Back in Diani Beach, we had realized that my video camera had ceased to function. We could record sound, but no pictures, and despite Beth’s technical assistance and my shaking and banging to try to beat the imagined broken piece into place, we could not get it to work. In Dar Es Salaam, we made it our mission to either get it fixed or somehow get another one, fearing that if we didn’t have something our big video project at the end of our trip (which many of our visitors have already participated in) might not be possible.

We toured around Dar in the morning, stopping into video stores and were happy to find good cameras but distressed to find US prices. We showed the camera to a few folks, but no one could figure it out. Instead, they sent us to another store, and then they sent us to another, until finally we found a store that took great pains to explain to us how to get to the Sony Headquarters here in Dar. They printed off maps, gave us contact names and phone numbers, scrawled addresses, and even drew out directions. We were skeptical that anyone could fix it, and even more skeptical that we could just walk into a factory and have technicians at our disposal. But it was either try or dish out $600 (and maybe shorten our trip), so we thought we’d give it a shot.

We wandered down the street looking for a cab, when a man asked behind us, “taxi?”. And that’s how we met Ally.

Ally has become our saving grace here in Dar, giving us good prices, tours, information, and even a free ride here and there. Our other saving grace has been the Genie David that Marjona found on a beach in Zanzibar, but that will have to wait until the next blog… Ally is usually a tour operator, doing hunting safaris in the hunting season, and driving his brand spanking new, souped-up taxi van in the off season. This first day, he set out with us in search of the Sony Factory (at a discounted rate, at that).

We got a tour of the city on the way there, seeing the old US Embassy that was bombed in 1998, the sprawling new US Embassy that looks like a high security prison, various neighborhoods, beaches, and other points of interest. We ended up on a dirt road, going back and forth, asking people on the side of the road, and finally pulling up to a black gate that looked more like an abandoned school yard than the entry to a business. But Ally honked, and open sesame, the doors swung open.

We wandered into the main building, finding a seemingly empty office building (with air conditioning… ahhhhh). After a few “hello?’s”, a man appeared in the hall way.

“Um, we’re not sure if we’re in the right place…” we stammered. “We’re looking for Mr. Roberto? My camera’s broken, and we were told by the store in town to come here to fix it…”

He led us to Mr. Roberto, who was sitting in a nice suit behind a big desk in a corner office. Beth and I laughed, thinking how idiotic we must look disturbing what looked like the CEO to have my camera fixed. I started to explain, apologizing, and took out my camera.

“Ah, you need a repair,” he mused calmly, and told that man who led us to him something in Swahili.

We then found ourselves being led down a dirt path outside and behind the building. Beth and I exchanged glances, still skeptical and thinking that we were on a futile and never-ending wild goose chase. We walked into another building and found a small room with shelves stacked high with broken stereos, TV’s, monitors, and even editing equipment. Ok, we whispered, this looks promising.

Two technicians worked diligently on motherboards and wiring, and looked up from their tasks. Other techs we had seen in Dar held the camera like it was alien space technology saying things that clearly indicated they knew little about its functioning (ie, “What does ‘standby’ mean”, or “It’s because the battery is low”). But this guy took the camera expertly, looked at it for a moment, and said, “I’ll need to open it to fix it. That will be 15,000 Shillings.” Around $13.

Music to our ears. Here ya go, buddy! Go crazy!

Alyly brought us back the next morning, where our friend plugged in our camera, turned it on, and showed us the moving pictures. Fixed. He showed us the tiny, tiny piece of machinery (‘a capacitor from the motherboard’, our little tech nerd recognized) that had malfunctioned within the camera that he had replaced. When all was said and done, we got the camera fixed for about $50. A hell of a lot better than $600.

On the ride back to our hotel, we thought about how this would have been played out at home. First, we would have been told, without a doubt, “This will cost more to get fixed than it will cost you to buy a new one.” And if we did get it fixed, it would be sent away for weeks to the factory via mail, and would take some time to get it back. We chalked a lot of this up to the cheaper cost of labor, but also to a different mentality…

Commodities are precious, can be fixed, and aren’t worth just throwing away at the sign of the first problem. We thought of all the Americans that listen to the it-will-cost-more-to-get-it-fixed manta, including ourselves, who end up throwing hundreds of dollars into new equipment when the old still has a few good years left in her. After this successful two-day wild goose chase, and after seeing all the old, going-to-be-fixed equipment in their shop, we were struck by how wasteful our system is.

We returned to our hotel, grabbed Marjona and collected our bags, and headed to the ferry bound for Zanzibar… armed and ready to document the whole affair.