Yesterday was very exciting – I finally held my CRDB TemboCard, with the picture of the elephant, in my hand.  This means that now I can use the ATM to get my living allowance from VSO, not collect it as wads of  Tsh10,000/= notes on rare visits to Dar es Salaam or stand in a 2hr queue to get cash from a teller.

My allowance must be paid in the local currency and that means it can only go into a Tanzanian bank.  VSOTz prefers volunteers to use CRDB or NBC and I favoured the card with the elephant over the card with the giraffe (and I had heard queues in the NBC could be 3 hours long!)

To open a bank account  I had to have a residence visa and a letter from Bukoba District Council.  The latter I had by the end of the first week here and the former was stamped into my passport at the beginning of October.

Then I went to the CRDB to open an account – a Belgian friend had said it was a simple and painless process and showed me her elephant card that said VISA in large friendly letters on the front and I was convinced!

Opening the account turned out to be easy – I achieved that part of the process in less than an hour.  The only slightly ugly point was when the bank officer said I would have to deposit the minimum Tsh20,000/= and get a teller stamp on a deposit slip and I looked at the queue in the main banking hall and went pale.  He must have felt sorry for me (or worried that he’d have a banking related fatality on his hands) because he took my Tsh20,000/= and jumped the queue by going behind the counter.  So my first deposit slip is signed all in capitals JENIFA.

Once he had my money the officer told me there was a problem.  The TemboCard Photo Point camera was broken.  I could queue to do teller transactions from my account but I couldn’t use the ATM until I had a card with my photo on the back. I was assured that the camera would be fixed,  they had my mobile phone number, the bank would ring very soon, the card would be made!

Three weeks later, after no contact from the bank, I went to find out where the bank was up to with the camera.  A look into the photo point corner told me it hadn’t been fixed.  The bank officer said there was still no problem, I could fill in a form and hand over two passport size photos and the card could be made using those.  Easy! I never leave home without passport photos so I filled in the form and was told to come back in 3 weeks.

Three weeks later:  The bank officer solemnly took the biscuit tin out of the desk drawer and  went meticulously through all the cards in the J stack.  Mine was not there.  He could not explain how that could possibly have happened.  Perhaps if I filled  out the form again and pasted on two more passport photos? Fine!  3 weeks? I asked. No, only 2!

So just before we went to Dar for the conference I called in to the bank.  The officer was very embarrassed – still no card.  I was over being annoyed, I just sighed “well, this is Africa” and he indignantly responded “No, we are a modern institution, we don’t use that excuse!”  He said he would make it his personal mission to find my card and it would be there before the end of the year. 

Between Christmas and New Year, in a triumph of optimism over reason, we went to the bank.  The biscuit tin came out yet again and the Js were meticulously checked.  No card for me!  Steve suggested try the Cs.  The officer looked perplexed but had a look in that pile too.  Again no card for me.  Maybe next Friday, he said, we are expecting more cards then.

Well I knew on Friday that it was to indeed be the day even before the bank opened!  As I walked along the track to work at 7:30 a big 4WD pulled up along side me and the driver wound down the window and said “Good morning, I work at the CRDB.  Your card has come.”  Excellent!

Two o’clock came and I couldn’t wait any longer, I packed up and headed for town.  By 2:30 a bank officer had handed me my card with the elephant and a sealed envelope with the PIN.  By 2:45 another bank officer had demonstrated how to open the PIN envelope and had pointed out my PIN to me!  By 3:00 a third bank officer had pushed the buttons on the computer that would activate the card and let it talk to the ATM.  All done!

And today I tried it out, and it worked!