Overcoming writer's block

Yes, it's been just as quiet on the email front this month, as several readers of this blog can testify. I was quite proud of keeping up my 600 words per day on the monster-in-progress (the novel) even in the face of provincial travel and painstaking massaging of the business registration process, on top of the usual daily round of keeping servers in line and taking up the slack of inadequate infrastructure. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the bank received a letter from the powers that be, to inform us that my work permit had expired. I was sent home for fear of government inspection. I laughed when it happened, but evidently some kind of quiet inner panic set in, and it's been very difficult to settle to any kind of complex task since.

Far and away the easiest thing for me to write, these days, is a task list. I get so much practice at it. So here is yesterday's.

Mozassist - original rent contract
(Mozassist is the local company which is handling my business registration. The rent contract is the ultimate source of many of my present problems. Mozambican law has not yet caught up with the new-fangled idea that a business may be just me, my laptop and an internet connection; I have to have a brick-and-mortar office. Nor will just one dedicated room in my three-bedroom flat meet the requirements; I'm not allowed to live there, if I'm also using it as an office. Six weeks ago, when I started the business registration process (which should have been plenty of time, for an individual company) I decided to use my present flat as the office - so that I could provide the rent contract quickly - and move in with my friend Minati while searching for a more permanent arrangement. I asked my dona da casa (landlady) for a new contract which showed the purpose of the flat as "residence or office" instead of just "residence", and she promptly started dithering as efficiently as she could. Weeks went by. I reassured her on the nature of the work, then on the tax arrangements, gritted my teeth on the requested rent hike, pulled in favours to obtain the dollars I had to hand over before she would sign the contract - then I had to travel to Tete for a week... but I finally got hold of it. Now the registration of Anseris Informática can finally crawl forward again.)

Office - hand in laptop
(Giving up my old work laptop. I've bought a new one, and took delivery of it on Wednesday. As an indication of how busy, or how scatty, I've been lately, I haven't had a chance to switch it on since I got it home.)

Office - letter re end of contract
(Obtaining some paperwork for the Gabinete de Migraines - sorry, Migração.)

Office - keys for apartment
(This refers to the dingy apartment around the corner from here, which the bank uses to store hardware. I have permission to store my books and other bits and pieces there, so I don't have to clutter up Minati's apartment with them.)

Branch - cash out
(Referring to the bank I work for - not the much larger bank mentioned below. The one I work for didn't keep me waiting longer than five minutes, even though it's the busy end-of-month time - and the teller never has to ask me for my passport before she'll let me transact, because she always scans my fingerprint to check who I am. I can't forget to bring my fingerprint.)

Branch - open account for business
(Oh, and my bank will pay interest on the the twenty thousand meticais which I have to deposit in an account as part of the business registration process. The big bank won't.)

Bank - transfer for B&P
(I have to transfer value to pay for the new laptop. I actually did this earlier this week, but when I collected the laptop on Wednesday the embarrassed supplier explained I'd been given the wrong account number. Hey, they let me take the laptop home! (And not only that, but when a taxi failed to become available after half an hour, one of the staff gave me a lift home. You get good service at B&P.) So, I went into the big bank. After waiting in three different queues, they told me I couldn't do the transfer that day and I should go back there on Monday.)

Drop off talão at B&P
(The talão being the proof of transfer. Moved this task to Monday.)

Cellphone
(I'm still using the bank's cellphone. Must arrange a new one.)

Fine at Aguas de Moçambique
(Back in October last year, I failed to pay a water bill on time because I had to extend a work trip to Chimoio. This means I can no longer pay the bill via the ATM, but have to go into the Aguas de Moçambique office and stand in their legendary queues. And ever since then, every time I've walked past that office and caught sight of those queues, dizziness has struck me and I've remembered all the urgent tasks I should clear off my plate before I go spend hours there. Let the fine pile up, month by month - my time is worth more... or, it was worth more. The difference is a lot slimmer now.)

$
(Alert readers shall have noticed the reference above to the difficulty of obtaining dollars to pay rent. It's a peculiarity of Mozambique that house rents - at least in the middle-class parts of cities - are denominated in American dollars, even though most of us receive our salaries in humble Mozambican meticais (currently around thirty to the dollar). So, there's a lot of competition for the handful of dollars changed by expats and tourists. Sure enough, when I called at my usual exchange bureaus yesterday, no dollars available.)

It wasn't on my task list, but I did manage to write about a hundred words on my monster-in-progress yesterday, after a week of nothing at all. Today I have to write two hundred words. This blog post doesn't count.