FiFi's and AfriLeo

Saturday, January 12, 2019

There’s not much excitement in writing about doing laundry by hand nor even about eating delicious mangoes, pineapples and bananas. This is especially true since I have been writing about these things and all the rest of our lives in Tanzania each year. This year we have been here in Arusha for just a little over a week no, and unless I really concentrate and try, I just do not see much that is unusual or unique. The shops, markets, street vendors, crazy traffic patterns, and people are as familiar to me as those in Spokane usually are. Surprise and wonder do occur, but not every day anymore. Is that good or not?

So, we had a very ordinary Saturday morning, doing laundry, reading, and trying to get on the internet. However, mid-afternoon, I decided that I needed to go to FiFi’s, a popular cafe for wazungu and hip Tanzanians, and order a new skirt for myself. A young woman sells crafts and clothing at FiFi’s and creates custom clothing under the name of “Afrileo Collections,” which you can find on Facebook. She made some outfits for my granddaughter Peri last year, and I like her designs. I took my trusty tape measure with me and, after being measured, ordered one skirt. If that fits me well, I’ll order one or maybe two more to replace what the rats chewed up. One skirt including the African fabric and sewing will cost me about $15—a real bargain, I think.

Mary Lou had tagged along with us and also ordered a skirt. After placing our orders, we all sat at Fifi’s enjoying cool drinks—or in John’s case chocolate ice cream—until we thought we might as well return to Kundayo. I bought a lovely loaf of seed bread at FifFi’s and Ray stopped along the way back so John and Mary Lou could buy huge bottles of water. Having enough drinking water on hand is very important.

The other day, I had noticed that the newer FiFi’s across from AfriCafe was closed and looked very abandoned and shabby.  (That was where we found the most amazing fruit salad ever, which we often got as take-away because it was large enough for two lunches.) Many of the shops that were between Phillip’s Corner and Kundayo are now closed, too. Perhaps I haven’t seen enough yet to make a generalization, but it feels to me as if there is a sense of recession here. Certainly tourism has been down, prices have risen very noticeably, and no new businesses are apparent. If all this is bad for people like us, it is definitely far worse for the Tanzanians.

Just after it turned dark, at 7:00 p.m. here, we initiated a FaceChat session with little Peri, who was already up at 8:00 a.m. in Spokane. She seemed a bit unsure about how we were inside a computer and squealed more than talked. After maybe 10 minutes of very good video connection, our connection just quit. Still it is amazing to me that we can see and speak directly with people at home so easily.