Still here...

For a few days more at least. Thought I'd post now as there's some news now and no more coming for a few days, but we've also got power and internet connection. So, the lawyers eventually managed to track down our good friend Kingdom - the head of investigations at Immigration here in Arusha - last night. As we suspected, although he as been notionally in charge of the investigation and had threatened to do so himself, he was unaware that a letter had actually been sent by immigration in Dar and he was pretty annoyed (a) that people are taking action without informing him and (b) that whoever did this has not followed up on the deportation plan. However, it seems he is unwilling or unable to immediately cancel this action and therefore that we need to find another way to undo what has already been done. We rather suspect the investigation was taken out of his hands and either no-one told him or he's just been delaying things for weeks now. Either way we move on from him now - so those who have been praying from this particular Kingdom to come to an end might have been successful there!

We have confirmed that the cited reason for my intended deportation - the 'national interest' - implies that I am suspected of being either a spy, or a terrorist (must grow the beard...). Either way, the British Government is behind things (possibly with the collusion of the EU, as they actually fund me here). However, Immigration in Arusha will do nothing towards deporting me in the next few days (unless something unexpected happens in Dar) whilst we try and find out what the way forward is.

On Monday I have a meeting planned with the lawyers where we will discuss what to do next - advice from immigration here in Arusha and the lawyers suggests that the issue can still be resolved very simply, but that because the letters have been written it must now be dealt with at the highest levels. Consequently, it seems the most likely action will be for the lawyers to try and meet the Minister in Dar (perhaps arranged with the assistance of the British High Commission) and explain what has happened, but there are other options we need to consider. In the mean time, at least we're not expecting a delegation from immigration to turn up at my gate at any minute...


In my other career (you know, the science one) things progress quite happily actually - this new paper is now available to the world demonstrating how complex it is to think and see like a koala, and the first results from the Tanzanian work are in review with Science at the moment, so let's hope for a happy result there too! And we're all off to a second birthday party later, for some light relief... Hope we can have some fun over the weekend too.