Year 27, Day 111 - Africa, Trippin' to Town

A trip to the city of Arusha has repeatedly proven itself to be an experience.

First, the mode of transportation is Teshee's car - an old boat of a car with no seat belts, no radio, and likely not road-worthy according to Canadian standards. Second, cultural practice dictates that the men sit in the front... and then us women all pile into the back, sitting on each others laps, because again... there are no rules about how many people you cram into a single vehicle. Third, the orphanage is about 15kms away from the city, but it takes over 40 minutes to travel the dirt "roads" due to the quality of the roads, maneuvering around pedestrians, animals, and the lack of traffic rules. Its nearly impossible to describe what its like to drive through the center of a bustling African city. Its surreal.

The view from Teshee's back seat on the way into Arusha, I hung out of the window to get this shot and ducked back in just in time to have the contents of that truck (dried corn) scrape against the window!

These poor people must be so hot pushing and pulling their carts.
They maneuver through traffic like slow cars and try to sell you things through the windows.

I think that this fast fact punctuates what I mean:
Over 1 million people live in the city of Arusha... and yet there are only 2, count em, 2 street lights.
Chaos. Yes, I think so.

No street lights, no stop signs. And us trying to pull into traffic while avoiding all animals and people.
You just kind of nudge in slowly and hope for the best...

Day 3 or 4 is also about the time that my bodily functions began to fail on me. I struggled with the sudden diet change and carbohydrate overload. Rice, bread, rice, rice, bread, rice. Everyone ate well, but this girl is clearly used to a little more roughage in her life, and a banana-a-day wasn't doing the job. It was also irritating because I had no control over my diet and so I eventually began smuggling in oranges and apples and eating them in secret in the hopes forcing my system into functioning again. Around day 6 I was ready to go to the doctor, when shit *cough* literally and thankfully sorted itself out.

Too much info? Too bad. This is my show.

And if you've traveled... you know that BM's are a constant topic of conversation as someone is inevitably having too many or not enough of them. Drugs are utilized, diets are controlled... regardless, I always suffer both extremes. It happened in Asia, and Africa was no different. Unfortunately for him, brother Joe knows more about my bodily functions than any other man in my life. Thats for shizzle.

But I digress.... we went to the city of Arusha numerous times during our stay at Karim's Orphanage, and every time we would end up in the same gated shopping area. It was basically a one-stop shop for the white people and tourists. I recall being told that it was extremely unsafe for us to leave the compound of this gated shopping area on our own due to the extremely plausible possibility of us being robbed. Awesome! I recall a feeling of constant paranoia when out in Arusha: people stare, everyone crowds you wanting to sell you things, and men say very very perverted things to you in Swahili while undressing you with their eyes. Its similar to Asia, but on a whoooooooole other level of poverty and forwardness. We were escorted most places by Rahema or Teshee and it was a comfort to know that they were looking out for us as it was in their best interest to keep up safe.

Our gated shopping center, homebase, and savior : Shoprite

An example of the street-side fresh food markets.

Our favorite regular stops included:
-The markets and shops- where we got our barter-on!!! Though not as cheap as you would assume....
-The internet cafe - standard. On one eventful visit, Nicole and I actually stopped-dropped-and-rolled as it sounded like gun shots were going off. The clerk maintained that it was just fireworks.... yeah right lady. Mid-effin-day-fireworks!? Later Mary-E told us that she practically saw someone get shot due to some protests. Ignorance is sometimes bliss. This event later caused me to scream in panic when on the way home, we were piled in the back of Teshee's car and a motorbike backfired next to my window. I thought it was round 2 of guns-gone-wild and we were all going down!
-Shoprite - where we indulged in box-store comforts of home, such as: air-conditioning, ice-cream, wine, Coke, and M&M Peanuts.
-The Pharmacy - to sort out our various ailments. White wimps dependent on medication.
-Restaurants... or the African-version thereof... don't get me wrong, the food at the orphanage was wonderful, although somewhat definitely repetitive, and sometimes scary. Goats-Brain soup was an epic fail for example.... Therefore it was a treat to sit down for a restaurant meal, even if there was definitely a worm in my burger once. But I ate it anyways. :)

Its Africa people. You just gotta roll with it.
And I loved every second of it.