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February 2010 in Tanzania through the eyes of an Englishman |
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Visit Tanzania? If you are planning to visit Tanzania, and come to Arusha, please feel free to contact us. We can tell you about hotels, facilities, prices of basics, etc. Arusha is a great base for trips to the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Kilimanjaro, and of course our own pet volcano, Mount Meru. We now also have bed and breakfast rooms available, and a special introductory offer - see Adia's Place. The BEV Retrospective - 1942/2002. There was life before britseyeview.com. Find out what it was like in the second half of the 20th century viewed through the Brits Eye. Read the BEV E-book, currently featuring the year 1970. This is really getting rather stale - it's been stuck there for ages now, but being retired is so busy. I am working on 1971. |
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8/2/2010 - Programming and Real Work. I have various programming bugs up my arse at the moment, so it has been difficult to get me off the computer. To make that situation worse, some plumbing components I needed to work over he weekend seem to have magically disappeared. I have made some progress in terms of understanding with the programming, but the problems are outside my control, so I'm still banging my head against a brick wall. Today though, I got myself going and went into town to buy replacements. These are now in place, and I am close to having the water supply parts of the bathroom in the South House completed. The last thing I did today was to fit the sockets that the shower mixer will screw onto. These will have to set in their cement for a couple of days before I touch them again. Once I can, there are just a couple of short pipe lengths to add to connect these to the geyser and the cold water supply, and I should be through with that. I can't do final leak testing until a plumber who has the required machine can come and connect to other end of my water supply pipe to the water tower. |
| The tomatoes in our veggie garden seem to have recovered to some extent from the disease that seemed to be killing them, and there are quite large numbers of fruits forming. The eggplants are also doing well, and I see the first signs of a broccoli forming. We ate green peppers (capsicums) from the garden tonight as our main vegetable.
We got a new house girl on Saturday, who was rather cute. But on Sunday morning she announced that she could not live at our place - it was too quiet. She comes from an overcrowded slum area, and is used to having a lot of people around, so I can see how the Teale compound would come as a shocking silence. Cali has discovered a new basket to sleep in - the fruit basket. She's incorrigible - the places that are least convenient are her favourites. For example, another of her places is on my computer keyboard. | |
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4/2/2010 - When in Africa. I've been working on plumbing again today in the South House, and thinking about the way things are here, and the way they were in the UK when I grew up. We live in little eco-systems - our houses or apartments. The assumptions under which these systems are defined vary from country to country, and with latitude. Houses/apartments in the tropics make different design assumptions than those used where winters are cold. In relatively less developed countries, a different set of design assumptions may be made. The design assumptions are not just those that allow people to live at at temperatures encountered in a particular location. Temperature has, in the course of history, guided the way people do things. A classic example is how we organize ourselves in our bathrooms or toilets. In the cold climates, current 'developed country' habits were probably formed in the 19th century. The places where you went to relieve yourself were not generally a part of the house - sanitary equipment was not up to that. So you went to an out-building that was connected to some sort of drain (in the worst case, just a pit). There would be no water supply there, since if there was, it would freeze and the pipes would burst regularly, in the winter. In any case it would often have been so cold that the possibility of washing yourself when you were through was not likely to be attractive. As paper became a more everyday commodity, some of it was kept in the privi - pieces of newspaper impaled on a nail stuck in the wall were commonplace. You wiped your arse or whatever, on that, left or right handed according to your dexterity, and threw the used piece down the 'toilet'. When you got back to the house, if facilities were available, you washed your hands. Gradually, the use of paper designed specifically for the purpose became prevalent. The destination of the excreta and the paper also changed over the time, and was more likely for many to be some sort of town or city sewerage system - not your problem. In warmer climates, and in less 'developed' countries, it was less likely that there would be a designated place. A quiet corner of a field was the most likely option. Paper was a rare commodity, so to clean yourself, you took a container of water at ambient temperature - quite warm. You poured it over the affected area, and used your left hand to assist in the washing process. Your right hand was reserved for eating - simple but reasonable effective hygiene. In these countries, the spread of 'mains' sewerage was much less likely, so as houses became more sophisticated, septic tank systems became prevalent, as they still are in country areas in the USA and elsewhere. The use of the container of water was replaced in more luxurious bathrooms by a hand held spray. I was warned when I first used septic systems in the US to minimize the quantity of toilet paper flushed. It contributes to sludge in the septic system, and now, in the days of sophisticated toilet paper, it introduces chemicals such as sulphites and bleaches into the system that can act against the bacteria that make the septic system work. In the other environment, there was no need for such warnings, since the use of toilet paper was minimal anyway. If you used it, it was probably just to dry yourself, and it did not then need to be flushed. With proper washing, a towel is OK, as after a shower. Septic systems in that environment can be compact, and don't need regular pumping to keep them working effectively. Septic systems don't like detergents either, so when you do the washing, disposal of that water is something completely separate. Usually it is relegated in cooler climates to a separate soak pit or trench. In the tropics, where evaporation is rapid, it is likely just thrown on the ground. It does not go into the septic system. Another related point is that the use of hot water for washing is rare in the tropics, but was normal in cold climates. With current detergents, and a decline in hand washing, hot water is not necessary, and it is not environmentally sound. Now, when people in the cold climates expect to have year-round temperature control, the use of toilet paper is something of an anachronism. Useless killing of many trees. Sending washing machine effluent to the same place as bathroom effluent causes problems for public sewerage systems, and should probably be revisited. So when in Africa, or India, or elsewhere, I'd recommend that you do as the locals do. When you go home, you might have found some new habits to take with you. |
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2/2/2010 - Monthly Progress Report. Well, the main house is pretty much as it was at the beginning of January, give or take a few new plants. Our focus is on getting the South House in a habitable state. This is going quite well. Last week, our do-everything fundi Innocent did the finish plastering and an initial coat of paint on the walls and ceilings. He also painted and glazed the front door - well actually the only door. So this week it is floor and wall tiling, and the aluminium windows. I also have to some plumbing work. One of my jobs got a big chunk bitten off it yesterday. On Sunday, Innocent's brother Gideon had dug the trench for the water supply pipe - 70m of trench about 50cm deep, mostly along the base of the compound wall around the back of the house. In my view, a prodigious effort, since the sun was merciless and it was scorching hot Then yesterday Adia and I went of on a materials purchasing trip - just-in-time provisioning. We bought floor tiles for the two main rooms, and 150m of one inch PVC water pipe. The windows components also got delivered. In the afternoon, Gideon and I coaxed the pipe into its trench, then he filled it in again apart from the ends, while I did some work on the latter. Now the pipe is in place, Innocent and Gideon are here to build a small dam at the and of the strip of land behind the house. They will also put a couple of lengths of 100mm pipe through the bottom of the compound wall. This will hopefully end the Nile delta effect and the small stream that runs down the side of the South House and across the front of it every time there is heavy rain. When they have done that - if the money is there - they will formalize the channel in the ground that has been carved by water running off the roof by giving it a concrete lining. Ali the tiler is working on the main floors today, and the window people are due to come and fit the windows, but they are always late so it would not surprise me if that did not happen until tomorrow. |
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What is BEV? Brits Eye View is an Englishman's six-year personal blog about life in Arusha, Tanzania, and previously in Bangalore, Manhattan, and the Bronx. It deals with life in general, building a house, food and drink, computer programming, opinion on current affairs, 20th century history, and so on. It may give you some insight into what life is like in 'the third world', or encourage you to visit Tanzania. |
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The most popular BEV archive page (Jan 2003 - Nov 2009) is still June 2003. (I still wish someone would explain to me why!)
We have rooms available at Adia's Place (the Brits Eye View micro hotel). So if you plan to visit Arusha, and don't mind being a guinea pig, give us a shout. You can stay in a rather nice room close to both the city, and to rural Africa, at a very competitive price.
A GDC-newbie web page
I have made a new page for beginner users of the GDC (Gnu Compiler Collection D Compiler) here. Since I am a newbie to it myself, I thought I should share my experiences of getting the thing up and running and beyond.
Currently on the Software page:
GDC, MinGW, and Code::Blocks
- Taking a different tack on the D programming language.
Javascript Exceptions
- A design flaw?
Minimally Intrusive Javascript
- Writing scripts for use by others.
BEV Tiny Feedback Component
- Simplified installation (I hope).
Javascript Little Known Facts #1
- Array Slicing and Function Call.
Javascript Little Known Facts #2
- Nested Functions and Closures.
Javascript Little Known Facts #3
- Labels.
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