Roommateless

Posted by Ali

My roommate left. Ann-Marie had only planned to be here for around two weeks, and when her videography project didn't work out, she decided to leave a couple days early and go back to Dar es Salaam before flying up to Ethiopia for the next part of her travels. (She's been to Uganda for a few weeks as well as spent some time on Zanzibar island before coming to the mainland of Tanzania.  After Ethiopia she'll end up in Kenya before going back to the U.K. in December.) So she packed up her things last night and left our room before 7 this morning. It's strange to be roommateless again. Not really bad or good, just different. I didn't mind not having a roommate and I didn't mind having one, it just takes me a few days to get used to the transition. (Haha, I just realized that as I was typing this paragraph I was hearing the words said in Ann-Marie's wonderful vocal tone and British accent.)

Yesterday was a nice day. I needed a day to relax and I definitely got that. I ate lunch with Danielle, Anika and Kezia at Tanz-Hand's, a local cafe on a German rehabilitation campus just down the road a few minutes walk. We had a nice time sitting inside, out of the sun, and enjoying scones, cakes slices and milkshakes. We also had a funny experience that you can read about here. After eating we walked down to Usa Plaza to use the ATM and then decided to walk the rest of the way to Rotterdam, a grocery store and restaurant complex, instead of taking the daladala (van taxi) and wasting 100 shillings (about 7 cents) for the short distance. We shopped and then caught the daladala back to campus but refused to pay the 200 shillings the money collector insisted was the normal price. We told him we wouldn't pay the mzungu (white people) prices because we knew what the actual fare was and we've gone on the route before. His face plainly showed his disgust at us when we stepped off the daladala without paying an extra 100 shillings each.

In the evening I went over to the CoL apartment and helped Anika, Kezia and Danielle make rice, beans and fried vegetables for supper. Shae and Ann-Marie were downstairs with the babies until the toddler's bedtime and when they came upstairs we ate supper together as a good-bye to Ann-Marie. She was only here for less than two weeks but we are all sad to see her leave.