I wrote a really long story this morning and when I hit "publish", the whole internet system went down, not because of me, but that's just the way things are in the place. A third world, drought ridden, developing country has a lot of unexpected (to us) problems.

Anyhow, I will rewrite all over again.

Today we decided to go to the University of Dar es Salaam, Nicole had an appointment with a professor there. We werent too sure if he would be there as today is a holiday and a lot of businesses are closed, banks and government offices, the shops are open though. The holiday is "eid al hajj" which is a muslim holiday that celebrates the moment when Abraham was going to sacrifice his son in obedience to God's command and God intervened and allowed him to sacrifice a ram instead. There was no answer at the professors office, but he has 2, plus, he may have been out on the campus and we sort of wanted to see it anyhow.

We were standing at the front desk, asking about a taxi to the University and the general cost, when the fellow beside us said he was a taxi driver and he would take us there.. We told him that we would need a ride there, and that we would want him to wait a few minutes while we tried to find the prof. and then we would either stay, or we would take the taxi back to the hotel. He insisted that he would take us there and wait for up to 2 hours, at no extra charge. We had already negotiated the price (which you learn to do very quickly here) and we agreed on 30,000 shillings, which is about 30 cdn dollars. This included the drive there, a possible 2 hour wait and a little tour of a local market and the drive home. We thought it was a pretty darn good deal, try and get a driver in Canada to wait 2 hours...for free.

The reason is, everyone has to work very hard here to make even a scant living, and gas is so expensive (same as in canada) that a driver would rather wait and be assured of a fare back and a good tip, as opposed to driving back to his base with an empty cab and no tip. People here are so accomodating and such hard workers.

So he drove us to the university, pointing out various sights and building alog the way. He spoke quite good english and we had a wonderful conversation about his country and the racial problems, politics, wages and jobs. He was very interested in Canada, in what we do for entertainment, and he was quite curious about hunting and how we care for our meat. Luckily I am pretty knowledgeable about that! He was quite amazed at ice-fishing and laughed loudly at the thought of driving a vehicle onto the ice, and being able to light a fire on the ice.

It was so wonderful to spend time with him and to be able to really talk to a local and find out about the "real" life in Tanzania.

We got to the university and we were quite surprised at how decrepit the building looked, the student housing looked like an old slum building, clothing hanging out the windows, paint peeling and so forth. The other buildings were all in the same shape. We found the building Nicole needed, and went inside where there were some studens and they pointed out the prof's area, and Nicole went inside, but no noe was there. The doors were unlocked, with just a sign that said: "please do not remove the computers from the room." Very trusting!!

We went outside to tell our driver (his name was Steven) that we would be leaving now, and lo and behold, a giant beetle flew into Nicole's face, I laughed and laughed, after all, it wasn't my face, and as it flew away I thought it looked like a giant flying emerald it was such a beautiful shade of green. Then we spotted all these little black-faced vervet monkeys all over the place, so we instantly turned into the gawking tourists that we are, whipped out our cameras and snapped way too many pictures. We excitedly told Steven, and he laughed at us, as these monkeys are as common to them as bunnies and squirrels are to us.

Then he said he would take us to the Mwenge Carvers Market. It is a local market, packed with stalls and also this is where the men do many of the carvings that you see for sale in the various stalls.. He gave us a quick lesson on how to bargain, and drove us in. The stalls are like tiny shcks and it seemed to be very large, with a lot of people running at you and wanting yuo to buy from them. It was a little intimidating, and we were once again the only white people in sight, so we asked him if he would walk with us, and he was delighted to do so. He wouls sit in a chair outside the stall and help us bargain. Obviously he didn't want to rip off his countrymen, but neither did he want us to be ripped off, so he would nod or shake his head at a price, or mumble "you can do better" and then praise us for trying. It was really a lot of fun and we felt that we were experiencing something quite local, and most assuredly non-touristy.The vendors would laugh uproarisley as we explained that we needed a better price or our taxi drive would be angry with us! \the people here are so incredibly warm and welcoming.

When we were done, our wonderful driver took us back to our hotel where we tipped him a "whole" $5 and he was very happy. The next day at the ferry we gave him a Canadian calander that we had brough and also a small canadian pin and he was just tickled. He made out whole day and we enjoyed him so much..

We went upstairs and cooled off, it was 36 degrees during the day, so we need to return to the hotel every few hours and cool down and drink more water.