29th Oct 9:50pm

Tonight was my last night with Tom, Megan and Kristina because Tom is going home early tomorrow morning and Megan and Kristina leave for Zanzibar and Dar (Dar es Salaam) early tomorrow too.

We all spent some time with Stephen and Amanda playing games and cuddling them. They are both 3 so they fall asleep on us all the time which is so sweet.

Me Tom and Megan went down to the orphanage to give out some sweets and me to hand out the books I bought earlier this week. The kids all loved reading the books with us, and looking at the pictures. They all said they would miss Tom. It was really sad actually, Tom was clearly sad to be leaving, and the children didn’t show it too much but you could tell they were sad to see him leave. We danced to the music that was playing for a while and I learnt the dance moves for a funny song they all seemed to know, It got late so we sat and cuddled about 6 kids each and then the mommas wanted us to leave so they could put the kids to bed,

While everyone else was packing to leave I tidied up the room, like mother like daughter is all I can say.

We all went down the track about 10 meters to a banana beer place; apparently banana beer has a similar consistency to sick, so you can imagine my relief when all that was available was banana wine. It was awful! Truly awful! And so it should be, it cost about 9 pence. No one finished their bottle; god knows who drank it because it disappeared later on.

When Tom and I got back to peace Matunda, Matika the Massia guard as there and we asked to see his bow and arrow; it was so huge, and the string was too tight for me to move more than 5 cm. The arrows were poison arrows!

We all said goodbye and I was so sad to see them leave, they taught me so much about Peace Matunda, I will miss all 3 of them loads the next 2 days especially.

29th Oct 5:00pm

Wow, lots happened today, it’s been yet another busy day; we went to Arusha.

Me and Megan walked down to Tengeru (about 45 minutes away) and Tom and Kristina got the piki piki’s down because tom is lazy hahaa, and Kristina wanted to get an Avocado from the market before we left. Her and Megan eat so much guacamole it’s untrue.

We got the dala dala in, and surprisingly we got seats (the same isn’t true for on the way home). We walked straight to the Shoprite complex and went to the internet café. I went on Facebook properly and it made me miss home so much.

All week everyone kept talking about Chocolate Temptation – a shop in the complex that sells cakes and chocolates of all sizes. Tom wanted to go for his last day and I wanted to go for my first and last time. It was so beautiful; the cake was to die for. After eating plain rice, plain spaghetti, plain maize and plain mash potato as main meals, chocolate and vanilla cake with mini meringues on top was so yummy.

We set off to the Massia market through town. I may have not mentioned this because it’s pretty much racism, but it seems to be accepted here. When us 4 volunteers, all white in skin colour, walk through Arusha locals shout and whistle at us, which is understandable; we stick out like saw thumbs. Then they will shout ‘Muzungu’ over and over, which literally means ‘white person.’ They don’t mean it offensive and we didn’t take it offensively, in fact previous volunteers have made games that allow us to get involved…

Muzungu Safari

The rules

·         Volunteers can point out a Muzungu anywhere, loud enough for all of us to hear, and they get a point.

·         A group of Muzungu’s only counts as one point.

·         Muzungu’s can’t be called in the Shoprite complex, (Muzungu heaven) Safari vehicles or tourist centres.

·         If Muzungu’s are called in any of these places, points are deducted.

·         Muzungu’s called in the Shoprite complex are penaltied with said volunteer buying everyone else a soda (which Tom never did by the way).

We asked directions to the massai market and 4 people (locals) told us completely wrong. Eventually we got taken there by someone who later helped me get cheaper sales.

At the Massai market I was more savvy with how I carried myself; walk fast past the stalls to prevent getting asked in. Ignore people; it’s rude but last time I got nothing done. Lastly, poke your head in the shop, rather than going in, to see is there is anything worth looking at.

The man who I very nearly bought the bookends off, remembered me, but he seemed so happy to see me, I don’t think he remembered who I was, just my face. I bought a really lovely painting and some other things and then we went to dinner. For all the things I bought I spent about £9.80 in total.

At dinner we found this Italian guy, a very old man who looked like a tourist, stood near the toilets mumbling to himself and looking in his pockets. He was saying he had been robbed but it was very early in the day for someone to be mugged of so much; his phone his money, but not his passport or his wallet.

He kept changing his story, his daughter was away, then she lived in Arusha, he wanted to go home, he needed to go to church to see his wife. All the numbers he had for family members were disconnected.

Eventually he was trying to explain that he ‘had no mind’ and his memory was bad. So we realised he had dementure. Also he smelt distinctly of alcohol. This whole experience was made more difficult by his inability to speak English, and ours to speak Italian, we all managed to converse slightly using French and English, but the boss of the restaurant we were at was Italian, so we left him to meet him when the boss arrived.

We went to change up my remaining money into sterling and then got the dala dala home. I got on and sat down and Tom followed next to me, but the woman sat next to me was like ‘this seat is taken.’ Who knew you could save seats on a bus, let alone a makeshift dala dala type bus! I had nowhere to go so I ended up on toms lap, I bet everyone else around us was so confused but it was impossible for me to go anywhere else, then the woman turned up and took ‘her’ seat. So all the way back nearly, we were sweaty and sliding about on a seat with no back. It wasn’t pleasant, but Tom was comfier than a metal bar between 2 seats so I didn’t complain. Much.

We got the piki piki up to peace Matunda and right at the bottom I dropped the paintings I had bought, I didn’t know how to tell the driver to stop, so at the top Kristina went back down and looked for it but there was nothing there! I’m so sad, she kindly offered to sell her painting to me, so I bought it off her; now at least I have something.

In Tengeru we went back to the market to get another Avocado. The one in Kristina’s bag was completely smushed into pieces because the dala dala was so squashed.