Our Last Night at Home

Last night was our last night in our homestays, how sad! Unfortunately Kelsey and I both got sick on Thursday night and all day Friday. I don't know how we both seem to keep getting sick on the same nights at unfortunate times, must have been something we ate at home. 

But on Thursday we decided to make one last trip to Arusha using the TCDC shuttle and we signed up for the return shuttle to bring us home at 5:45. That would leave us enough time to have dinner with our families and to hang out for our last night at home. So we arrived in Arusha around 1:30 and decided to shop for a bit and grab last minute things before Saturday. Around 4:30 we walked to Africafe to wait for the shuttle across the street. We sat and ate a little snack before going home. I wasn't feeling the best, so I was ready to leave. So then we waited.....and waited......and waited because we have known the shuttle to be late because they have to pick up school children to bring back to TCDC. But when it was 6:30 and started getting dark out, we started to worry. Unfortunately, all of the people that had brought their Tanzania cell phones had sold them back, and I forgot mine at home so we couldn't even call TCDC to see if the shuttle was on its way. 

Luckily the owner of the restaurant let us use his phone. We called TCDC to ask where the shuttle was, and it turns out that the shuttle had already come and gone..apparently without thinking about the six girls signed up for the return shuttle home. So here we were, sitting in the restaurant with no cell phones and I was sick and could hardly walk. And all TCDC said on the phone was "Oh, sorry. There's dali-dalahs that will take you back about a 15 minute walk from there." So we had to basically run in the twilight down the street to the dali-dalah's jammed full of people. I felt like I was going to throw up the whole time, but luckily we were able to find a taxi to bring us home. 

We didn't get home that night until 7:30 when it was already pitch dark outside. Our Baba had been trying to call us, but I forgot my phone at home and Kelsey sold hers. We felt so bad that we were late and that they had been worrying. We quickly took our last bucket shower ever and were ready for dinner. They were cute and made us brown rice (which is like a dirty, fried rice) that is our favorite, but I felt so sick I could hardly eat any of it :( They also bought the whole family different types of soda (that are much better here because they are made of real sugar). We felt pretty bad for being late and not being able to spend much of our last night with them, but we loved our family and we were so glad that they allowed us to stay with them. I will miss everyone: Mama, Baba, Vivian, Venance, Brian, Victor, Dada Lilian, and Dada Jacquelin. They were always so nice to us and helped us out, even if we didn't speak that much Swahili. Our homestay will definitely be one of the highlights of our trip.