Anatomy of a Failure (and the start of an adventure)

Eagle owl sleeping outside our porch window.

It has been a full two weeks since my last entry, and honestly, after over a month of nearly continuous news of adventures during the holidays, we have hit the nadir of early January and returning to work and school. I am happy to say that the second term began without incident and the kids went back to school last Tuesday.

Work also started routinely enough although we have been mired once again in a bureaucratic morass of trying to get national identity cards. The quest has, once again, all the trappings of Kafka's 'The Trial' and really began 12 months ago, in January 2019, innocently enough, with a new national govt. requirement that everyone get a 'biometrically' registered sim card. That is to say, there was to be a requirement to put one's thumbprint on record with one's sim card for their mobile number. That seemed simple enough and I remember going in Jan 2019 to the phone office to complete the task. I was told there, though, that the only acceptable form of identity to add the biometric data was a 'National ID card.' It was a bit perplexing that our passports were not considered sufficient ID as we are not citizens of TZ.

There is no mechanism for asking for an explanation of the thinking behind this requirment for non-citizens. So we began the process of getting a national ID at that time. Our first attempt later that month, when Rebecca searched out and went to the national identity office (NIDA), was to be rebuffed because she was told we must have at least 6 months left on our residence permits. (We had 5.5 months left). This meant we had to table the issue until we completed the process of renewing our permits later that year. As it turned out the process of getting a new residence permit, which requires a renewal of the work permit took about 6 months. We started in April and finished at the end of September. The fact that the residence permit is separate from the work permit is a bit of an anomaly in TZ, and some can find themselves in the ironic situation of getting a work permit (through an elaborate process of providing extensive documentation to the Labor office) only to be rejected by the Immigration office for a residence permit (after providing the exact same extensive documentation to them along with a valid work permit). In fact, it took us an extra 2 months to get the residence permit after the work permit because they had switched to an online process, but the website was not up to speed when we started to apply.

Matching outfits from Christmas gift kitenge.

All that finally done, we started the national ID process at the beginning of October. This was now 3 months from a scary deadline, as January 1st was D day for registering one's sim card or your phone number would be canceled and you could not get a new one without an ID.) The process of the national ID also required extensive documentation, several trips to the NIDA office, a visit to and signature of the ward officer, a visit and signature of the neighborhood officer, a payment at the bank, submission of all paperwork at the NIDA office that now had lines several hours long to turn in paperwork and get a picture taken.

Rebecca got her paper work completed and turned in on Oct, 31 and me on Nov. 1. We were told the IDs would take 4 weeks to make. In the meantime, we had been hearing that there was a national budget shortage to buy laminating paper for IDs but we were assured that we would be issued the number without the card which we could use to register our phones. (the card itself may never be issued a this point.)

The first week of January, after hearing nothing, Rebecca went back to the NIDA office and was happy to find her number was ready, but mine was not. She was able to register her phone number with the biometric ID. I went back to NIDA a week later and was told that the payment receipt was missing when they sent in my application to the Dar Es Salaam office. They had a copy of the receipt and re-sent it from the Arusha office and 'promised' that it would be done in the next 24 hours. (I knew it was a lie, but I could tell that it was told of compassion and a desire for me not to lose hope.) In the meantime, it was becoming clear that the NIDA office was utterly overwhelmed with the national ID crunch for citizens and non-citizens and the govt. moved the phone shut-off deadline to Jan. 20th.

To make a long story short, I realized on Friday, Jan 17th this year (2 weeks of waiting for 24 hours), that they were not going to process and give me my NIDA number by the deadline. We had a plan B. Rebecca would register my phone and internet sim cards in her name with her NIDA number. We set off to do that this past Friday, 3 days before the deadline. The lines were long at the phone company and when we got to the front the woman let Rebecca scan her thumb print, then told us the NIDA verification network was down so it probably did not work. Sure enough later we got an SMS saying the registration had failed. We tried again and were told to come back later that evening or the next day to see if the NIDA network was up.

Until now, Rebecca went back to the phone offices 3 times over the weekend and failed to register my main number because the NIDA network is overwhelmed and cannot process the many requests it currently has. I don't know, but I will most likely lose my phone number, Whatsapp, etc. tomorrow. I do have a backup number that she did manage to register by luck, but will have to re-establish all my contacts. Or maybe the govt. will extend the deadline. Or more likely, millions of people will have their phones shut off tomorrow and there will be a national uproar and they will be turned back on again.

I feel somewhat philosophical about this abject failure to get a national ID over a period of 13 months despite all of our due diligence to protect my phone number. It is hard, from the perspective of a person from a 'customer service' oriented culture to see so many ways in which a bureaucracy can so completely work against itself. It is not corruption, it is a pathological inefficiency coupled with massive redundancies, arbitrary deadlines without thoughtful planning, that make it nearly impossible to complete a task. And worst of all, if something goes akimbo there is almost no way to correct the problem. I don't know if they will ever resolve the problem with my application now stuck in NIDA office purgatory, but I do not have access to anyone who can help. I can present myself to the low-level functionaries who have no authority to do anything but falsely assure me optimistically that they are aware of the matter and it is being processed and I should have a successful resolution in the next 24 hours. The frustration leaves more sad than angry, because I want it to work, and can see so many solutions to the problem, the most simple being let us use our passports to register our sim cards with biometric data.

Despite this, I do have some pending, very exciting good news from work that I will save for the next entry!

Oren trying on summitting gear.

On the good side:
One of the exciting things that happen in this term, which is supposedly summer weather here in Tanzania, is school activity weeks. In past years Oren and David have had week-long adventures organized by their classes. Every year it is different, and the activity weeks do not happen at the same time for the two kids.

Selection can be a challenge because there are several offerings for each class. This year, Oren surprisingly chose one of the most difficult challenges: summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was a bold choice for him, and we were surprised but encouraging. Since his decision, Rebecca and I have been looking out for hiking gear, which is available here used, as many former climbers sell it off when they complete the trek. It is also available for rent. We found most everything he needed over the last month, the trip to Kenya over Christmas was helpful for some specialty items like gators, and gloves.

Oren photo from Mt. Longido.

Oren was told to wear his boots with his uniform at school the past two weeks to break them in. Last weekend, the group that was going to climb did a practice trip up Mt. Longido to test out gear. Oren was gone all day last Saturday on the trip. Rebecca and I were very keen to go with him as we wanted to climb it as well. (It can be summited in a day). Oren was mortified that we wanted to come along and the prospect of being the only kid with his parents coming along. We respected his wishes and realize that at 14 he is differentiating and does have independent social relations with friends. (I remember being that way at his age as well.)

Oren came back satisfied with the trip and did not seem to think it was too hard, and liked his companions and chaperones. They did not summit as they ran out of time, but that was not the point, it was mainly to test out boots, backpacks, etc.

The climb up Kilimanjaro will include a caravan of porters and guides and Oren will only need to carry a day pack on his back. It is a 6-day hike to the summit and return on the Marangu route. So this morning at 7am we drove Oren to the pick-up point at his school, before church. It rained hard all night, but in the morning the sky was clear and we could see Meru and Kilimanjaro clearly on our way to school.

Loading up for Kilimanjaro.

So he is off. We are a bit nervous, mainly about the amount of waterproofing he has. This is supposed to be the middle of the dry season. Dusty and dry, but we are still in the midst of heavy nightly rains, which can make hiking more treacherous. Surprisingly, when I looked a Kilimanjaro this morning there was not a lot of snow on the top, so maybe the rains are lower.

We are praying for him and will report on his experience (or let him do that in the next entry.) I am expecting the next entry to be more positive overall. Until then...