Roadtrip to Morogoro

We were having a company training in Morogoro last week*, so on Monday morning, we packed up the car and left the house at 6 AM. Well, kinda. Jodie and I spent most of Sunday night packing up the car and preparing things at the office and didn't get home until after 1 AM. All things considered, leaving at 6:20 AM seems on time enough for me.

The first part of the drive was pretty uneventful. Philemon was driving, and I was trying to catch up on sleep a bit. I woke up about 3 hours outside of Arusha and saw that we were stopped and talking to some officials. They were from the department of immigration and were demanding to see our passports and work permits. I happened to be traveling with my passport so I handed it forward. If we were in a hurry (okay, more of a hurry) the proper etiquette would have been to include some cash in there. However, we have our principles, so Jodie also pulled up scanned copies of our permits on her computer. The officer then insisted that my permit was not valid (he tried to tell me it was only valid for missionaries) and suggested that he should take us to the station. Jodie then played the trump card. She called our contact at the department of immigration in Arusha. She started by apologizing for bothering him, and the face of the officer outside our car noticeably fell. He started waving us on and told us that we needed to travel with our permits the next time. As Jodie tried to hand him the phone, he told us to just get moving. I presume he knew that someone was going to give him a nasty reprimand for his coarse shakedown and he wanted us to completely forget about him.**

We also had two more stops on the way where we were told that we were speeding. At the first stop, we had no idea how they measured our speed, while at the second stop they had a radar gun (they clocked us going 50 MPH in what was apparently a 30 MPH zone, not that there were any signs to indicate as much). Anyway, we sorted those out much more easily and were on our way.

After the stop with immigration, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I wound up reading. A lot. I guess you'll see that from the upcoming posts. We made it to Morogoro a bit later than we were hoping and then we had to search a bit to find a hotel with a room where we could hold the training sessions. As we waited, I realized that I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day (well, I had eaten 2 almonds that Jodie brought), so I ran across the street to a shop and bought a Mountain Dew. In a glass bottle (not available in Arusha). Yep, probably about the least healthy thing I could've picked to call breakfast at 3 PM, but then, taking care of my health has never really been a strong point for me.

* On a personal note, I was pretty relieved to be getting out of Arusha, as the weekend did not go very well for me. The details aren't important, but it did lead to me breaking my 2010 New Years resolution and smoking my first cigarette since I left Peace Corps. 17.5 months isn't bad. The countdown has started over and I did learn that Embassy cigarettes are absolutely vile and I plan to never touch those again.
** When I was in Zambia, we were also stopped by an immigration officer. However, that time, we were traveling in a Peace Corps vehicle which is supposed to be protected from those checks. The Peace Corps staff who were traveling with us started yelling at him and threatening to report him. I must admit that I now feel a hint of satisfaction watching those immigration officers who thrive on intimidating people intimated themselves. Okay, probably more than a hint.