Freedom!

12/12/11

Bargaining for a taxi was easy enough.  Getting to our hostel (Sakina Campsite and Lodge) was easy enough.  Gettting inside, however, was a little more difficult.  There is a metal gate flanked by razor-wire adorned brick walls on either side and a small doorbell.  We rang the doorbell, but no answer.  We waited for several minutes, me calmly, but I could feel Andrew start to worry.  No worries, things just move more slowly on Africa time.  The askari, David, finally showed up and showed us inside. 

This was another moment of worry for Andrew.  David, who speaks no English, didn’t know we speak some Swahili, immediately called his boss, talked for a while, then handed me the phone.  Robert, the manager, is very nice and informed me he’d be there the next morning.  Again, no worries.  We had the whole place to ourselves!  It felt like being at home and it was so strange not to have so many people around.  My anxiety had already left and I was ready to start exploring.

We took a taxi into town to a wonderful Chinese restaurant called “Everest.”  A little China man owns and runs it and reminds me exactly of the father goose in Kung Fu Panda.  It was so nice not to have African food for once.  As much as I love African cuisine, it is so starchy and so oily!  Chinese was a great change. 

That night we returned to our little refuge and listened to the shrill calls and numbing chants of the Maasai men congregating on the street outside.  During our taxi drive home, we had seen many groups of them walking and dancing with one another, all headed to the same place.  We had sat outside and against our cement wall and watched with David as the last of them passed.  We learned (through my limited Swahili) that it was a celebration for a changing age set.  That a new age set was being circumcised the next morning and the current morani generation was graduating.  Cutting young men’s foreskins?  Yah!  Let’s celebrate!

I sat there loving every moment of it.  Not the foreskin part, mind you, just the singing and dancing.  Honestly, I love Tanzania.  I love the Maasai.  They are so fascinating, so friendly, and so welcoming.  It amazes me that so many different tribes are here and they are becoming so modern but still holding on to their long-practiced traditions.  It’s beautiful and inspiring.

The next morning I met Robert, then Regina.  Robert is a very cute Maasai morani who had a very husky voice when I met him- due to his involvement in the singing and dancing the night before.  Regina is a very reserved woman who made us our breakfast.  She then kindly took us into Arusha on a Daladala (yay!) to buy our bus ticket to Rwanda and then went on to see her daughter whom lives with her sister because she’s married and Regina’s not.  Andrew and I spent the rest of the day wandering around Arusha.  We found a very cheap internet café, bought Andrew some very needed tennis shoes after his had gone missing, and eventually found our way all the way to the main thoroughfare where the mzungu market is.  This is the same place (ShopRite) where we had said goodbye to everyone the day before. 

We needed supplies, aka food, to get us through the next couple of days jumping buses.  Pb&J’s should do the trick.  We also treated ourselves to some ‘congratulations for surviving your first night alone in Tanzania’ food and then vowed to not do that again on this trip due to its cost.  Pb&J’s and fruit stands here we come!  We then successfully found a Daladala to take us back to Sakina (it’s amazing how far a little Swahili can get you) and we ended our night relaxing and listening to the continuing Maasai festivities.