Fundi Funguo

Sharon, the woman whose house I am living in told me to get a set of keys made last week and I’ve been dragging my feet about it. Actually, I was a little annoyed…I’m the renter, she has a car…I have no clue where to get keys made and she’s probably had to do this before. I started asking the maid in bad Kiswahili where to get keys made and then I moved my inquiry to the streets, walking along the road by my house asking in the shops that look like hardware stores. Finally, I arranged with Godfrey, the askari (guard) for him to go with me today. We got in a bajaj (autorickshaw...see above photo) and went over to Kinondoni, driving on sidewalks as pedestrians darted out of our way seemingly unperturbed, and started asking in different places where the fundi funguo was. Here, people who make things or fix things are called fundi…so you have a clothes maker (fundi nguo), plumber (fundi bomba) electrician (fundi umeme) cell phone repairman (fundi simu) etc. When we finally found it, the shop was more like a slot about four feet wide with at least five people inside leaning against walls or sitting, reading the newspaper. The ceiling was a lattice work of spider webs with an impotent looking light bulb hanging down, and a crooked, photocopied painting of the last supper in pastels hanging in the back. I had to sit on a stool and wait for the fundi to return. The fundi put my keys in a vice and ground the new ones down by hand. I don’t know why I was expecting a key machine. I was expecting one of those hulking, chugging key machines they have at home depot that spits your shiny key out in ten seconds and probably costs more than a house here. Even when we got there I still thought, well, maybe the big key machine is out back somewhere. It was one of those things that once you realize it isn’t there, you immediately realize how preposterous the idea was in the first place…
Godfrey thinks he has malaria and so he left me there and went to the doctor and he looked as if he was waiting for me to give him a few bucks on his way out, which I awkwardly did as I had planned to… then I had to pay for the keys and pay for my bajaj driver to take me home. Money is always an awkward issue here. My natural inclination (and need) is to be pretty cheap. But I also want to be perceived as something other than a wealthy, walking bank when I am in need of the help and guidance from people. Its not that locals are not genuinely hospitable and helpful, but they are also smart enough to know to ask for money for their time. Knowing nothing here, costs money…that’s the just the way it is. Back home, you look things up on the internet, you get on Google maps, you walk into any Wallmart and it has the same Deja vu floor plan. There is very little value placed on local knowledge, very few times you have to ask five people how to get something done, what street it is on, where that street is (nobody knows street names so they have to take you) and when it may be open. Here, it happens all the time. Every little task takes time and money as a foreigner. Not like driving to Home Depot and flipping absentmindedly through home improvement magazines as your key gets stamped out.


Update: Godfrey is back at the house. He has malaria...two different kinds. Geez.