back to Mwanza

Oh what a day! 

We had been back to Mwanza for less than 24 hours when it seemed we were hit by a wave of living-in-a-developing-country frustration. 

First, we discovered that in our absence, the electricity company decided to go from a post-paid to a pre-paid system which meant at any moment, we were going to run out of electricity, which then meant anxious hourly monitoring of the meter until we could get to town to sort it all out, no cooking and desperate hoping that the meat and perishables in the fridge would survive...

Since all transactions here are done in cash, (including pre-paying for electricity) we tried to withdraw some from 2 ATMS but were unsuccessful. One of those ATMs charged us for a whole lotta money we never received which meant, when we discovered it, a $15 phone call to our bank in the US.  It took fifteen minutes, at least, of talking to machines and pushing buttons to finally be transferred to the right, live person. That plus a bad connection and 18 security questions to answer and rapidly diminishing funds on our cellphone = stress! Everyone in Tanzania, avoid Stanbic Bank!

After the cash and electricity drama, (and a half dozen other inconveniences we had happily forgotten about after being away for a month) we then realized (somewhat sheepishly, but still angrily) someone we trusted had some untrustworthy habits and hit a low moment of--”Why can’t people just be HONEST?!”

So. Perhaps on a different day, none of this would have bothered us at all. It’s very possible that in a few months or even weeks, we’ll look back on this post and laugh at ourselves for being so bothered by such petty grievances. But today, it just wore us out and we are tired. 

Then, the Word for the evening was this: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”