Locals

Haha today started out differently! Since it's the weekend, our services weren't required at the orphanage (I mean, I guess they would have been appreciated, but it's our weekend). That means that we got to sleep in. My mom woke up at 9 (I think) and took all of our dirty laundry (or most of it...we have a lot) to the laundry service here at the hotel. Apparently all my boxers were too expensive to wash, so we have to do that in the sink. Great. The rest of us (Ashton, Amy, and I) woke up at 11ish. We sat around for a bit, got dressed, and then headed out. The first place we went to was Kase's Bookstore; a short walk from the hotel. The annoying thing about walking anywhere around the tourist-y areas of town is the fly catchers (the dudes that sell paintings and stuff that "they made"). They offer to help you get somewhere, etc., and try to sell you stuff at the same time. Highly annoying. So anyway, we got to Kase's, and shopped around for some learning books for the kids. I also got a Swahili-English dictionary, and I'm interested in buying a Bible in Swahili (I think it'd be cool). The store itself was very cramped, with nearly every open space filled with books. After the bookstore we walked about 5 shops down to a restaurant called Bamboo. This, too, was a quasi-tourist spot. There were of course many locals, but also a few wazungu (white people). We got lunch foods, except for Ashton, who got French toast. After lunch/brunch we walked back towards the central clock tower, to a grocery store, where we resupplied on water. Also, throughout the week, we've been looking for a big cake to take to the orphanage on our last day. Since there are so many kids there, and since birthdays don't seem to be that big of a deal here, none of the kids has one. So we've decided to throw our own for all of them. The grocery store didn't have any cakes though. After that we headed to this store called "The Tanzanite Experience." Tanzanite is a rare gemstone that is mined here. Many of the Maasai sell it here in town. Apparently this place that we went, The Tanzanite Experience, has a good deal, and an additional discount for TFFT workers. But...it was closed. The town itself is getting ready for the festival/holiday called Saba Saba. It's basically they day that Tanzania was declared a free country. It's on Tuesday, and it should be awesome. So then we continued our walking. Along the way I ran into a friend I've made here named Nixon. He's a local 19-year old who I met on the first or second day. He started walking with us and he and I talked about Swahili, Arusha, etc. He also took us to the soccer stadium here in town. There was an 18-under tournament going on, and we got to watch the second half of one of the games. The stadium itself was pretty ghetto, but the backdrop was awesome. A bit of Arusha and then Mt. Meru in the background. It was cool. After the stadium we kept walking, through the main market at the center of town. We stopped at a few shops, where I got a Tanzanian soccer jersey, before going to a t-shirt store where they sold tons and tons of t-shirts. At this point, Nixon left us (I gave him TZS 1000 for helping us out) and we headed over to Shoprite and the place where we would have dinner. We ate at a place called Ciao Gelato. It is Italian-themed, owned by a German guy, and located in East Africa. That was weird. The food was good (mine wasn't...Mango juice is bad, and they gave me the wrong panini) but the desert was divine. Ashton got vanilla and coffee gelato, while my mom and I both got an iced chocolate. It was chocolate milk, chocolate gelato, and pieces of chocolate on top. Yeah. After that we visited a chocolate shop, where Amy got some desert (non-chocolate, of course), and then got a taxi back to the hotel. So we're here now, in the internet cafe again, winding down for the night. Who knows what the plan is for tomorrow. We may go see a movie tomorrow night, but as far as the day goes, everything is either closed or closes down early on Sundays, so we'll see. Whatever happens though, we're still in Africa, and it's still awesome. Peace.