My final full day in Arusha started with a rather sleepless night as I didn’t spray the room down and a had a mosquito buzzing in my ear all night long. I eventually gave up and went to go take a shower and brr was that cold! Oops! Angel forgot to leave the heater on after Gregory went off to work so there would be hot water available. Hahaha, it made me think of the time when Angel and I went down to Peru and our first hotel we stayed at didn’t really have hot water and I kept thinking quick like a cat, quick like a cat and would dart in and out of the water spray.
Angel and her parents were leaving the next morning to drive them back to Kenya to have one last visit with friends before her parents flew back to the states. Before they left Angel had some errands to do and wanted to show us a few shops before we all left. First stop, Angel decided since we are in Tanzania we must go see a shop with some Tanzanite (which is one of my favorite gemstones). They had all sorts of options in settings and loose stones. I of course gravitated to this beautiful necklace and tried it on. It was 8 carats of Tanzanite, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy it so I settled on a nice ring instead. I do like to get a piece of jewelry from where I travel as I think it is more timeless and will always bring you back to the place every time you decide to wear it.
After that, Angel dropped Paula and me off at a shop that had some wonderful carvings from Ebony and Rosewood while she ran a quick errand. I think I have mentioned this before but the Tanzanians are so artistic and creative! These carvings are so delicate. I decided to get an elephant carving for me and I picked up a menagerie of animal carvings to hand out as gifts to my friends and family.
We swung back home to drop Leila off for a nap and to drop off some additional items. There seemed to be a little bit of a house coup going on at this time as we ended up staying at the house longer than intended. Maria, Angel’s mother in law, convinced Mr Philip to drive her to town so she can go to the bank even though she knew we still had things to do and we weren’t planning on staying long. Considering Angel was leaving the next day and Mr Philip would have been available to her the following day this definitely was a passive aggressive play. We ended up having to wait for them to return on the road outside the house as Leila wouldn’t go down for her nap if Angel was within sight. Eventually they returned and we were able to go on about our day. We had to go to the local outdoor market to find some tarps that Angel needed for the top of the vehicle for stacking luggage for their trip to Kenya. This had to be the most comical experience we had. We had at least 12 people helping us and if we turned one direction over the other they would all rush that way and start pulling out items to show to us. We joked it was more of a group hunt than anything else. This market was filled with all sorts of odds and ends, tarps, cooking vessels, fish, live chickens, etc. etc.
After that we went and looked at all of the Conga’s so that Paula could see if there is any additional fabric she could get her hands on. After the Conga market we went to the Sidai Center Workshop and Retail Store. This is a wonderful place as they work to empower the Masaii women through income generation opportunities and community development. This is a place where they hone their beadwork skills and have an outlet to sell their work direct in the store and across the globe through the Sidai trade shows. I felt bad I didn’t really get any pictures of their work but I did snag a picture of the ladies while they were working
That consumed most of our day so we picked up a local treat of roasted corn to munch on for our ride home. We kept it low key for our last family dinner and had dinner at home and caught up before we all went off to bed for our early day the next day where we would go our separate ways.
