Birds. Or flying goats? But the sound is definitely coming from the sky

Day 16 (7/3):

Weekends are primetime for us to go on excursions, as you probably have realized from our camel-safari last weekend. We had discussed the night before, about going to Arusha National Park today, which has hiking trails and animals to see. It’s also right between Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru, so the view is spectacular. The cost to get into the park, however, is pretty hefty. It’s $55 USD to get in, and have a park ranger guide you, which is a requirement. They carry a gun in case an animal tries to attack you. Then there is the car service to drive the 30 minutes out to the park and back. Some of the girls, including myself, were not as enthusiastic about spending the money to go to the park since we were going on a paid safari at the end of the trip anyway, where we’d see the same animals. We figured the girls who wanted to go would go, and then if it turned out to be extra-spectacular, anyone who wanted to go could go on Sunday.

Those who stayed behind, which included me and my two roommates, woke up lazily around 10. We decided to rouse ourselves up to go to the ATM, since Emily and Libby needed money for the week. Apparently most people get paid in Arusha on Saturdays, but it also seems to be the case that a lot of the ATMs don’t get refilled before the weekend starts. It pretty much means that we walked around to every ATM we could find in the nearby five-block radius, and only two were open. One had an outrageous line, and the other had a less outrageous line. It’s kind of dicey to try to extract money from the ATMs when there are a lot of people around, or the line is long and a lot of people can see that you’re a white tourist going to pull money out. There are also townspeople that will try to direct you to the bank or ATM, and then ask you for money after you come out for helping direct you there. Needless to say, I was pretty comfortable with the fact that I didn’t need to pull money out, and that I’d be able to do it when there was a more even distribution of ATMs. Em and Libby were able to get money without any harassment, which was nice, and we went across the street to the bookstore since they both needed postcards and stamps.

When we got back from those errands, Emily had a skype-date with her parents, but the power in the apartment was out. We meandered around our apartment for 20 minutes before deciding that we needed to do something other than mope around with the power out. We got our stuff together and decided to go to the craft market to buy gifts and hope that by the time we got back, our power would be back on.

The market was really fun. You have to go in there with the right mind-set and set prices that you want to get and be firm, and be able to walk away if you can’t make the sale for the price you want. It’s pretty intense, but other than my first purchase of a few purses, which I was probably low-balling anyway, I was able to barter down to all of the prices I had listed for myself. I was pretty proud of myself, and I knocked off a good amount of items on my list. I was pleased.

After market shopping, a bunch of us went to Bamboo Café for lunch. We had wide variety of food, going from French toast to crepes to samosas and spring rolls. It was delicious food and cheap. Definitely a favorite spot to eat for us in the group.

I checked my email when I got back from lunch and since it was my clumsiness that had officially put Libby’s computer out of commission, I’ve been letting her use my computer whenever she wants/needs it.

I had a card (rummy) date with this girl Katy in our group, so I met up with her and Emily in Katy’s apartment and we played a game of rummy with soccer on in the background. I won the game, naturally (lol) and then we got ready for dinner.

The girls who had gone to Arusha National Park had gotten back by then so we were able to hear how it went and see some of their pictures. They had an amazing time. It was about a 30 minute drive outside of Arusha (on relatively smooth roads, apparently) and when they got to the park, they hiked for four hours. They saw zebras, giraffes, lots of baboons, dik-diks, and other wildlife. They didn’t see any big cats or hyenas, but they said the views were amazing and it was especially good for some of the girls who really like to hike in our group.

After dinner, I had a skype-date with my family. I was able to see my mom and Brian and even Bubba. It was very good to be able to see them, after having only been in contact with them through email for the past two weeks. After I got off with my family, I skyped with Kelsey for a bit and had a surprise chat with Rich. He and I didn’t get to talk for very long since he was getting ready for a nap before work, but we’re scheduled to skype tonight, so it was ok. Talking to everybody made me kind of sad, only because it reminded me of how much I miss them.

When I got back to my apartment I wrote up a long email to the executive board of Contemporary Issues, my club at school, about getting ready for the fall and the different programs we have lined up.

Libby and I watched Spain v. Paraguay and the craziness that ensued, and had fun. We went to bed a little before midnight.


Day 17 (7/4):

Today, Libby and I planned on getting up around 9:30/10 so that we could catch breakfast, since we had missed it yesterday and were starving by lunch. Emily went to church with a few other girls in the group. We had breakfast and then came back to the apartment and wanted to watch a movie, but since Libby’s computer was o.o.c., we would only be able to use either Emily’s iPod or computer. We texted her and she gave us the go-ahead, so we watched Mean Girls on her iPod. Someone in the group had made a Mean Girls reference in a joke earlier in the week and we were all jones-ing to watch it.

By the time we finished Mean Girls, Emily returned from church and we just hang around and chatted for a while. I decided to start washing clothes while Emily and Libby went to check email. I got through my underwear and socks when we had to leave for lunch.

A lot of the girls celebrate 4th of July pretty regularly so a lot of them were bummed that we were missing it and wanted to find some American comfort food to make up for it. On the way to Dragon Pearl last week, we saw a sign for a restaurant that made pizza and we all stored it away for later use. We had Albert pick us up in the bus and take us to Pepe’s for lunch. It was amazing. They had dinner-plate sized pizzas with various different toppings and flavors. It wasn’t exactly like pizza at home, but it was close enough, and it was good. It was also a really beautiful restaurant. We’re finding that since the weather here is so nice and beautiful, the dining places utilize the free light and open-air style. They also had a wood-burning stove that they cooked the pizzas in. It was awesome.

We got back from lunch and everyone split up to do different things before dinner. I did laundry and wrote this blog, Libby read, and Emily worked on her research paper. We were talking about it at lunch today, and we realized that this week is our middle week of 5 weeks. After this week is over, we’ll only have two weeks left here. Isn’t that crazy? It feels like it’s going by really slowly, but in actuality, it’s flying by.