Day 15 – Shoe Shopping (Tanzania Style…)

                I started the day by sleeping in until about 10:30. I didn’t mean to sleep this long but unfortunately it takes more than the alarm on a $15 Wal-Mart watch to disturb this guy’s hibernation.

                Friday is the day for the local market. On our list of things to fetch are 9 pairs of shoes, 18 pairs of socks, and 18 pairs of underwear. These are for a local orphanage that was started by an English girl named Carly, who is working at the clinic. Carly and her friend Vicky have been volunteering at Nyakato Hospital since I arrived and over the last two weeks I have gotten to know their story. They are both nursing students from the U.K. and it is Vicky’s first time to Africa. Carly came to Tanzania last summer where she was inspired to start Upendo Children’s Home, an orphanage that pairs donors and kids to make sure they get to go to school and grow up in a loving home. She spent the past year raising money, finding sponsors, and starting a home that now has nine children with plans to open a new facility next year that can house many more. There are quite a few British “blokes” volunteering at Upendo for the summer and since it’s only a 15 minute walk we all end up doing a lot of things together.

                After the Friday market and buying shoes in a rather interesting way (the children traced their feet in crayon so that we could get the right sizes) I noticed that after two weeks of being in Africa I FINALLY GOT SONBURNT! Only a little though and I’m sure it’ll go away in a day or two. I wasn’t about to go inside yet though since I needed to finish making the grill for our 4^th of July party tomorrow.

The nearly three hours of haggling for shoes combined with a slow day at the clinic created a perfect excuse to go out to dinner and relax. We went to a place called Isamilo Lodge upon the recommendation of the group that was here before us. The view was fantastic, the food was amazing, and the British volunteers joined us too so the company was pretty entertaining as well. Dinners out take a long time here in Tanzania. Our dinner at Isamilo was nearly 3.5 hours but we did get to learn a lot about the volunteers from the U.K. As it turns out, they don’t say a “Spot of tea,” just an FYI. There is one volunteer here named Andrew who came here a year and a half ago to help out in Tanzania and just didn’t take his plane back home. He lives here now and is a little bit like me with how inquisitive he is so we find a lot of fun things to talk about.

Oh! I should also mention that our cab driver for tonight was awesome. His name is Tumaini which is Swahili for “hope.” He was incredibly fast picking us up, had a well-kept car with A/C, and really wanted to learn English. We talked the entire way to the restaurant, about half Swahili and half English. A few more fares with this dude and I should get a lot of practice. We got pulled over on the side of the road to town by a police officer with an AK-47. This was comfortable for about zero seconds and he went the back door, opened it up, saw Marry inside and I think he took a liking to her so he let us go. We asked Tumaini to pick us up after dinner and sure enough, he was outside waiting for us when we went downstairs. You might think that this is rather normal, and it is for a service in the U.S., but in Tanzania, getting people to do things with even the slightest bit of haste is a big challenge. Our previous cab driver made us wait a solid 45 minutes after our predetermined time and when he finally arrived he realized he forgot to get a second car so we could fit everyone. As luck you have it this second car was on its last leg and broke down on the way to town. I think Tumaini will be hearing from us again.

It’s been a pretty full day but I feel like I don’t get a whole lot done here. It’s kind of like going to the Library and staying on the main floor. You certainly spend a long time there but don’t seem to get anything done. Of course here you don’t get too distracted by everyone talking to you as much but things just take a little longer to accomplish in East Africa. I’ll have to get used to that.