Street Pedicures

10 November 2009

Things are still going well here. We are still presenting to groups daily and have presented to about 325 people so far, which feels good. It is nice to be able to quantify somewhat our work here. With each group we get different questions, but the last groups we have been getting some interesting ones about the origin of AIDS. There was one question about whether AIDS was sent from Europe in contaminated condoms, and another about whether the US has a cure for AIDS, but is hiding it from the African people. Although these types of questions are frustrating and heart breaking, I am glad that people feel that they can ask them and that we are able to clear things up. Peter, our presentation partner, says that mostly uneducated people believe things like that, but that question came our during a presentation to a group of college students, and unfortunately, many people here are uneducated.

Since the days are getting a little more monotonous and there is less and less to write about, I am going to start supplementing my entries with little fun facts and interesting things that we see here. Today’s topic is ‘street pedicures’.

So, on the streets of Arusha there are men who walk around carrying little, dirty old plastic baskets. They are full of half filled bottles of no-brand nail polish, old files, pumice stones, nail clippers, etc. For the equivalent of about $0.75 you can have these men give you a ‘pedicure’. Since they are so cheap, many of the women here can afford this luxury and have manicured looking feet, which is a feat on its own in Africa (no pun intended). Despite the fact that it is the deal of the century for a pedicure, I am hesitant to try it out. If I end up braving it sometime I think I will probably only request the paint and opt out of the probably germy tools. I’ll let you know how it goes J

(The picture here is of the back side of Central Market, near the center of town. This is about average for the number of people around all the time. Sometimes its pure chaos.)

Written by Whitney