Somali land pirates

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The Somali 'land' pirates have come ashore and inland to Ngaramtoni village, Arusha.

Well, just one to be exact (I'm not actually sure if she constitutes a pirate as she does not say 'aarhh' and did not have a parrot or an eyepatch).

She landed last month. Lovely lady, came a-knocking at our gate with what I beleived to be her elderly mother asking all about our house, the rent we paid etc. as she planned to build on her plot next to the house we rent and then rent it out as our landlord (very important man in this story) had done.

Well, only a few weeks later we find ourselves hostage in our own home unable to escape (at least not by motorised vehicle) as it turns out her plot actually extends across the dirt track access road to both our house and several others. We live on the side of a mountain and next to a stream whos' sides drop down (which I am sure could become a river in the rains) at an almost ninety degree angle so there are limited alternative access roads and certainly no existing ones.

So yesterday, I returned from town with my groceries, fortunately without my son in the car, to find that her plot wall has been built across the access road. So I phone my knight in rusty armour (who is unfortunately away on business in Dar) who talks this 'mummy on the brink of a meltdown' through a 4x4 drive up the mountain side and back down and around the pirate plot and safely home to Benjamin.

Meanwhile the knight has embarked on a mission to the landlord's office in Dar es Salaam. Our landlord is unimpressed and as he is about as high in the TRA (Tanzanian Revenue Authority) as a man can get he gets on the phone to 'his government contacts' and starts to make things happen. A brief thought through my mind is 'I hope nobody dies for this' and that Arusha's Government Officials just get verbally shot down (fortunately we are in Tanzania and not some other African nation where this may actually be a reality!).

So, later in the afternoon there is another knock at the gate, I am getting rather used to this now. These can be genuine knocks on the gate I am expecting or (and these are far more likely) perspective clients of our maasai askari (guard) who moonlights as the local hairdresser, fundis ( translates as 'experts' and can be applied to most people but it does not always mean they are any good at their trade, could be a plumber, a carpenter etc.), school girls requesting empty plastic bottles and thn on this occasion local Government officials send by our landlord to apologise for the inconvenience and filing me in on the proposed resolutions (most likely a graded road across the side of the hill behind the pirate plot) and......... wait for it................offering me the use of a Government driver and his 4x4 to use at my leisure until the problem is resolved. So nice to have contacts in high places.

The joys of Africa!

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Photos

Our house in the middle of our blocked street, our house it is very large and untidy
Madness lyrics sum up this blog entry!