D-Day

Well, the research in Singida is done! And we’ve moved on to Dar, the land of milk and honey. Only a 'short' 12-hour bus trip away....on what would be a school bus in the US...with one pee-break....which I stupidly, oh so stupidly, decided not to take advantage of. But we're here now, and living in the relative lap of luxury, with a bunch of Italian and Tanzanian priests. Sadly, when we arrived, we found not one, but TWO of our three favorite restaurants closed! Luckily, we went to the embassy, and found a Christmas box waiting there for us from Ryan’s parents, with Christmas cookies inside, and they weren’t moldy! So at least we have some only slightly stale cookies to help us ease the pain.

In the past few days, we’ve been exploring Dar, and taking random dala dalas (public busses) to their termination point. We’ve learned that the Dar Airport Inn is no where near the airport, that Mtoncani is a great deal (all dala dalas are 20 cents no matter how far you’re going), but there’s nothing to see when you get there, and that Tanzanians can sleep anywhere, including standing up on a dala dala, using Ryan’s back as a pillow.

One of our favorite destinations is Kariakoo, a crazy fruit, spices, used clothing, bootleg dvd, and oddly enough, farm supply, market. The best part about it is the people watching. Today, we saw sanitation workers using used shoes tied to their faces as protective masks. While I understand not wanting to breathe the dust and smell from Dar es Salaam trash, I’m not sure that used shoes is the route that I would take.

-Betsy