Ahhhh. A month! And what a day yesterday was to mark this milestone. Because remedial has began for class 4 and 7, meaning school is now held on Saturday from 8:00am to 3:30pm, I went to school yesterday morning and did some exam marking. It worked out perfectly, I was able to get some work done and then Ezekia met me there so we could head to town together. Figuring out transportation to town was a whole mess, but in the end we got lucky and got a ride with mama Edith (Lucas’ wife)—not many people have cars, so most people use public transport.
Once in town I was swept up and stayed that way for the better part of the day. I really wish I had taken more pictures because it’s so difficult to describe how confusingly quick everything went. We started by going to a clothing vendor. The shop was packed to the gills with packaged button ups, slacks, and jackets. Some were in boxes, others just in plastic packaging, and a few were laying out loose. One lone light hung down from a wire to illuminate the one foot wide walkway through all of the articles. The shop was more of a stall than anything else (as are almost all other shops, seemingly); it was 8 feet wide and 20 feet deep from the street—and when I say from the street, I mean from the street, the products were pilled onto the sidewalk and some even spilled into the road. There was no door to enter, it was just an open facade (imagine the whole process as opening a hoarders garage door and trying to navigate that space, that was the feeling of the shop). And then to try on my clothes I went to the back of the room (which may be a better term than shop), the owner held up a bedsheet for me, and there it was. The whole process took about 10 minutes but I was so engrossed by everything around me that I had no clue if we had just got there or been there an hour. We left the store without the clothes, the owner had to tailor the pants length. For a shirt, trousers, and a tie, I paid 62,000 Tanzanian shillings which is about $25.
Walking through this shopping area, every other store was the same way. Their products spilling out into the street, packed so tightly that there was barely any room inside for costumers to walk around. We walked through Arusha for a while, waiting for a friend to come and join us, when we stumbled upon the Arusha soccer stadium.
It was pretty sick to be able to go into, there were some referees doing training, but pretty quiet other than that. After a bunch more walking around, Ezekia and I met our friend, Pamela. Us three then got my clothes and went out of the city center to a nice ice cream shop. There was so much I saw in between all these main events, but I feel like I wouldn’t do any of it justice without pictures to accompany my descriptions. Ezekia left us after ice cream and Pamela and I went to a fast food place called Cossi’s where I got a fried chicken sandwich! And then, without knowing it was the plan, Pamela said “come we need to go meet my friend for her birthday”. So we hopped into a daladala (the public transit van) and went to a nice restaurant called Leon’s.
Nothing much went on other than 9 of us eating this platter of food. After we finished we went down the street to a place called Kelly’s lounge where there was some live music and football.
I was very tired at this point, it was around 8:00 and I was still a bit sick. So, I called Lucas, he said he would have someone pick me up, and I thought my day was over. But no. My buddy Hussein picked me up and started heading the opposite direction of home. He doesn’t speak great English, so there wasn’t much information I got from him about where we were going. When we pulled into a mosque parking lot, I finally connected the dots. Lucas and his family were attending the first ceremony of Ally’s wedding (my friend whose second wedding ceremony I’m attending today) and I would wait with Hussein until it was over. But no, we got out of the car and started walking the away from the mosque—neither I would have expected.
We started down these very quiet and poorly lit alleys between houses. We walked for maybe 10 minutes and in that time I got completely turned around and lost. Eventually we came to a house and Hussein ushered me to go in. There, being held, was Ally’s Muslim ceremony of taking the bride from the parent’s house. I felt like such an intruder because people kept urging and pushing me to go into a room where it seemed some holy ritual was being performed. I was a bit relieved when I finally saw Lucas in there taking videos and pictures.
The whole day was a blur, and there is so much I’m leaving out, but this was one of those days I will never forget. It was such a a whirlwind, but the moments I can clearly pull out are so beautiful and unique.