Identification

Even though I arrived in Tanzania around a year ago, I haven’t yet acquired what is apparently an important article, a National ID card known as NIDA. It needs to be presented whenever anyone in authority demands it.

Therefore the morning was spent rolling around backroads like this, shuttling between government offices, waving my bank deposit slip around trying to prove we had paid the money for me to acquire a NIDA card. Thanks to the artfulness of one of our office drivers I eventually managed to get everything submitted and I should receive a shiny new card in two weeks. It was mildly amusing when one official informed me that my residency paperwork was invalid despite me waltzing around with it for a year. I chose to believe he was mistaken as it’s all I’ve been given. As usual multiple insights into what it must feel like to be a powerless immigrant trying to navigate a convoluted system, without any of the dripping privilege that I have as a white British man.

Having said all this, going through the residency process in Tanzania feels less of a bureaucratic slog than Mozambique. Even though I have a major soft spot for dear Moz.