5/29/11 Growth

Looking out the window overlooking Dar es Salaam this morning, it seems changed. I no longer look at it and see outdated buildings, muddy streets, and tin roofed shacks. In fact, I thought, “The streets are clean and it looks like a beautiful day.” At 8 o’clock, bustle has yet to arrive. The woman in the home below does laundry. The smell of smoke wafts upward through the hotel stairwell from the surrounding homes – are they cooking, heating water, burning waste with that fire? My familiar breakfast – lots of fruit, cabbage, and samosas – was tasty. When asked how he was, Mohammed, a waiter from the restaurant who we know lives in the ‘slums,’ replied with his whole-face-smile, “I’m existing; I’m happy.”

Shopping at Mwange was a much better experience for me . . . Here, it caters a little less to tourists so they were far less aggressive. Plus, because it is Sunday (is it, really?) there were very few people there. Yay! I pretty much finished my shopping. I was so proud of my finds and accomplishment. (Also, very proud of my usage of Swahili today. The shop owners were complimentary of it too, which was nice even if they were only trying to sell me their goods.) It did help that I didn’t have the pressure of limited time. I spent time talking with the merchants and doing the back and forth to build a little relationship. Yes! I passed my social skills portion of this trip.

An illustrative moment: I spent a good amount of time looking in a shop gathering things that I wanted and chatting with the merchant. “Pole pole, let me take my time.” I negotiated and negotiated and was not going to change my price for the things I wanted. He deferred to the woman in the shop (never a good sign), and said that she just couldn’t do that price. I stayed at my level and walked out the door. He stopped me and asked me to follow him a couple of doors down. There, he spoke to the man and began gathering the things I had chosen from his shop. He gave me my price and told me to tell my friends he gave me a good price. Sweet!

The rest of the afternoon was passed with a 2 ½ hour dinner filled with laughter, per usual. And gelato – yum! (Makes up for the less than perfect dinner – ask Jessica about her eggplant . . . or don’t, if you ever plan to eat eggplant again.)

I truly could stay here indefinitely, I think. (I am a bit tired of the group thing though. It just seems a hassle to go around as twelve so often, and tempers are being tested in our last days.) Now that I’ve learned to shop, I know I can make it.