Yesterday was a nice way to wrap up my time in Arusha (and East Africa, I guess).
The morning started a little late—I hadn’t set an alarm and wanted to bank a little extra sleep for the upcoming travels. However, my body must hate me and fought against me, wanting to wake up at 7am. I used my morning to work on packing up my things. In the end it just became a stuff job though…
The late morning took me to a little goodbye lunch with some friends. As things go though, this lasted about 2 hours longer than it should have (and a few things I wanted to do went with those hours), but it was a really nice time.
My buddy Pamela took me around town to do some shopping for knickknacks (as if I don’t have enough already). I enjoyed this walking around much more than the shopping I’d done before with a car just skirting us around. Sure it came with a bit of harassment, but I also got the chance to walk through these tight little indoor markets where you can’t tell where one shop ends and another begins—neither could I tell where the entrance nor exit was.
A little break led Pamela and I to a bench where we were able to enjoy some sidewalk preaching. I’m starting to realize that I’ve gotten used to all this noise that never stops, it’s going to be interesting if things feel too quiet now at home.
I was supposed to get a ride home from town from the people I came with, but when the car pulled up we all realized that that wasn’t going to happen. As I had been off shopping, they had been doing some shopping of their own and the car had not an extra inch of space (a big ol minivan mind you). I was elected as the one who got to ride a motorcycle home (as a passenger of course).
It was a little bit of rush once I got home. I was supposed to have gotten home earlier than I did and I had to eat dinner quick, say my goodbyes and then get on to the bus station. Everything went surprisingly smooth—maybe because I had a bunch of people helping me. Last night was another rough one on the bus. I think rather than zero hours of sleep like last time I might have logged three this time around at least. I arrived in Dar es Salaam about an hour ago and now I have 10 more hours until my 5pm flight. Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep during that time, but we’ll see how it goes!