Shopping!

Yesterday we had a free day at school, so we decided to go to Arusha and go shopping. It was the end of our second weekend in Tanzania and we all had mixed feelings about it. It seems like we have been here for so much longer because of all of the things we are doing and the experiences we are having. On the other hand, we looked forward to plan trips for the following weekends and realized we only have three weekends left to plan. We hope to go to both Tanga (a town located on the coast for some beach relaxation) and to the Serengeti National Park along with the Ngorongoro Crater. Hopefully we will be able to squeeze both trips in for the remainder of our time in Tanzania. 

Before we went to town, we met with our coordinator Steven who had just returned from visiting the University of Minnesota. We asked him how his trip was and he said that everyone is "busy, busy, busy." He did say that a lot of people in America were bigger than people in Tanzania (I believe it was his polite way of saying a ton of people were really fat) and that we had tons of different kinds of cakes and cookies. He apparently visited the Mall of America and was amazed at how much money people would spend on stuff. It was nice to hear, however, that he thought the Minnesotans he met were so helpful and hospitable. 

After our meeting, we went to the Maasai market in Arusha and bought more gifts for our friends and families. I was pretty proud of my bartering skills even though most of it was in English. It is fun to see all of the shops, but the shop owners are constantly trying to get you to buy things. Forget it if you pick up an item because then you HAVE to buy it. They really don't take no for an answer unless you simply walk away. At the end of the day, it was a fun experience and we got some pretty cool stuff for our friends and families.