You Must Pay the Rent

As a non-academic staff member of SMMUCo, the monthly income of Baba Samwel does not provide enough for rent. Since Baba Samwel has no land or resources to make extra income by growing and selling bananas or by raising chickens, Baba Samwel waits for opportunities. When I first arrived at SMMUCo, he offered to marry me, my sister, and then any or all of my sisters-in-law.

The other day an opportunity for rent money arrived. Baba Samwel was assigned to travel to Makumira University College to deliver a small piece of equipment to an administrator there. It’s about an hour and a half journey by bus one-way. He was given an amount of money from the College for food and travel. From the amount given, he figured he could cheat the bus conductor out of some of the fare and buy cheap food.

But his plan was foiled when he saw that the administrator from Makumira had unexpectedly arrived at the gate of SMMUCo that day. What to do? Before anyone from SMMUCo could stop him, he raced out of the gate, hid himself at the nearby bus stop, and threw himself onto the next bus out of Masoka.

On the large bus to Arusha, Baba Samwel convinced the conductor to charge him less by telling him he didn’t have the money. But about half way to Makumira, college personnel from SMMUCo began to call his cell phone repeatedly. For the first ten calls, he avoided answering. Then with certain dread, like the sentenced man walking to his execution, Baba Samwel answered the call to return to Masoka.

This did not mean he had given up entirely on the opportunity. Even though he had paid some of the bus fare and cheated the conductor out of the rest, Baba Samwel told the bus conductor that he’d received an emergency call, please stop the bus and let him off. Then he convinced the conductor to give him half his fare back.

By the time he returned to Masoka, Baba Samwel had calculated what he could add to his accumulating rent money, but he had to return some of it in order to appear honest. A week later he was ordered to return again to Makumira to deliver another piece of equipment. This time, the administrator remained at Makumira.