A little more than a week ago Saturday, Brendan and I ventured out to Tengeru, a village about a twenty minute dalla dalla ride out from Arusha. On Saturdays they have a very large market which was rumored to be excellent. The rumors were quite true. It was the biggest market I have seen in Tanzania and had everything anyone could possibly be looking for. Rows and rows of vegetables, fruits, clothing, cloth, shoes, knick knacks, tools, utensils, undergarments, toys, candy, it was crammed with every good imaginable.
I really like to spend money and most of the time I can keep it under wraps, but in markets like Tengeru I wanted to buy EVERYTHING. Fortunately, I had only brought a small amount of money with me (a smart thing to do if you know you are going to be seriously tempted to spend way more than you should). Everyone was willing to negotiate to really good prices. I bought wire cutters (I've been making bracelets in some of my spare time), two huge pieces of fabric that I am now having made into clothing (a skirt and a dress), a watermelon (as a gift for my mama), and two bracelets (one made out of coconut and one made out of cow horn). I wanted to take pictures of everything, but understandably people don't always appreciate having a camera shoved in their faces. So while there are some pictures of the market now on Picasa, there aren't near as many as what I wanted to take.
Easter Sunday, my Roman Catholic family invited me to church with them. This was my first time being in a church in Tanzania and my first time ever going to a catholic church service. It was an interesting experience, but I think in the future I can do without a 4 ½ hour church service in a language I only barely understand. Thank goodness I know the words for stand up and sit down in Swahili, I was able to at least pretend I knew what was going on. But as expected, the music was beautiful and some women were wearing fabulous wraps and kangas in celebration of Easter. My brother and sister in law's god daughter had her first communion on Easter too, so my family was very excited.
After church we went to my bibi's house (my mama's mama) where there was a party to celebrate Rosie's communion. The decorations were elaborate and the ceremony was also extravagant. There were assigned seats for the guests of honor ( I was included in this party due to my (kind of) living with Rosie's god parents). There was then speeches, a cake feeding and eating ceremony, a gift giving ceremony and dance, then dinner while there were more speeches. I included a ton of pictures of this on Picasa. Overall it was a great experience, I loved it.
On Monday we didn't have work because it was Easter Monday. Adam, Alana, Brendan and I had planned to visit Lake Duluti to go on walk around the lake. Alas, we would never make it. We went to lunch at a small restaurant and sat outside on a concrete patio out front. The patio was about a foot higher than the gravel parking spots in front. As we were eating a white car pulled up in front of the restaurant. The man sitting behind the steering wheel kept beeping his horn periodically while we were eating. It was assumed he was waiting for someone. Close to the end of our meal, he began to rev his engine repeatedly. As time progessed he began revving the engine louder and louder. We ignored him and continued with our conversation. I was listening to the conversation when all of a sudden Adam yelled "Watch out!" I looked over to the white car as it hopped up onto the patio (crunching its bumper against the concrete as it did so) and smashed into our table. I have pretty quick reflexes so I managed to jump up out of my chair and move back out of the way. I got barely bumped by the table. Adam and Alana also managed to only be brushed by the plastic table. Brendan on the other hand looked into the restaurant when Adam yelled and so was totally oblivious to the car that then hit him on his side (and knocked him into me). He was mostly okay, just some large bruises. The table was broken and lying on the ground, our dishes had fallen to the ground and lay in broken glass fragments everywhere, and most of us had some amount of soda droplets sprayed over us when Brendan's soda bottle fell off the table and broke into pieces.
The car did stop after hitting our table (which was good otherwise we all would have been a lot more seriously injured) but instead of getting out of his car and apologizing, the man shifted in reverse and drove off. Some men also sitting on the patio with us ran after the car and managed to get his license plate number but since this is Tanzania and everything is disorganized its doubtful he will have to pay for what he did. Turns out he was the husband of the woman who owned the restaurant. They were having some marriage difficulties and this was how he decided to "hurt" her, by smashing his car into a table full of her customers. The woman was there and was very upset. There wasn't really anything anyone could do, so we left shortly after.
Brendan's leg was bruised on one side and he didn't feel up to walking, so he decided to just hang out for the rest of the day and put the walk off for another day.
(I don't have any pictures of that to put up on Picasa- sorry!)
I ended up deciding to go to the Serengeti afterall. It was a good decision. I was gone from Tuesday night through Friday night of this past week. Next journal entry will be dedicated to all of those details. (some Serengeti pictures are posted now on Picasa, but not all of them).
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