Politics, as usual (?)

There is an election in Tanzania in October… surprise! We were unaware of this until it was recently explained to us by Grace, that every time there is an election in Tanzania, all projects cease.

The opposition party promises they’ll do the projects, while the incumbents are worried about retaining their seats, so the projects do not get started. If the incumbents start a project, then the opposition party accuses them of planning to do so before the election to gain popularity.

And we have been caught in the middle. We were told that some individuals in the village thought that our water project was a political move by the powers that be, and they were against it.

In this election cycle, EVERYONE will be voted on. All the way down to our friend Juma, the executive officer. Every now and then, this fact is brought to our attention, and it is a little disheartening.

Project Update: The last thing we’re trying to figure out is how to pay for transportation. We’re trying to find the most inexpensive means of transportation. We have about 500 leftover in the budget, and we’re not sure if this would be enough to hire a driver and do everything in one haul. Because of this fact, we’re looking at borrowing a truck from the district (depending on size), and we’d only have to pay for the fuel.

Other than that, we are able to buy all of the supplies from one company in Dar es Salaam, and then we’ll start the project. Hopefully we’ll be doing all of that within the next couple of days (2-5 days).