1/8: Social

I had been looking forward to today because there was a social gathering in the evening of almost all of the volunteers. I had planned I another thing for today, something to fit into the handicraft thing in the schedule. It is something that you make out of paper and we used to play with it all the time when I was growing up in Denmark. You have four squares that you paint different colors and then you write numbers on the inside and under the numbers you write something that a person is supposed to do. I didn’t want them to do all that, just paint it and play with it; this went markedly better than the trust thing yesterday. After that it was television time, so the kids just watched television the rest of the time. Then came the gathering where I meet other people though I am still a bit of an outcast, but I guess that will never really change so I talked mostly with the people I meet last Monday. I also met a fellow Dane, though I didn’t speak so much with him as we had to hurry at first and he was speaking to other people while we were at the restaurant. The restaurant was Indian and expensive for Arusha. I didn’t really find it all that good, but then again I like what has been served for me so far. So let me tell you about the food I have been eating. Breakfast consists of a slice of white bread with peanut butter and tea, lunch and dinner is the same kind of arrangement though dinner is bigger with: rice, potatoes, French fries, pasta, ugali a Tanzanian specialty that doesn’t really taste of much and you have to eat with your fingers and on the side there will be meat with some kind of sauce. To get back to the social; after we had eaten in the Indian place we went somewhere called Mango Tree a hangout for tourists, a few Tanzanians and the occasional drug dealer. We stayed there for quite some time, some of the others wanted to go to a place called Via Via after Mango Tree because there is some kind of show that starts around midnight. I didn’t want to go there because I had caught a cold and I had to get up early tomorrow for work, and really, the plan is to stay here for three months so I’m sure I’ll have time to catch the show another Thursday. It can be really dangerous to go around outside in the dark, so we have to take a cab everywhere we go, so that is how we got home. Then I had to call Grace and she led me in, though I got out of the cab before then, which I am not supposed to do apparently – it’s that dangerous.