Fresh Out of Product

I walked up with a connectivity concern.  I needed to be on line.  This little pavilion was the only place to be on line.  But our host and a few other people were about.   I needed to be patient.  Back in China it was the last day of the quarter. As always there was a difficulty.  A last minute change absolutely had to happen.  I needed to weigh in, though I was in Malawi.  But I’d need to wait. 

Our hostess, Marie the head of the Jacaranda Foundation was sitting beside a young woman of twenty.  Presently, I noticed the far-away pained look in her eyes.  And then, very publicly our hostess informed us that this young lady was pregnant, and that her boyfriend wanted her to have an abortion.  As the narration continued it became clear that abortion was illegal in this country.  Having an illegal abortion was dangerous.  Our friend was trying to suggest that she have the baby.  She would accompany her to her home and meet with her mother.  Even though she had just met this girl, crying on the roadside.  “Your mother, she knows who I am.  Doesn’t she?  Doesn’t she?”  The girl nodded.  "Well, I’ll go meet with her, and everything will be alright.”  And one thinks of the legacy of missionaries and imperfect development and H.I.V. and of one’s own youth and mostly of the presence of mind needed to be kind and giving.

Later I was in a long line to get Kwacha, the local currency from an ATM. The eighty thousand Kwacha button on the ATM got me a note that said that it couldn’t fulfill this request.  I should try forty thousand.  Given that I needed to extract over two-hundred-thousand Kwachas that mean I had another six times I’d need to pull from this machine.  There were eight local people behind me.  This couldn’t be very polite.  Again, and again I repeated the routine of entering my card number and confirming I did not need to have a receipt.  I imagined the people behind me assuming each time that I had a card that didn’t work, until they saw me pull money again and again and wondered when this white man would stop pulling money from the goddamn machine.  Each time I took a catchers mitt full of Kwacha and shoved it into my pocket.  No point in stuffing these into my wallet.  Finally now with two-hundred-and-twenty-thousand Kwacha in my pocket , I turned, looking like a crack dealer fresh out of product at the end of a hard days work, and walked back to the car, somewhat carefully.

At the airport, the lady at the check in suggested that I would be unable to trade all the Kwacha in my pocket to dollars. “Um, I can’t get into Tanzania otherwise.” The bank was closed.  This sounded like a repeat of the wrong information I received in Ethiopia.  Oh, no.  I suggested, starting to fret.  “Well”, she said, with a promising hint in her eye.  “Let me call them.  They are my friends.”  At times like this I felt very fond of Africa.  “They are there, but you must hurry.”

I left my wife and kids at immigration and darted back out the modest security, passed the two people I learned were from Wenzhou and darted around the corner into the other building with a young gentleman showing me the way.  Coins were falling from my open bag but I figured I’d scoop them up later. Turning the corner, yes, the gate was open and more importantly, they were willing to give me dollars.   “Sure you can have my passport.  Happy to fill out your form.”  Now I had four Benjamin’s in my pocket to replace the two-hundred-and-twenty-thousand Kwacha.   Calmer now, I returned to my family at immigration, who were perplexed by where I’d gone and why I darted off so fast. 

Thursday, 06/29/17