Marketplace Madness

This morning was nice because there wasn’t really a schedule. Sarah and I had to go to the bank, get some snacks and other errands before we headed over the VETA to determine a few things. We met with Anthone and the Registrar and were told that 60 kids are going to Arusha for a presidential conference and at first it was for a full week, but they’ve since changed it to only be a couple of days. We were a bit concerned because we were going to present to hospitality students on Monday, so if no one was available we would end up teaching other faculties about things that may or may not be of interest to them. But, since they changed it we should be in the clear for next week.

We met with the Registrar to discuss if he had written and sent any municipal letters to the local authorities involved with the piece of land they plan to develop. He insists that it takes two weeks to do this, so we had to really push him to realize that it could be accomplished in a couple days rather than weeks; I still don’t think he believes that it can happen that quickly for some reason though, so we’ll see if anything even starts moving on the environmental project. It’s strange to have such a clear idea of what the first steps are to propose something like this, and not be on the same page as the person in charge of actually doing it.

Anyway, after (hopefully) given the registrar some motivation to get started on things, Sarah and I decided to go shopping for fruit at the big fruit market. We had heard that it was massive but had no idea until we got there. All you can smell is sweet oranges and rotting sardines – such a weird smell – but once we were a bit used to it, it wasn’t too bad. We ended up getting a bunch of bananas, a mango, a papaya and a cucumber for our big trip tomorrow! The produce is all imported but it’s still a lot fresher and healthier than what we get at home (no chemicals). The Market is so packed with people that it’s hard to physically get anywhere and harder still to keep our bearings as to where we are, and how we get out; it just never seems to end!

It was a last minute realization today that on the way to Mikumi National Park and when we’re on the safari, there won’t be any food around;  so glad we realized it last night so that we could prepare a little bit for it. Hopefully at the end of the day we can stop in Morogoro for a big dinner or something!