangiau buvo galima nusipirkti USD tarkim Parex keitykloje). Tuo tarpu Tanzanijoje, keitykloje, už 1USD mokėjo 1300 TAS (jau apie savaitę). Taigi 1000 TAS turėtų kainuoti: 2,3945/1,3 = 1,8419 LTL. Užmetu akį į lb.lt ir žiū jau porą dienų kaip 1000 TAS kainuoja 1,9975 LTL. Skirtumas arti 15ct. Nemanau, kad transakcijų kaina galėtų būti tokia didelė.

Tad nuėjau, ir išsikeičiau dolerius... Doleris čia aukso vertės :)

P.S. Gruodžio 22d. 1000 TAS jau kainuos tik 1,8574 LTL. Nors ir Afrikos tempais, bet arbitažeriai darbuojasi :D

Busy days, huh

I cannot remember anything else what I have been doing for the last few days, except reading articles, sitting at the computer, eating and a little bit of sleeping. Thesis, Reasearch methods, mid-term exams, projects and Civilization 4, if we go into more details. Seems old good SSE Riga days are back to Africa. Interestingly, I am not the only one around who is covered with work, other exchange students are complaining that lecturers want them to write up to two papers per course, plus exams. Well, that is what you get, when you want to have earlier exams, given that university was closed recently. My final exams are a bit later, so I have the whole week more to prepare.

I never thought computer viruses, the one that are transmitted through flash drives, can cause so much trouble. Ok, they may get dangerous if computer is connected to the internet, to download many other nice friends. So far, I have seen two computers totally crashing due to the tazebama virus and managed to fix one more. I guess, my antivirus has something to do for the first time as long as I use computers.

Besides viruses, mood in campus is getting worse, I would say. The rainy season came unexpectedly late. Many students have changed their flight dates to the earlier ones and most of them will be gone few weeks before Christmas. The campus is already empty and will get only emptier. Thus, I am waiting till the end of my studies, when I will go travelling again. By the way, I decided not to go to Zimbabwe, because it was dangerous before, but now on the top of everything there is cholera outbrake there at the moment. :( The journey should be in Malawi-Zambia territories only.

I will tell you more soon...

Finance, Finance and again Finance...

Finance courses are all the same all over the world...

It seems holidays have ended and a pile of work waits ahead. Having spent the last few days on thesis and other readings, I feel like back to SSE Riga again. Afer the university was closed I managed to agree with most of lecturers upon the further course schedules. So, I am going to have my final exams in three weeks time, while mid-term exams are scheduled for this week. I even got additional assignments to do, which vary significantly. In one course I need to summarize few chapters of the book, while in other I have to choose a multinational corporation and evaluate it from many perspectives. While the grading weights are quite similar in both courses, the amount of work seems quite different :) If everything goes as planned, I should have about 3 weeks for travelling. Looking forward to get back on the road...

And damn, today I managed to twist my ankle while playing basketball. :( It means even more time spent on studying...

Zanzibar - Hakuna Matata!

About 80kms north-east Dar Es Salaam, there is a tourist beloved island called Zanzibar. Theoretically it is a part of the Republic of Tanzania, however, they still have separate passport checking before entry, different looking police, car plates and many other things that makes you feel being away from Tanzania… But let’s start from the beginning.

We decided to go for a weekend trip to see what’s life is like on the island. It’s good we have Tanzanian resident permits, which entitled us to a large discount for a ferry ticket. Still, a two hour water trip cost 22K TZS, which I find very expensive in terms of African prices. The trip itself is not two pleasant, since the boat is quite small and rocky. Thanks to a short journey, too many people did not get seasick. (There is also a possibility to take an all night long ferry, which people say is not a too pleasant experience either).

After making our way through the street touts offering everything you need, starting with a 35$ 2km taxi ride to a Ronaldo T-shirt, we entered the Stone town. The city itself is very different from a typical African city – small, narrow streets with orderly built houses are incomparable with shabby huts lying with no order in Dar or Arusha. There were no problems to find a cheap place to stay, given the tourist off season and we chose “Pearl” guest house.

The first day we spent wondering around the small streets of Stone town, visiting the local market, old fort, observing cows on the football field and kids playing on the seaside. At some point I felt like back home – nice streets, no palm trees and few green fields surrounding the city. The whole atmosphere was unusual: no annoying sellers, no starring looks, no traffic mess – calm and relaxed lifestyle. Only later I found out that Zanzibar is well known for Rastas and drugs :) In the evening we watched the sunset eating ice-cream and later met our old friends Eriks in the restaurant of a fancy hotel. We listened to live Taarab music, while there were sailboats passing by in the ocean – everything seemed even too idyllic. Before coming back to the hostel, we got lost in the narrow dark streets of the town. I wouldn’t walk alone at night in any other Tanzanian city, but Stone town looks really different and we are still alive after all :)

Stone town

Saturday morning we went on a Spice tour. It was a lot of fun tasting known and unknown spices, fruits taken of from the plants right away. I got to know how vanilla or cardamom is grown as well as local kids weaved us hats, ties and jewelry. We also visited slave caves and a wonderful beach. Half of the day was spent really nicely. After coming back to the town we right away boarded a minibus to the East coast of the island. On the way to Paji, road police three times stopped the bus for inspection. I still wonder how the conductor guy managed to deal with the fact that there were two times more people in the bus than it is allowed. Maybe a fact that everyone was seated (usually two people sharing one seat) helped him :)

West coast of Zanzibar

In the Slaves cave

On the fruit tasting tour

In 2 hours we conquered 45kms distance and reached Paji where a beach party was supposed to take place. Indeed, there was a party with a white DJ and about half of the participants being tourists. We met a local guy there, who told us that he has Tazanian, American and Swiss passports as well as has lived in the US and Europe for a long time. Certainly, I did not believe any his word, but it was quite funny to listen to him. Though later we met a good guy’s friend who had a Swiss wife and small kids with funny hair speaking Swiss-German :)

Since the party finished at midnight, we decided not to rent a room in the hotel, but to stay awake until the sunrise and then go back to the Stone town. Nevertheless, I had few hours of sleep in the empty boat on the seaside. That was a little of adventure, but definitely worth doing.

The next morning, I was swimming in the ocean and climbed a palm tree to get a coconut for breakfast :)

Breakfast

I bet I had much more fun than an ordinary tourist who comes to the island to lie on the beach… Therefore, tired but happy I boarded the ferry back to Dar on Sunday’s afternoon.

Anything Can Happen in Africa

Unfortunately, it happened. Tanzanian government closed down the university for infinitive time period due to the student strikes that were going on since the start of the week. All the students were ordered to leave campus within few hours and they did. There were no riots or any clashes with the police which I find quite surprising. I got a feeling that many students simply wanted to go home. Nevertheless, my exchange program is now on the "edge"...

According to the university rules, exchange students should continue with their studies even after the university was closed down. In reality, what is the motivation for a lecturer to come and teach one student in the class? And given African way of doing things slowly, I do not expect any help from the university's administration anytime soon. Furthermore, my flight back to Riga is approaching and even if the university is opened again in few weeks, there will be no time for studies left. So far I see only one thing that I could do. To call lecturers myself and try to get the material that has to be covered as well as to arrange the early examination dates. Still, I have no idea how they are going to respond. Though whatever happens next, it will be an extraordinary experience...

But before doing anything, I will just take a weekend off to beautiful Zanzibar beaches...

The Strike

Unhappy about the way how government distributes loans, students of Dar Es Salaam university decided to go on strike. Everything started already on Thursday with a small group of about 80 people walking around campus, singing, shouting and waving with the tree branches. Though this strike was not authorised by the university administration, and didn't seem to be well organized as well. Only one guy was taken to hospital, because somebody thrown a bottle to him.

Preparations for the real, authorized, strike started already on Sunday evening. Some guy with a loudspeaker was wondering around the campus shouting and disturbing my evening TV-Series session :) The next day I was woken up by the noise outside. It seemed students already gathered and this time there will be a much better organized strike. While having my morning shower, I could see a crowd of about 500 people carrying some posters in the front lines. Later, I found out they had even posted sheets with their requirements all around the campus.

Strikes are common in the university so it was no surprise to see one. However, the funny thing is that university's prospectus says that if students are on strike for 3 days in a row, the university has to be closed and everyone will be sent home. Indeed, that had already happened a year ago.

So far there is no reason to believe that the strike will finish tomorrow or a day after tomorrow. And I still do not know what happens to exchange students if the university is closed.

We'll wait and see... :)