Shoe-less Joe

Yesterday, after amassing large amounts of surveys, so many we are unable to keep them in our hotel room, we went to the post office to send them home. Our first trip to the post office was interesting… We lugged two boxes full of surveys (me carrying both since I am after all, the work horse, so much for the union I was trying to form), each weighing approximately 18 kg, down to the office about one half mile away. Upon reaching the post office, we were told that we needed to take our boxes to the Tanzania Office of Revenue, similar to a customs office, which is ironically adjacent to our hotel. Upon hearing this news I insisted upon taking a taxi, after all I haven’t lifted in over 6 months, because I was already getting sore from this (I’m really out of shape)! The customs office is conveniently located on the third floor of a building without an elevator. Anyway, we met with the customs guy, went back to the post office, paid our couple hundred dollars of postage and sent them off to the USA.
As my muscles ached from walking up and down the streets of Singida with 80lb worth of surveys, we decided to head to the Singida Youth Center. It was our intention to buy some of the “street kids” shoes, since they don’t currently own a pair. We met up with Sister Hilda, the operational manager of the center, who gathered four of the kids to go with us. We were able to find shoes for each of them, although I’m not so sure they chose the shoes based on fit… At the very least, they have some leather and rubber surrounding their feet, since walking around here barefoot is NOT recommended!
We had yet another chance run-in with a couple of local professionals here in Singida, the competitive whistlers! We have come to a consensus that these two men, both older men with colorful whistles, one green the other pink, are few bricks short of a full stack. They tend, every time we see them, to walk down the center of the roads blowing their whistles with hand-made traffic signs. We wonder if they want to become traffic cops although Singida doesn’t have traffic signs, none-the-less traffic officers. We’re always entertained by these men, since it seems neither bores of the continuous whistling and directing, it’s pretty amazing. On the off chance they happen upon each other, we witnessed this a few days ago, they tend to escalate the whistling as an attempt to become the loudest on the block. If only I could find where they bought these whistles I would have something to fill my time when I’m not working on surveys.
-Ryan