Let me recap the last couple of days. On Friday night, Dorcas and I were invited over to the Country Director's house for dinner. He and his wife are very laid back people and dinner was an informal affair. His name is Paul, his wife is Nora, and they have a house guest named Sally. Sally looks like she's in her 50s and she is here in Tanzania doing research on health issues. If I remember correctly, she is working for the philanthropic arm of Abbot Labs, one of those giant conglomerates with various business interests all over the world. I've heard of Abbot Labs before because their HIV/AIDS research lab is in Worcester. They make a very effective anti-retroviral and a few years ago, Clark students held a protest in the street outside their building demanding that they give the drug away for free to people who need it. Sally admitted that the money Abbot Labs is giving away is barely a smidgen of what the company is worth.

Saturday morning, I walked down to the CARE offices to meet up with Aba. People at CARE (but not Dorcas) were worried about me walking to the offices because I'm a small white girl from the US. What I think many people don't realize is that there are dangerous cities even in the First World. I want to be like, “People in Tanzania are just poor. In Worcester, not only are they poor, but they're also dealing with drugs.” I walk around Worcester during the day, and I'm damn sure going to walk around Dar. Take back the streets! Or something like that :) People on the streets in Dar are about 3000 times more friendly than in Worcester. I got more than a few Hujambos! and Habaris! from people who passed me, including a police man who politely inquired if I knew where I was going. I think during the 5 years I've lived in Worcester, not a single stranger on the street has ever given me a polite greeting.

Anyway, I was walking to the CARE offices to meet Aba. She had offered to take me around to the shopping centers in Dar. Aba is from Ghana and is going through a kind of mid-life crisis. We spent most of the morning talking about our favorite hobbies (she likes to make perfume and I like bread baking) and how sometimes we wished we could just drop everything and go work with our hands. The first place she took me, Shoppers Plaza, had a bookstore in it. I browsed the cookbooks and Aba was hunting for a book on perfumes that she had seen on a previous trip. The Plaza looked like a very small mall and the only other place of interest for me was a bakery. Our next stop was Sea Cliff Village, which has a grocery store that Aba likes. Finally, we visited the Slipway, which has a lot of tourist-y shops in it. The crafts are more expensive but probably of better quality than what can be found elsewhere.

I spent most of Sunday reading my copy of The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which is pretty much the exact opposite of the book I just finished, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. A shout-out to Maria for suppling the latter! Mille grazie!

I'm falling into a routine at the office. Today was pretty normal. I sat with a few of the Tanzanian interns during lunch. They asked me what I did this weekend and I told them. Afterwards, one of them, David, said that I had only seen the mzungu part of town and offered to take me around the “real Dar es Salaam.” 'Mzungu' basically means 'white person' and I would have to agree with him. I definitely only saw the white ex-pat part of town. The other intern, Godfry, mentioned that his family has hosted several Europeans before, so he knows about all the places tourists like to go. North of Dar, there are some interesting towns. There's one with the ruins of an old mosque and one that was the last place in Africa that thousands of captured people saw before being shipped off to a life of slavery. They both sound worth checking out. I looked into the price of a safari and they are rather prohibitive, so I think I'll have to be content with just going places with people from CARE.

The Country Director, Paul, offered to let me stay at his house for the remainder of the summer. Dorcas has company coming in a few weeks, so I've been looking for an alternative place to stay. I'm glad he took me in, since the cost of finding a place to live here probably ranks up there with Boston. Unfortunately, Paul and his wife are leaving for a 5 week vacation to the States on Thursday so I have to move in tomorrow. I've rather grown accustomed to Dorcas and her family. I will also miss Hawa's cooking :( Most of my stuff is now back in my suitcase, which I will bring with me to the office tomorrow morning. I hope my new bed is as comfortable as the one I'm sleeping on at Dorcas's. Given how cluttered my room in Worcester is, it still amazes me how most of the important things I own can fit in a single (albeit large) suitcase. At least it has wheels...