COSTECH update

Well, Monday rolled around, and Ryan and I headed off to our appointment at COSTECH. We were armed with letters of support from various organizations and village leaders, and lots of time to just sit in their office and wait. I walked into the office ready to fight for my permit. I handed over the letters, and the guy read them carefully and said “Ok, now give me $300, and you’ll have your permit.” SUCCESS!!!! Only one little step between me and research clearance. The problem was that we didn’t have $300 in US dollars, being in Tanzania and all, where they use the shilling. I brought up this point to the man, and he said that all we had to do was go to a bank, and deposit the money into a bank account. It was all very easy really, and there was a branch just up the road. After yet another Tanzanian miscalculation of distance, we arrived at the bank.

We had our ATM cards to get T-shillings, and all the information for the account, we were good to go! We walked up to one of the account managers to ask how this process would work. She said that they didn’t exchange money at the bank (despite the rate chart on the wall indicating otherwise), and that we would have to go to an exchange bureau to get dollars, then bring them back to deposit them. We asked about the rate chart, and they said they would only do dollars to shillings, not the other way around. We walked out into the parking lot, but decided to go back and see if by some chance someone had bought shillings, and maybe they had dollars on hand. We went to a teller, who said “of course you can deposit shillings into a dollars account, you just have to have an account manager approve it.” Ugh. Back to the account manager. We told her what the teller said, and she said “oh, yes, if I approve it, you can do that. You just have to get a receipt from COSTECH.” Um, what? We were AT THE BANK to get a receipt to take to COSTECH. After explaining this to her, and that we wanted to put money in, not take it out, she asked if I had any documentation from COSTECH, that she could see as proof. I didn’t, however, I had my USF research approval stuff, so I showed that to her, and she said it would work. This paperwork actually has nothing to do with COSTECH, and was basically just a random piece of paper I was carrying, but whatever, I wasn’t going to complain. She told us we needed to get a photocopy of it and bring it back.

We set off to find the closest stationary shop. These shops are EVERYWHERE in Tanzania, so this wasn’t going to be a problem. We found one just around the corner, but due to rationing, there was no electricity in this part of Dar today. She thought the other side of the street might have electricity though. We headed over there, but again, no electricity. We remembered that the bank seemed to have electricity, so we headed back there to see if we could pay THEM to make a copy. Back to the account manager. “Oh, why yes, of course you can make a photocopy here. You don’t need to pay for it, either.” Thanks for telling us that now. She pointed us to the poor over-worked secretary who seemed to be the busiest person in the bank and went back to her office to wait. Another wait in line. Ryan decided to expedite the process and go get the money from the ATM while I got the copies. Problem was, the ATM wasn’t working here, so he headed off down the street in search of a functioning one. I got the copies and headed back. The account manager stamped them and told us to go to the teller with the money. I waited….and waited….and waited….and then started freaking out. Meanwhile, Ryan was on a 6-mile wild goose chase for a working ATM that took VISA cards. These are amazingly few and far between in Dar. After almost an hour and a half, he arrived safely back at the bank (albeit a little dehydrated and tired) with the money, and my blood pressure and heart rate began to return to normal.

We triumphantly walked up to the teller with the money, the account info, and the stamped photocopy to deposit our money. The teller looked skeptically at us and promptly disappeared for the next 10 minutes. When she returned, things went amazingly smoothly and we got the money deposited and hopped on a Dala Dala back to COSTECH. Back at COSTECH, we showed our receipt from the bank, drank about 2 liters of the coldest water in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in about 20 minutes, I was ready to do research in Tanzania!!!! After the bank experience, we spent the rest of the afternoon taking a much needed rest and re-hydrating.

-Betsy