A wise man once told me, “The wisest of men all have moustaches,” and since I was saying that to myself in the mirror it has to be true. Needless to say, I’ve got a wicked nice moustache going on right now. Moustaches and Tanzania, gotta have it.

The weekend has come and gone and I’ve entered my second week.

We spent Friday at the orphanage where Hayley and I helped Kate with a leadership training class with the kids. After an introduction where we had the kids list off the qualifications that leaders shared we went into different activities and games that were meant to be fun and informative for the kids. We started off with a lovely game of Simon Says, and I got to be the Simon. After not playing the game for a long time it was definitely harder than I remembered to give out commands, and at one point I just told them to say hello over and over again until I could think of something new to go with. In the end it was Christina who came out the champion. We moved outside after that and we introduced a game that originally was called Mingle, but quickly turned into being called Mango by the kids. Basically, everyone was told to “mingle” and walk around until the person leading it yelled out a number and the kids had to get into a group of whatever the number was. I felt like a mother duckling walking around to the say the least, because the kids all would slowly creep behind me or Hayley until the heard the number, and then regardless of what it was they would grab onto me or Hayley and scream and cheer…until they realized they didn’t have the right number and would start pushing kids out so they wouldn’t lose. All the while, I just stood there and let them figure it out, and in the end I always found myself to be the last man standing.

The kids didn’t know what mingle meant and thought we were saying mango, so they would walk around and act like they were eating mangos the entire time. That is how the game came to be called mango, and I remember seeing Benny marching around with big high steps and swinging his arms while taking huge bites out of an invisible mango and being so proud of himself for it and I was just cracking up.

We did a few more games with them, one in which they had to use scraps of paper and only materials that we gave them to build a nest for an egg that I dropped later on in the hopes that the nest would protect the egg from cracking. As we all know though, no egg is safe from the outstretched arm of Kyle, and they all broke. The kids weren’t sad though, more excited actually, and ran to the fire pit and started cooking all the egg yolks and made scrambled eggs. Then we had them do an obstacle course blindfolded and one of the other kids had to lead them through it, and afterwards we had them sit around and discuss everything we had done that day so that they could get the lessons from it.

All in all it was a really good day though, and I think the kids took a lot out of the lessons that Kate prepared for them.

Saturday we drove two hours to Arusha to go to a place called Shanga for a fancy lunch and a heritage center that they had there. I quietly sang to myself as we got in the van, “Arusha, Jamaica, oh I wanna take ya...” Except for the occasional gas station or row of shops the countryside was mainly just farmland. What was more amazing about it was the fact that the acres and acres of farmland that seemed to be everywhere was entirely worked by hand. There were no tractors or plows and the people were out there working it all themselves. Pretty remarkable.  Now I feel guilty for not wanting to mow the yard. My Dad’s reading this and briefly nodding his head like I’m actually going to mow it when I get home, but slowly realization is washing over him and he’s now shaking his head and laughing because he realizes that I’m not actually going to and I was only getting his hopes up so I could crush them immediately. J

…don’t cancel my return flight, please.  

Anywho, we arrived at Shanga and it was straight out of Alice and Wonderland. There was a large field with a tree offset the middle of it with a cushioned cage hanging from one of the limbs and lanterns around it. There were couches and tables set up all around for people to relax it and we were given champagne once we sat down. We had a three-course meal prepared for us: carrot stew to start, followed by samosas, a salad and barbeque main meal, followed by dessert and coffee at the end. It was all very good, and we were seated under a fancy hut like building while monkeys were scurried around and tried to steal food from the other tables and the waiters threw rocks at them to get them away. We were then given a tour of the area and found out that Shanga is actually an establishment for disabled people to find work recycling old glass bottles, tires, and fabric. The workers were all either mentally disabled, deaf, or mute and they took the crushed glass and melted it down to make glass beads for jewelry, vases and cups, plates, and what have you’s and what have you nots. They also spun their own fabric and designed their own clothes for sale and there was a shop that sold everything they made. The footpaths and grounds throughout the whole place were broken glass mixed with gravel (or vice versa, if that makes it seem safer) and from all of the trees hung the glass beads that they made, and walls of some of the huts were just glass bottles strung together. It was pretty surreal finding a place like that and not something I expected before I arrived. It was also neat the fact that the whole operation was run by the disabled and served as a place for them to find work and make a living.

                        …seriously, don’t cancel my flight

Because we spent so much time at Shanga, it got too late for us to head over to the heritage center like we had originally intended, so instead we went to a market in the center of the town that everyone called the Masai Market.

…almost had a panic attack while we were there, but then I kept my composure. You gotta keep your composure. 

It was very overwhelming being there because it was just rows of shops and it was non-stop all the shop owners trying to usher you into their stores to look at what they had. Once you walked out of one another owner was there saying hello and trying to bring you into their store, and some of the times when you were in there they made it very difficult for you to leave. A rule of thumb Theresa told us before going in there though was, “Whatever price they give you, try and go down to half that,” because they immediately raise the price because you are Mazungu (white person). I was only planning on just walking around and seeing what all they had because I wasn’t planning on buying souvenirs this early in the trip, but I realized after the first few shops that everything in each of them was exactly the same. So, every time I got ushered into a new shop it was all the same thing that I saw in the last, but because they were so persistent in getting you in there I felt like I had to go in only to have to explain again why I didn’t want to buy anything. By the end of it I just had to go stand by the car because it was too overwhelming, but at least I got my first taste of what it was like so I won’t be as shocked the next time I go.

They kept trying to sell me a spear? The reasoning behind it, “None of you Americans have spears.” Touché sir.

Had a bit of a language barrier incident the other day too.

Hayley and I were on a dalladalla heading back from the orphanage and it quickly became apparent that the conductor did not speak any English, and was not in a good mood. The language barrier became apparent after he asked me for the fare and I told him that we had paid the other conductor, so I just looked away and considered the matter closed. He tapped me again a minute later with his hand out and kept gesturing that we still owed him money. I kept telling him we had paid, but he really didn’t get what I was saying so I just kept pointing at his friend until the guy finally turned around and asked him, at which point he turned back to me and said something else and everyone else in the dalladalla laughed…except me, because I missed the joke.

The conductor was angry the entire time and I could tell that much because he was yelling about something and using angry hand movements, but hand gestures aside it became truly apparent when a local lady in a red dress next to me said, “He’s angry.” I asked about what and she just laughed and said, “Everything,” which gave me a little chuckle. It was tough though sitting there and neither of us had any idea what either was saying and I just kind of had to laugh about it. Somebody on the bus had to tell the guy when we needed to get off because my English just wasn’t going to cut it.

I did trade Hayley for a Canadian two-dollar coin, a twoonie, if you will, because I figured when is a better time to amount my fortune of foreign currency that I won’t ever get to use than here in Tanzania. Cool coin though. I’m going to try and trade currency with all the people who come and stay at the house in the future so at the end of this I kind of have proof of all the different cultures I got to live with. I’m running low on ones though, don’t really want to start trading 20’s so I might just have to do it the old American way and politely ask for things. 

So far, I’ve read two books and going into a third. I read 50 Shades of Grey (meh) an the first book in the Game of Thrones series (awesome) and I’m starting into the second book already. When you have no television or Internet, why not read, and it’s been nice actually being able to. 

I’ve been having cravings for bacon lately…the good news is, unlike my Dr. Pepper cravings, I can go to a butcher and get a slab of pig and cut my own if it really comes down to it. I’ll keep ya posted on if I acquire bacon at any point, and at least now you’ll know how that came to pass.