Today I learned how to cook chapatti!

Market at Soni

Lots of shoes!

Cooking Chapati

The crowd watching us cook chapati

The Market yesterday at Soni was amazing!  It wasn’t that much different from most markets here; it included second hand clothes, scarves, kangas, fruits, vegetables, and a variety of other clothing items.  But, the best part was that we befriended a whole group of women who were making breakfast and lunch.  We sat down next to where they were cooking and asked if we could watch.  As always, they were extremely thrilled to talk and interact with us wazungu.  One woman was making chapatti and after watching her for a while, I asked if I could try.  She let me make chapatti for the rest of the morning! It was great and I got the hang of it pretty quickly.  Then, we moved on to another woman who was making rice, beans, and spinach.  By then, we had attracted a huge crowd of Tanzanian onlookers (maybe about 20 or 30 people) who thought it was hilarious that us foreigners were making chapatti and cooking with the Tanzanians.  It must have been great for their business!  Every person who walked by would get introduced to us.  Colleen and I made the beans and helped cook the rice and then we got to make ugali (a cornmeal porridge).  It is so thick and so hard to stir!  We kind of failed at that, but we had a great time.  In the end, we bid farewell to our Tanzanian friends, were given some of our handmade chapatti, and headed back to Lushoto.  It was lunch time by the time we returned and we ate rice and beans at one of our favorite cafes here.  It was just what we needed.  We then met up with Siri’s group and headed to the bank to exchange money.  Strangely enough, the closest ATM is in a town that is 2 hours away, so some of us are running low on money (Colleen and I are doing just fine, but Siri’s group is heading to Moshi early because they are running out).  We had to wait in line at the bank for about an hour and then the bank wouldn’t even take some of our bills because they were too wrinkled.  But, we got the money exchanged.  We went back to Siri’s gang’s new hotel.  They switched hotels because theirs was getting really creepy.  The owners would constantly complain about how loud they were and wouldn’t ever really answer any of their questions about payment and rates.  But, all is well now and their new place is very nice.  We hung out, talked, read, and watercolored at their place to kill time before dinner.  We parted ways for dinner since they didn’t want to walk back into town and then have to catch a taxi back because it would be dark.  Colleen and I ate at a little roadside stand and had ugali, beans, and spinach.  Unfortunately, the power had gone off so when we got back to our room we had no electricity.  It’s always weird when the power goes out, because your brain thinks that it’s automatically time to go to bed.  I think we went to bed at 8:30 just because we didn’t really have much else to do.  I’ve already gone through a book and a half here.  Luckily, everybody brought a bunch of books to the field to share so I’ll have plenty to read there when we meet up with them.  Anyway, hope all is well!

Erin

Swahili word of the day: Soko [so-koe] = market