One of my favorite parts about Tanzanian living is to hear the Swahili version of "modern" words (which are generally imported from English). Case in point: the refrigerator. Although its proper Swahili word is jokofu, no one in Dar outside of my Swahili tutor uses that. They use friji.
Our own friji tale is a long and frustrating story that illustrates perfectly how living here can wear you down. Almost three months ago, our friji stopped working. Our freezer stayed perfectly frozen but the fridge part was no longer getting cold,
Electricians here are called fundi umeme and there is a fundi who works on the Hill where we live. His English is not great but I asked my gardener, Ayubu (whose English is pretty much non-existent), to call him. This fundi, Joni, came within two days to check things out. I looked with fondness back on the days in the U.S. where I'd be given a 4-hour window for a repairman. At the time, this window seemed unreasonable: Four hours of sitting around is absurd! Meanwhile, we had all our friji items spread out at friends' houses and at school.
From my limited, Western-influenced perspective, I find that fundis can be good at fixing things...if you know what the problem is specifically. If you need a specific part replaced, OK. If you need a diagnostic exercise...it can be pretty hit or miss (as evidenced by the fact that our car woes could fill up a lengthy series of posts).
In this case, however, Joni correctly diagnosed the problem as being a buildup of ice on the coils of the freezer. This buildup prevents cold air from reaching the bottom of the fridge and can be caused by either the timer or the heater parts malfunctioning. He thought it was the heater but he wasn't sure. He was really concerned by the fact that we didn't have another fridge and didn't want to take the part. There were a lot of communication breakdowns as he wanted to wait it out and see and I insisted he get the part replaced. Finally, after a second visit, he took the part.
Meanwhile, I went out and bought a mini-fridge, reasoning that on the off chance that things were fixed the first time around, we'd have an extra place to put drinks for parties.
It wasn't the heater. He returned with the part, we tested it out, it didn't work. After several failed Swahili texts, I finally got the idea that he was now in Arusha, mourning the loss of his sister. (Did you know that the verbs to arrive and to grieve are very similar in spelling? Cue major cultural blunder).
I gave him some time and space to mourn and then started sending texts: Please come! We need the timer fixed! He responded: "I'll come kesho (tomorrow)" then kesho again. Then kesho again. Then there was no response.
We discovered that we could circumvent the problem by manually adjusting the timer ourselves every couple of days....we'd turn on the heater, melt the ice, and have normal service for a couple of days while the ice built up again.
We'd think: should we just get another fridge? They aren't cheap and this one is not even 2 years old!
Fast-forward to a month+ later. We're by now getting thoroughly sick of our work-around and are noticing that the problem is worsening: we are needing to do this almost every day now. Tim researches how to get to the area of town that sells fridge parts and heads off on a trek across the city in our car that not only has no working A/C, but is actively blowing heat into the car to add to the joy of 90+ degree life in Dar. He is gone almost 3 hours and returns home, bathed in sweat, and unsuccessful.
We ask around: anyone have a reliable fridge fundi? We decide to reach out to Joni one last time and so I texted him today. He responds that he is in Moshi grieving another relative.
I'm not heartless. Really I'm not. But this is getting a little ridiculous. By now, I'm getting rash. I boldly launch into Swahili with Ayubu, begging him to go and get the part for me. I am elated: he knows a place in Tegeta to get friji parts! Tim disconnects the piece and we send him off at about 2:30 to Tegeta, a place about 10 minutes away by bus.
By 7 pm I have given up and moved everything back to the mini-fridge. Clearly, Ayubu is not planning to return today.
At 8:30 pm, there is a knock at the door. It's Ayubu! Unfortunately, he was only able to find "fakes" and not "originals" (yes, these are apparently Swahili words). I'm not sure at all what that means but it sounds like we want the original. These are only sold at the fridge fundi place across town. Although I'm still holding out a small sliver of hope, it sounds an awful lot like the place where Tim just went.
I just plugged in the broken part and he'll take it out again tomorrow.
Does anyone else feel like we're in the middle of a circle story?
Stay tuned.
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