A rather exciting weekend- Part II

If you haven't read A rather exciting weekend- Part I, go one post below.

Saturday = Village Museum and Mwananyamala

Playing on a bike at the Village Museum

Saturday morning woke up nice and early and off we all set to see the Village Museum. We now includes Judith who we are now calling General Juju, Leo, Rhea and Abby who arrived last week. The Village Museum is set up to show all the different types of housing that can be found across Tanzania. You can walk around the site wandering in and out of huts, mud shelters, cattle sheds and sacrifice huts. Each building had a board outside saying which region the house was from, the name of the tribe who dwelled in them and some other bits of information. Inside there were examples of cooking pots, beds, farming equipment, a wooden bike, flip-flops (again made from wood) and general household goods. It was interesting seeing how the lives must differ across the country, some living under a straw roof with no walls; other living in mud houses that including an upstairs! We all found it a bit of an insight to what homes and lives the Buguruni children could have come from.

Selling rice at Mwananyamala Market

Next stop Mwananyamala- this word is IMPOSSIBLE to say and I think the Tanzanian’s made it up just to laugh at us trying to say it. Tanzanear (the charity) tend to use one taxi driver to pick people up from the airport etc, he is great, his name is Alex he speaks very good English and does a hilarious impression of the American accent. Alex suggested we go to Mwananyamala which is his local market as it would give us a real taste of African life; he said it was very unusual to see any white people there at all. The atmosphere was amazing; buzzing with stall holders selling everything you could imagine, fruit, fish, clothes, household bits, rice- the rice is not in containers it is just piled high on the tables. Colours are bright, people are smiley and the food cooking smells delicious. We mainly went to buy Kangas, a very typical piece of women’s clothing in Tanzania. It consists of a piece of fabric, brightly coloured and patterned- they use it mainly as a wrap around skirt, imagine a sarong, but I have seen them used as baby carriers, head scarves, mats, umbrellas, table cloths, dresses... in fact we found a book called 101 things you can do with a kanga- my next purchase! What makes them really nice is that across the bottom there is a Swahili proverb, good job we had Alex however as some of them can be quite rude so the poor man had to stand and watch us shop saying –good or bad to the saying, any man’s worse nightmare! I loved it there and would happily suggest it to anyone.

Three of the boys having fun with chalk

Right, episode three tomorrow night.... Sunday, a day a Church! More exciting than it sounds, honestly. Sorry this is so brief, time goes quickly here, it is already 11pm- time for lala (sleep). xxxxxxxx