Valentine's Day

Arusha, Tuesday, February, 14, 2017

John takes a long walk almost every day. People here are amazed at how active Mzee, the old man, is.  I sometimes wonder if Ray doesn’t see John’s walks as taking away revenue from him.
Not long after John returned from today’s morning walk, I went back to our apartment from the garden veranda, where I had been sitting, and there was a big bouquet of roses, red and yellow.
There are enormous greenhouse operations just outside Arusha, and a huge volume of flowers are flown out to Europe every day. Leftover roses are then sold to vendors who sell them for incredibly low prices at almost every street corner in the downtown area. I hadn’t indulged myself with any flowers so far this year, so John’s Valentine’s gift was perfect.

Later on, Beatrice, one of the two on serving staff, came to our door with two wine glasses and a bottle of wine from Mazo. I was very, very pleased that we were given merlot and not the incredibly sweet wine we had the other year. John drank some, but most of the bottle was mine to finish over the next several days.

Still later in the afternoon, I told John that I wanted to go back to the shoe workshop and see if there would be some for sale.  So, we called Ray, who drove us back to where we had gone the day before, and this time, there were many shoes for sale, but the men were no longer cutting and gluing the sandals. The women were still working on their bead work, so we took some photos of them, and then bargained for three pairs of sandals.  I had a hard time choosing among all the many different beaded tops, but finally I chose two and John chose a pair of men’s sandals which are not beaded. Then, we all shook hands, and gave many good-byes and promises of returning. I really did not bargain much at all since the first price was already just about half of what I would have paid for the same sandals in a small shop, and far, far less than that in a tourist shop such as Blue Heron.

Women beading for the sandals

Finished sandal tops

Checking sizes

Making choices

On the short drive back to Kundayo, I stopped at two small shops and bought some cloth at each.  The first fabric is the cheaper kitengi cloth, but the second piece was a wax print for which I had to pay far more, almost $14 for 6 yards. Then, we walked—or perhaps I should say climbed and stumbled—back into the small alley entrance to our neighborhood tailor’s shop. I explained to him what I wanted sown, and he made the necessary measurements.  There are never any patterns involved. Because the one piece of cloth was 6 yards, the tailor insisted that he needed to make a shirt for John as well. At first, John said no, but eventually he gave in, and so next week sometime, I’ll have two new dresses and John will have a new shirt.

At the local fabric shop

Our neighborhood tailor

After all that investment in our local economy, John and I retreated to Kundayo for the remainder of the day.  For dinner, I made Chicken Alfredo with a sauce mix I had brought from home. And even though it might not have been quite an appropriate match, I enjoyed two glasses of merlot with my pasta.