14 November 2009
Today was a really fun day. We went to the Christmas Fair at the TGT Coffee Hotel, and we had a great time. It was of course mostly mzungus, but a lot of the proceeds from the fair go to charities in Arusha. It was mostly local people selling crafts and other goods, but some of the people came all the way from Mombasa, Nairobi, the coast and other parts of Tanzania and Kenya. Zach and I made a few purchases, including an Advent calendar made out of kitenge fabric, some Christmas ornaments, a bag with Maasai beading on it, and three jars of chutney made by a local group of women. One of my favorite things, though, was a bag made out of sisal, a kitenge, and a recycled flour bag. The bags were made entirely from scrap materials by women who are HIV+ and they are paid good wages to support themselves and their families with. The program was started and run by a woman from Florida. I was pleasantly surprised at all of the booths filled with crafts made by people with HIV that seemed to be doing quite well. And although I say that I like buying things that are “for a good cause”, here almost everyone and everything is a “good cause”.
Zach and I also finally got the go-ahead to move out of the Basecamp house and get our own place. For those who didn’t know, when Zach and I got here we were told that we didn’t have our own room and have been living in boy-girl separated rooms with bunkbeds in them. After a month and a half of fighting with the company, we are getting the last of our money back and moving out early. We are excited to finally get into “our first place” J, especially since we have yet to call a space our own since the wedding. We are going to start looking tomorrow and calling around to see what we can find for a reasonable price. Technically everything here is a reasonable price, though, so it will probably more come down to location. To have to be completely independent from here on out makes me a bit nervous, but we have met people here who have treated us like family that we could call should we ever need to…let’s just hope we don’t.
(The picture here is of me swinging at CWCD that Zach took.)
Written by Whitney
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