Weekend with Students, Part 1, January 24 & 25

 Note: Originally, I had intended to write a blog post which included the whole weekend, from the evening of January 24 through the day of January 26.  However, due to the maddening uncertainty of the internet the past two days, I haven't been able to gain access to this blog or my photos for most of the time.  So, we'll get through the main news of Friday and Saturday and leave Sunday for a following post.

It's Sunday evening and both my body and brain feel drained.  There has been too much sensory overload and energy demand.  The students stayed here with us at Kundayo from Friday morning until this afternoon to make it easier to keep our Saturday field trip schedule and give their host families a break.  For me, it felt pretty much as if 12 children had returned home for a weekend and were having a big boisterous family reunion.  These are really wonderful young people, so I was surprised how much it felt as if my private space was not only being invaded but actually hijacked.  I must have a really selfish private core deep inside somewhere to begrudge any of this group free play at Kundayo--especially since we get to eat excellent buffets with them at lunch and dinner while they are here.

Friday was a really ordinary day, with classes in the morning and free time in the afternoon.  The students were supposed to be working on their first Core 350 paper, but I think most of them went off to explore more of Arusha.  Quite frankly, I believe that was the better choice for their eduction.  John and I decided to go out to Njiro, a nearby suburb where a lot of fairly wealthy foreigners live. The major draw for us was the worn and faded, sunset pink stuccoed "mall" with its two-storey horseshoe of shops, some of which are vacant and none of which seem very prosperous. Even the grocery store with its shelves of European chocolates, jars of Indian curries, and British biscuits and condiments of all sorts did not have the Kraft macaroni and cheese and American breakfast cereals that had amused us in 2012.  I had hoped to be wonderfully surprised by an economic upsurge and new shops, but except for a couple of restaurants, most businesses looked even sadder than before. Only the fact that we could get dishes of real ice cream redeemed the potential waste of taxi fare.

Saturday was a day of nonstop activity, with two major destinations and the passing sights and smells of all the shops, markets, pedestrians, goats, and roasted corn stands along the way.  Our first stop was at the African Cultural Heritage Museum, an impressive conglomerate of restaurants, specialty shops, outdoor concrete animals, and a huge modern building that has the appearance of a great art museum, except every stature, mask, painting, and artifact in it is for sale. (http://www.culturalheritage.co.tz/) The collection is, of course, always changing, but the core of genuinely old pieces is very worth seeing. John gets a bit bothered by some of the mislabeling of where pieces come from, but I doubt that the wealthy collectors in Texas and New York care all that much about true origin. The main shop in this compound has perhaps the largest supply of Tanzanite in Arusha, with many of the polished stones going for tens of thousands of dollars.  We were even shown one that had a value of half a million, and when we asked who buys such stones, the answer was once again wealthy Texans.

These stones are only worth several 100 dollars each.

These stones range in price from $30K to $40K.

When we left the ACHM we drove a short way and entered into Shanga Shangaa, which literally means "beads awesome." (shanga.org)  It's part of a place called River House and employees 44 handicapped persons who create a variety of crafts for sale in the gift shop and online all over the world.  A main part of the work is the recycling of beer and wine bottles into glass beads for jewelry and and blown glass bowls, wine glasses, etc.  I love watching the glass blowers at work as well as picking up an occasional discarded glob of glass that has been tossed aside and become part of the ground cover between the shops.  After a short tour of the workshop area, we all went onto the lawn and sat around low tables on cushioned sofas, where we were served juice or champagne while we waited to go to the lunch buffet.

I was feeling at one with the green serene grass and huge trees until someone shrieked, "Monkey!  There's a monkey in that tree." Immediately, the students were up and running with their cameras pointed up at a tree in which there was not only a monkey, but--big shriek coming again--a mother monkey holding a little baby.  One student who noticed my incredulity at their outburst reminded me that this was their first monkey sighting and that they were naturally very excited. It was only after several more monkeys showed up to scope out their prospects for treats that our group began to calm down.  Once we were called to our table for the buffet, all attention shifted to the exotic setting in the open air restaurant and the salads, zucchini fritters, beans, and grilled meat. The dessert was an assortment of tidbits in little blown glass bowls set in a wooden stand.

After lunch, the students went on a tour of the Burka Coffee Farm.  I stayed behind to check out the Shanga gift shop, where I found much less merchandise than had been there in 2012.  Had I wanted hand-blown glassware, beautiful blown bowls, or glass bead necklaces and bracelets, there would have been plenty to choose from, but I was more interested in smaller items and different types of crafts.  Finally, I settled on a tiny green vase in which I can put small flowers.  I'm not sure that any of the students bought anything, as the prices were fairly high.  However, since the items for sale are made by handicapped people who would be without work otherwise,  I don't mind paying for something I really like and can use.

It was after 4:00 p.m. when we all got back on our bus and return into town.  The bus made a stop at Shop Rite so that anyone who needed more bottled water or other snacks could buy them.  I have developed more and more antipathy toward Shop Rite, so I walked over to a stretch of nearby shops and explored what was being offered for sale.  The seafood market was the most interesting to me, but I wasn't going to bring anything back to Kundayo since once again, we would be eating with the students.  Finally, I crossed over to a little gelato shop and got some coconut ice cream.  It was definitely excellent.  Ice cream shops are not prevalent, so I was pleased to have found one with good ice cream.

Everyone was too tired to do much after we had had dinner, though I heard that some of the girls baked cookies.  It's interesting to me how much we need to bring home close through food.  I cook so many African stews regularly at home that the diet here seems very normal to me.  In Zanzibar there will be a much greater difference, especially in the prevalence of seafood and stews made with coconut stew.  I'm looking forward to that!