August 12 1998
I was walking the streets of Stone Town in Zanzibar. I needed time to think. I am a tour guide on a motorcycle tour. My wife and I were guiding a mixture of German, Americans, Australians and a Japanese. We were showing them the Africa we knew, as seen from the seat of a motorcycle.
Two days earlier, we had arrived in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania. We left the 8 BMW Motorcycles at a Catholic Church, and caught an old Russian hydrofoil across to Zanzibar. We would spend 3 days and 2 nights here. Today my wife had taken the clients to the beach.
One of the biggest challenges to running motorcycle tours in Africa was the bureaucracy of obtaining Visas for all the different countries we would visit. Add to that the fact that often the countries had different Visa requirements depending on what country the tourist was from. Tanzania was a particularly difficult country simply because it was so slow. It could take months to get a Tanzanian Visa. Many of our clients didn't book that far ahead of time, so we usually had problems. One of our German couples had been given a 3 day Visa. We would be in Tanzania for a total of 5 days. My task was to find a way to keep our clients, (and myself) from spending time in a Tanzanian jail.
Yesterday we had gone to Prison Island. Sort of an African Alcatraz that was in use at the turn of the century. There we saw some really big tortoises, and what must be the most secure prison in the world. The prisoners were chained to a big iron ring set in the middle of the floor of their cell. They couldn't even touch the walls. The chains were welded on, and only came off when they died. Now that is a real deterrent to crime.
As I strolled along I saw a house with a sign that said “Freddie Mercury lived here.” I wandered down a windy, narrow street, and there was a small kiosk/shed. It was barely larger than a phone booth. In it was a husband and wife. Entrepreneurs, African style. She had two old telephones, and sold phone calls. I saw long pieces of household electric wires going up a telephone pole, and the wires were attached to the phone lines with alligator clips. She had a good, low overhead, business plan.
Her husband made rubber stamps. I asked what stamps he makes, and he replied “Kitu chochote” (“Anything” in Swahili). I asked if he could do our company Logo, and showed him one of our business cards. He said to come back in an hour.
I continued walking, and came across another house with a sign “Farouk Bulsara (Freddie Mercury) lived here.” Further on I came across a “Slave House”. Zanzibar economy once thrived on Spices and Slaves. I wandered into a spice shop and the smell was so distinct and strong. Every spice I could think of competed with each other for my attention.
I went back to the rubber stamp guy and he had my stamp ready. It was made from a branch of a tree, and an old truck tire inner tube. He had carved the Logo (backwards of course) into the inner tube with a razor blade. We tried it out. It was perfect. I was so impressed. He wanted one US$. I asked him what other stamps he can make. He replied “Kila Kitu” (“Everything” in Swahili). So I asked if he could do a Tanzanian Multiple Entry Visa stamp. He just smiled. I showed him one in my passport. He went to another Kiosk, started a generator, and made a copy of it. He told me to come back tomorrow.
The next morning my wife and I went to him and collected our stamp. The rubber was glued to the end of a tree branch that was about 3 inches across. We stamped it to test, and it was amazing. He wanted 5 US$. We paid him, and went back to the hotel.
On the way to the hotel, my wife told me how yesterday she took the clients to a house that said Freddie Mercury had lived there. I smiled.
At the Hotel my wife borrowed a stamp pad from reception, and we gave our German clients a Tanzanian Multiple Entry Visa that was valid for a week.
That stamp served us well for a couple of years until it wore out.
That is our way, of dealing with bureaucracy.
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