I haven't "goat" any puns for post titles

OMG SO TODAY THERE WAS A GOAT IN MY DALA DALA I KID YOU NOT! I got into a Dala Dala to come back from Ciao (the Italian place…we had lunch there today) and after about 5 minutes, we pulled over. The driver’s assistant opened the back of the van, and ran over the other side of the road to another dala dala, which also had it’s boot open. Mind you, when I say “boot” (a.k.a. the trunk), these vans have the tiniest space between the back seats and the rear hatch. Like the top of the seat touches the hatch, and the only space is created by the slope of the backs of the chairs…which is only very slight as you can imagine…then there’s like a 30cm gap between the bottom of the seats and the floor…so it’s not really a boot…the main reason they’re ever opened is to provide airflow when they’re waiting for more passengers…ANYWAY! There were a couple of guys over the road struggling to fit 3 goats into the back of a Dala Dala! THAT TINY GAP I’VE JUST DESCRIBED! Anyway, the assistant of the Dala Dala I was on, grabbed one of them, and got one of the guys to hop in to our van, and then shoved the goat in the back! I was watching the van over the road struggle with the remaining 2 goats, and I almost didn’t want to watch since every time they went to shut the boot, one of the goats would stick its leg out…but it was all fine in the end! Anyway, for the next five minutes, I just watched these 4 goat hoofs dance around the floor underneath the back seat of the van, until I couldn’t watch it anymore because the van filled up too much.

Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to where I left off in my last post! Thursday! I got to give a presentation…FINALLY! It was on Customer Relations! The group I gave it to was very enthusiastic, and seemed to understand almost everything! At the end, all they had to say was that they could see why I’d said everything I’d said! One of them even told a story about a butcher where she’s seen the points in my lesson in action, and how you really do need to treat customers well! George took these while I was doing it!

Then immediately after that, Marjolein ran a cooking lesson on how to make Minestrone. The women found it pretty interesting, apparently it was pretty tasty, although I didn’t have any since I wasn’t hungry from brekky…I don’t remember what I had hahaha but it was filling.

That went for about half an hour to an hour, and then we headed off back in to Arusha. Since Cleo and Yuta are going on safari this weekend, they wanted to stop at a bank and withdraw a couple hundred dollars to pay for it…which you apparently need your physical passport (not a copy) to do, which they didn’t know…so that didn’t really happen…after which we headed in to the city centre to find a place for lunch. We settled on Africafé, which is this really popular place near the Arusha clocktower that none of us had been to. IT WAS AMAZING. My favourite place so far by a long shot…I’m not really a “take photos of your food” kinda guy…but I thought I should here because I could tell that it was going to be amazing…

So, what this is, is a chicken, mayonnaise, and cheese toasted sandwich…with like celery and cucumber and some other salad-ey stuff in there…It was soooooo good…we’ve all agreed we have to go there again next week…maybe even more than once! I also got a chocolate milkshake…which was really good! AND a chocolate sundae…since I’ve been severely lacking in junk food here…I was so full it was ridiculous…we ALL were HAHAHAHAH.

The afternoon group was fairly uneventful. It was the group (I’m not sure if I’ve talked about this before or not) that meet on the grounds of a church where exorcisms are a regular occurrence. I’m yet to actually hear one in progress, but I’ve been told that the day before I started (so, the Thursday on which I had my orientation around town) there were a few people screaming and “having their demons removed…I hope I can experience an exorcism next Thursday when I go…it sure would be a fun thing to see…as long as I get to keep my own demons HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Anywayyyyy, Cleo did her presentation on bookkeeping and Marjolein taught the group how to make minestrone.

As you may be able to tell, yesterday was a pictures day…hahahaha. Ummmmm, then we all went home, George finished up his packing, and I helped him zip up his suitcase…I honestly did not know that solid plastic suitcases could stretch and change shape that much…you learn something new everyday I guess! George said his goodbyes and then Gilbert came and picked us up to take us to social night! Since he was running a little late, he figured we’d go and pick Cleo and Melany up before going to Via Via…this was a mistake. What we did not realise was the “Cleo and Melany” had Yuta, Lena, and Siena (a new volunteer) with them. So…the car quickly got pretty packed. George was squashed…Yuta was on my lap…Siena was squashed…Melaney and Lena sat in the boot on top of George’s suitcase, and Cleo got the most comfortable seat in the front…HAHAHAHA such are the road conditions/rules in Tanzania. Via Via was pretty fun! Although, given that it’s usually the place that we go to after social night, it was a bit boring to be there for like 6 or 7 hours. The Karaoke was pretty fun though! I’m surprised I didn’t lose my voice hahahaha…and also! NO FOOD POISONING TODAY WHICH IS BIG IMPROVEMENT OVER THIS TIME LAST WEEK YAY! George left to go to Kilimanjaro airport at about 11:30pm, and the rest of us went home when Gilbert finally got back from the 2 hour round trip at about 2am hahaha.

Today was a bit of a non-event. I noticed that my sleep last night was pretty good (despite it being short). I only JUST realised that it’s because my bed is incredibly creaky…like ridiculously loud if you move even the slightest bit. Now, this doesn’t wake me up, because it’s really only synchronised to my movements, so I must just subconsciously dismiss it…the issue is that I wake up before the bed creaks because I have been worried about waking George up in the middle of the night HAHAHAHA. So, I enjoyed a very restful night’s sleep, not worrying about anyone waking up! Except me…who did wake up on time today. The only group we visited today was the Amani group, who are only about 5 women, but they’re all very nice. Yuta did a presentation on bookkeeping while Cleo and I handled the loan collections. Afterwards we all went on a couple of brief business visits around the surrounding area. The first business, (which I think was run by the chairwoman of the group) was the next-door farm that Yuta and I visited 2 weeks ago. I took some photos of it.

After that, we walked for about 5 minutes to the business of another one of the women in the group, who runs a cake-making business. She makes various sizes of cakes, both to order, and just for everyday sale. They were beautiful! I didn’t get any pictures of them unfortunately! But most of them were square, with white icing all over the outside, and red piping along 3 of the sides, and a crucifix on top, also in icing. From what I gathered, most of her cakes (maybe always, but especially today) are for baptisms and confirmations and other religious events. The third (and final) business visit was to another of the chairwoman’s businesses…although this one was just a water tank that she used to catch rainwater, filter it, and sell it. So it was more of a side business to her small farm.

After we were done at the Amani group, Walter and Rachelle dropped Cleo, Yuta, and me off at the Nakumatt complex where we got Ciao for lunch and said farewell to Rebecca! (a volunteer who’s leaving this weekend).

Then I came home…I’ve just had chipsi mayai for dinner…and I’m winding down for the night. I might go to bed early, since it’s so quiet without George here!

Anyway, thanks for reading! See ya next time!