Mara and I left our homestay on Saturday morning at 0730. We met Peery, Sara, and Sana at the bus stand and waited for everyone else. One of our coordinators, Gerald, spotted us and led us to the bus. We got to choose the first seats, which is always nice. Mara and I are bus partners so we sat next to each other in the front of the bus. Then we just hung out and waited for everyone else to show up. It took us about an hour to leave--that's normal.
The bus ride was about three bumpy hours. At one point, we pulled the bus over for a bathroom stop. Then we were told we all had to get off the bus. The message was, "Fire! Off!" I'm not sure where the fire was, but we all got off. The bus was leaking gas, I think. It was leaking some sort of liquid, anyway. In a few minutes, we were told everything was okay, even though I saw the driver and the two bus workers sitting on the side of the road and doing nothing to the bus...
The SIC truck also broke down and we had to pick them up. We passed them and the bus couldn't stop on the hill so we went up the other side and had to turn around and come back. So funny. Then we picked the others up. There weren't enough seats for them, but we were only about 40 minutes from our destination, so it wasn't too bad.
When we got to Arusha, we pulled up outside of Arusha Backpackers. We were supposed to be staying at Meru House. Okay. Then we were told that where Meru costs aprroximately 5US$/night, Backpackers costs 10US$. We were all PISSED. It's not much money and Backpackers is really nice (breakfast included) but a lot of this not telling us what we're paying for until we get there shit has been happening. For example, I was told I HAD to arrive the day before the program started. So I did. Then I was told I had to pay for my stay in the hostel that night!! WTF? If I'd known that, I'd have come the next day, like some people did. Apparently we didn't have to be there the night before. And then we are told about 3 days before our vacation week that we have to pay for our bus ride back to Arusha from Babati AND for all of our food and hostel fees. Again, WTF?! I didn't bring money for this!! I was told living expenses were paid for. SIC won't even pay for our water this week! My response from Claire (not my favorite person, by the way) when I asked if she could put our water in the truck for us was, "You bring what you can carry, the rest you have to buy." Bull shit. That is not what I was told I'd be given. I was told my living expenses and my bottled water would be paid for. Not okay that I'm told differently when I get to the country and only two days before I have to pay for it all!! Right now, a lot of us are having trouble getting money out of the banks and stuff. Who knows why. So I currently do not have enough money to pay for another night in my hostel. The ATM told me my bank wouldn't let me get money out. I checked and there didn't seem to be any problem with withdrawing here; I've done it before. But I got less out last time, so I will try getting less out again later. I can always go into the bank. Not too big of a deal. Sorry for the rant, but it is very frustrating to have about $75 worth of living expenses thrown at you at the last minute. And that $75 is with us only eating 1.5 meals a day and surviving on day-old dollar bread the rest of the time. Such bull shit. Okay, done ranting and on to the really exciting parts of our week off.
We got into Arusha at about 1 PM. After we dropped our stuff off at Backpackers, some of us went to grab lunch at the hamburger stand we'd been hearing a lot about. It really is just a stand; a cart on the side of the road. It's also called "Wraps." But it is the BEST hamburger I've had in this country. I can't say best food because I had even better food later on in the week. But they ground the beef up with fresh herbs and spices. It comes with tomato sauce (sort of like ketchup, but not), onions, cabbage, tomatoes and cucumbers. Weird, yes, but it makes a great combination. I take the cucumbers off because I hate them, but everything else is delicious.
After the burger stand, we went to the SIC office to pick up some books. Of course, I forgot to bring the one I meant to exchange, but that's fine. We paid our deposit for the safari (we leave tomorrow morning). Then we checked out a few things and headed to the hostel to hang out. Backpackers has this great restaurant and bar on the roof, so we went up to read and such. Then we got ready to go out to the group dinner (not paid for, of course) at Maasai Camp. Apparently this is a restaurant/bar/club where all the wazungu (foreigners) hang out. The pizza was amazing. The beer was a decent price but the other drinks were ridiculous. It costs 3,000 Tsh for a double shot of Captain Morgan. Granted this is only about 2.5US$, but still. You get really cheap when you're used to paying nothing. A coke was 1000 Tsh, which is usually about 500 Tsh. So that was expensive. We hung out, danced, drank, played pool. There was some drama in the group, which was pretty irritating when you're trying to have a fun time out. But overall my friends and I had a good time. We're definitely trying to go there again before we leave Arusha. We also ran into our guide from our bonding waterfall hike at the beginning of the trip.
Sunday, many people left to go rafting in Uganda on the Nile. Peery, Mara, and I moved into Meru House with the remaining people. We got a triple and one wall of our room was windows. We looked like we were in an observation room. Nice for lighting, but everyone would walk by and look in. We, along with Meg and Sana who also stayed behind, decided to start a blog all about hostel experiences. We're working on putting it up as soon as we get a few entries compiled. Quick tip for Meru: every single staff worker, male and female, is creepy. But the food is good and cheap.
We also checked out some markets and hung out. We heard about a movie theatre in town. Can't remember if we did much else; mostly we hung out and relaxed. We got some food at ShopRite, the most amazing supermarket in all of the universe.
Monday was a fantastic day. We woke up early and had eggs and toast at Meru. Toast is the best thing EVER. Then we went to the Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal. Arusha is the capital of East Africa (Rwanda, Tanzania, and other east African countries like to consider themselves one state) and so the trials were held at the Arusha International Conference Center. They were supposed to finish last summer, but they are going on until fall of this year. So, we decided to check it out. We went through security, where they took our passports as collateral and gave us United Nations visitors' passes. Awesome. We walked around looking for a good trial to watch and found one. But the guard told us there was a judgment taking place upstairs, so we went to that. There are windows from the observation room into the courtroom and visitors can listen to the case through headphones. They'd run out of headphones, so one of the staff members took us into an Authorized Only area and to another room, where we could watch on a screen and listen. We listened to the judge read out the charges on a man named Kilimanziro. It took a while. Then we watched him be sentenced to 30 years in prison (though they took out time for the 3 years, 7 months, and 14 days he's already served). He was charged with inciting the public to kill Tutsis, for bringing Tutsis to the football field and then bringing armed Hutus to kill them, and for beating a Tutsi. He never actually killed a Tutsi, but he incited the Hutus to kill Tutsi.
It was crazy to watch something like this happen. And everything he did happened so long ago. It was awesome to see the UN in action on a case like this. It's hard to believe we actually saw someone get sentenced for war crimes.
After the tribunal, we went to the second-hand market. We see some people walking around with crazy American t-shirts that they've picked up there, so we decided to get some ourselves. I got one weird one with serious gibberish on the back. Mara got one for a family reunion that is in memory of Etta something or other. Hilarious. Meg got one for the Bucktrout Funeral Home.
We also went to the craft market and got gifts for people. There was a lot of cool stuff, but we're all getting really cheap so it was hard to spend money. Peery, Mara, and I also took Meg and Sana to the hamburger stand so they could try it out.
We found a Western strip mall by the ShopRite. I got some real milk-based ice cream. Amazing. Then we all sat in a coffee shop and had some coffee and cake. We got some cheddar cheese slices at ShopRite and had cheese sandwiches for dinner in our room.
TUESDAY
Tuesday we went to visit one of the teaching partner's home. Saningo is Maasai, so we took a dalladalla (minibus) to a Maasai area. There was a huge market happening that day. There was also a cattle market happening. It was really awesome. Saningo's dad has four wives (not something we new so it was unexpected news). Sangino's mom is his first wife. Saningo and his sister look just like her and she is very pretty. We also met the third wife, who is pretty and super nice. Saningo's dad creeped me out a little at first (mostly he's very large and I think anyone with more than one wife would creep me out) but he's pretty cool. He bought us some sodas and then paid for us to visit the Snake Park and the Maasai Cultural Museum. We got to see some HUGE snakes and we held some little ones. We saw some baby crocodiles. I climbed into the bit to take pictures of them. AWESOME. The Maasai museum was hilariously bad. It showed scenes from Maasai life, but the statues were not at all like you see in the States. I wish I could have taken some pictures.
After this, we rode CAMELS! It was so cool. I was sitting on the first camel with Saningo's sister. The camel in the back wasn't having a good day. As soon as the camels stood up, the back camel's nose was right by my butt. He decided to take a chunk out of my ass. The way he did it, I'm pretty sure he was plotting it for a while. It didn't hurt but it was hilarious. I got some lovely pictures of him.
Saningo's dad and moms provided us with lunch after. It was the first meat I've had in the country (aside from the trusty burgers). I'm always hesitant for local meat. It was tough and hard to chew but actually quite delicious and up to American standards.
We had to head back into town soon after this so we could get home before dark. Then we decided to check out the cinema. We wanted to see Confessions of a Shopaholic but we got there too late. A ton of us had already seen Angels & Demons, so we didn't see that. Instead, we got a bagel and some coffee at a coffee shop. It was good, but I wasn't feeling well. Then we went to another food place and sat outside. All the waiters for all the restaurants in the cinema/mall brought us menus and we just chose what we wanted.
I'm going to have to write about Wednesday/Thursday in Moshi and about the safari at a later date. No time now. Been on here WAY too long and have to get more money out!
Check back in a few days! Unless I get eat by lions on our safari, of course!
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