Arusha, Monday, February 27, 2017

The day began with clouds and thunder, but no rain fell all morning. We were semi-trapped at Kundayo, as a friend had texted that he would stop by for a visit today. He had not given us any ETA, so as noon approached, John texted him to ask when he thought he would arrive, but again there was no reply. Such lack of communication is not at all uncommon for this person, so I often wonder why we even try to keep the connection alive.  Anyway, by 1:30, we decided to make and eat lunch and scrap the idea of going out to lunch together.

Even after lunch, there was a chance our friend might show up, so both John and read and did small tasks in the apartment. I spent some time on the terrace talking with the German/Mexican couple and discovered that they are here with a German volunteer program, Senior Experience Service, which enlists retirees for programs around the world. The husband (I still don’t know their names.) had been a soccer coach at the European Cup level, and is now holding workshops for youth here in Arusha. His wife helps with the non-soccer aspects of the program, e.g., team building games and social activities. The wife noticed my haircut and asked me who had done it, so I gave her the information for Aly. I’ll be very interested in what she has to say if she goes to him.

It poured rain a lot of the afternoon, and once that stopped, it seemed obvious that our friend was not coming after all.  John needed a walk, so he took a pair of his shoes across the highway to a shoe fundi (technician) to be resoled. Then he walked to the little neighborhood market and returned with beautiful, fresh green beans for our dinner.  It’s going to be a real sacrifice to return to Spokane, where there will be none of the incredible fresh fruit and produce we have in such abundance here.

For dinner, we heated up the leftovers from the nyama choma and that with the green beans and sliced avocado, made a delicious meal. Still, a significant amount of goat meat remained, so I froze it for later use in a curry perhaps. 

We had wanted to watch a bit of news on MSNBC, but although hundreds of other channels were available, MSNBC was picture only with no sound. We switched to FOX to watch Sean Spicer’s news briefing, but after that, it was either Al-Jazeera, BBC, Sky, DW, or French in English. There is a wealth of international news which we never hear anything about at home. No wonder we have such a distorted view of the US as the center of the world, rather like the King had of Siam in the play “The King and I.”