Happy Thanksgiving!
I can’t believe our time in Tabora is nearly over. Time has really flown by!
After being here for two months, I finally feel “settled in.” I feel that we now know the right people to be able to ask questions of and how to ask them. Even something as simple as having a meeting here is different. Early on, when we went into meetings, we’d take the initial awkward silence as an indication to start on our purpose and launch into our questions. Now we’ve learned to wait through the silence (which is only awkward to us!), sign guest books, wait for the formal introductions and sometimes, for the meeting to be formally convened before we launch into anything!
We’ve had scores of meetings and now we’re trying to make as much sense of it as we can, organize our data and get ready to hand it over to our successors. Unfortunately, people here are really slow at getting back to us with anything and we can’t take our American response-time for granted! Barely anyone uses the phone or the internet for anything. For example, if we heard about Joe Schmoe that might be interesting to talk to, we first need an appointment. How do we get an appointment? Find someone in the municipality that knows that Joe and have him go to Joe’s office to get an appointment as opposed to calling or emailing because no one wants to use their cell phones.
At this point, we don’t know if Joe actually knows anything so we can’t really prepare for this meeting. So we meet Joe anyways, figure out what he knows and then try to ask him questions. Everyone here wants a questionnaire so we make one and then usually, someone has to physically hand deliver this questionnaire. It then takes a few weeks of following up (sometimes in person) to get answers, if any. Time’s fluid for everyone but us. Come 3:30 pm, and all the offices are ghost towns. Though Cameron and I have been working almost as much as we would when we’re in Chicago – 7:45 am until about 6 pm at the office and then may be some at home – plus there’s no “water cooler” to hang around here!
It’s really hard to pass on little tid-bits of information about this place that we have found out from living here for two months; information you will never know unless you live here and understand what hardships people here face every day. Some of the information we’ve gathered through talking to people staying in the hotels or casual, off-the-record conversations are very interesting and have given us a lot of insight into the historical, cultural and political aspects of Tabora and how they’ve all played a role in shaping the type of place it is today.
One business owner told us that it’s so hard to run his business that the only reason that he does it is because it’s a personal labor of love. I really hope we don’t lose this kind of information in translation and in putting together a nice, official booklet profiling Tabora. I have to admit, that I’m frustrated at the prospect of leaving here without feeling like I’m done.
On a lighter note, for thanksgiving this week, about 8 of us are planning to do an “Indian feast” catered by a lady who apparently makes great Indian food. I’m sad I’ll be missing black Friday – I don’t know why though – It’s not like I usually pull myself out of bed to go shopping out in the cold, crowded stores when I’m in Chicago! But I will miss our thanksgiving “tradition” of the lunch buffet at Rezas – my favorite Persian restaurant in Chicago with the awesome kebabs (which go with the turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and pumpkin pie just fine!) Happy Thanksgiving All! 
