Welcome, all, to Arusha!
When we arrived in Arusha in the early afternoon and met Ericka Mackey, the volunteer program coordinator in country. I was very surprised at how young she was! We loaded ourselved and our luggage into the SIC truck (with absolutely no room to spare--a trend that would continue throughout my experience, I see so far), and the carted us to Center House, a very peaceful Catholic Secondary School--with nuns that supposedly serve beer--that would be our hostel for the beginning of our trip. We put our stuff down in the rooms of five and got ready to head out for dinner.
I will describe Arusha: It is very much a poor, third-world city. It's very dirty and not well maintained, and the air smells like burning trash and car emissions. (The smog that comes out of the back of the cars is literally a black cloud. Wow.) Women dress mostly in skirts or traditional dresses, while the men done a largely Western wardrobe in slacks and a collared shirt. The people are very nice, yet it is labeled as dangerous here, not becuase they want to hurt you--because they don't--but because they want your stuff. So I'm learning to carry very few things and no valuables with me, becuase if someone wants my stuff, I've learned through another volunteer to give everything up. So better to not have much at all, and not carry much of a bag so as not to attract attention. For this reason, I have not yet taken any pictures of Arusha. I may take some from the inside of a cab later, but not yet. On the flip side, the people are friendly and acknowledge each other. I have been waved to more here so far than I have in the last three years of my life, and I don't feel like it's because I'm white. Now, we do also have the "flycatchers" that, because I'm white, will constantly try to sell me something. Bartering skills are valuable. And you get used to saying, "Hapana, Asante" and not feeling rude or guilty. But the most dangerous thing the city--to me--is the cars. Pedestrians have NO rights! There are no crosswalks, not always a sidewalk, and no one stops or slows down for you. Especially if you're white or not saavy.
[Becuase of a recent incident, we are not allowed by SIC to walk around alone, and not allowed walking in any size of group at night. Fortunately, the cabs are about 2,000/= per ride (less than two dollars) which we split amongst us.]
First thing, we went to an ATM to take out TZ shillingi. I was not expecting to encounter any problems, after our UCLA coordinator, Dana, told us every day that we needed an ATM card WITH A VISA LOGO, and I planned accordingly. But the first tree or four times I tried, it declined my request. Frustrated, I walked out and met with them and gave Romy (the other Stanford coordinator) the "bad" news. Long story short... went back later that hour with Dana and realized that I was asking for the rough equivalent of $1 from the ATM, not having counted the zeros on the screen right! Naturally, it wouldn't give me that little, and in fact, my bank has a minimum withdrawal for me of $100 anyway. Hakuna Matata! (There's no problem!)
We all ate at a restaurant called McMoody's, which, we were told, would be a kind of central location in Arusha for the SIC volunteers. It was. We ran into some of the summer program volunteers as they came in on a usual stop. During the course of dinner, we all became very tired, due to jet lag, of course. Many of us ordered a good pizza, and I got used to having to constantly buy bottled water for the time before our program starts, as well as check the contents of my food for any iffy ingredients (i.e. fresh tomatoes w/ skin). Finally, as we were crashing on the table, we took a cab back to Center House and all fell asleep around 7PM.
