It was just a few minutes after 5 am on a Wednesday morning when we were headed to the bus stand to catch a bus out of Arusha. The bus ride ahead was going to be 17 hours worth of travelling, but the most exillarating part of the trip was only moments away. As Jenny and I were just about 200 yards or so away from the bus stand, walking on an actually relatively well-lit road, three men approached us. wards us gingerly, and in an unthreatening manner basically, just wanting to say hi to the white people it seemed (this happens often here actually). Two of them were shoulder to shoulder at the left, and one was a few feet away to their left- our right. Jenny walked to the side of them, and around the group, I walked through the gap made by the three men, which quickly closed as I approached them. The man to my right grabbed my right hand. At first I thought he was just meaning to shake it, he said, "Hello my friend," but he actually grabbed it a bit a bove my palm, sort of around my wrist. One of the other two men grabbed my left arm above the elbow, and the third guy grabbed my shirt at my chest. The first guy- the one on my right- started saying really slowly and monotonously, "Give me money," and the other two joined in... they sounded kinda like zombies actually. I pulled my right hand out of the first guy's grasp, then pushed ahead passed the three guys. At this point Jenny was screaming, "Help," because there were in fact people just about 200 yards away remember. When I had my back to the three men, and my right hand free, the other two guys still had a hold of my shirt. I swung back with my free arm, and hit the first guy in the face. The other two guys let go of my shirt, and then I turned around quickly and swung my bag with two bottles of water in it at them, and they landed on the ground right in front of them. The three guys left after that.
In a away the experience was almost cathartic. And to explain that possibly seemingly absurd statement, let me tell you about a few other happennings. First of all, there's the IPOD thing that I don't really need to talk about again, but the leading up to that early morning hassle, there were two separate incidences that led to some frustration with the apparent problem of Tanzanian thieves. A couple of days before my last post I was at a night club in Iringa called the Ruaha International on a saturday night. They do this weird thing at this place where they play movies that are obviously pirated DVDs. They are obviously pirated because there is something wrong with the subtitles. The subtitles are wrong. But it's not like there are subtle nuances to language translation problems, the subtitles are for a completely unrelated film from the one that is showing. During Blood Diamond a while back there was clearly the dialogue for some romantic comedy, or dark comedy, or something that was definately not Blood Diamond. Anyway, I'm watching a movie while Shakira, or something is booming over the speakers, and I look down towards the ground near my left leg for some reason, just in time to see some big guy in an oversized white t-shirt with his hand half-way down my pocket. I pull away and then the guy walks away slowly like nothing happenned, so I slam my forearm into his back. This sends him forward a few steps, but he just keeps on walking like he expected that to happen. He didn't turn around, he didn't slowdown, he just kept moving on. Fast forward to the day before the bus attempted robbery incident, and I get out of this vehicle that took us from Karatu to Arusha, which is about a 2 hour ride or so that goes through a town who's name is Mto ya Mdu, which translates to River of Mosquitoes. I get out of the car, my hands are slightly full with a bag that I'm putting on my back and I look down to the same general area, and there's an older guy reaching into my pocket fishing for something. I swing my backpack to my back and give him a shove with my left hand to the middle of his chest, which I swear is nothing but skin and bones, I felt like my fingers could have gotten stuck in his rib cage. He stammers back acouple of steps, and again this time- nothing. No reaction, like it had happenned a bunch of times before, and he doesn't even say anything. A few moments later as we werew about to leave I gave him a mean look from aways away and he goes, "Hey, my friend?" as if to say what's wrong?
So it was kinda like retribution getting to punch one of these guys in the face, almost fun.

Having some friends over the next few days, and last night, so that's been/will be fun. I think my home is a nice place to hang out, and my neighbors really have gotten a kick out of the Wazungu (white people) visitors. I'm going with Jenny on Wednesday to Arusha to meet up with a great friend of her's named Kate who has been working in Kenya. After that, it'll be back to school for the last end of the term which ends at the end of November. I went to Iringa for the weekend and had some fun with more wazungu friends there. They were the new batch of volunteers in my area and it was nice to meet them all, and get there stories. That's all for now, should have something up in about a week in and half, plus pics from Arusha... home of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

A relaxing week. After grading and grading and grading I went to Jenny's village which was highlighted by a trip to Fox Farms where it is a lot more like England than Africa. We played Croquet, went horseback riding and ate very well. I met a guy from Liverpool who gave me all of the updates on how the Liverpool is doing in the league this year- apparently fairly well so far, first place and they should have beaten Chelsea if not for a bad penalty call by an official. Anyway, I talked with Geoff Fox, the owner/manager of Fox Farms, and he was telling me all about life here in Tanzania. He said it's a shame really that the village life is how it is, and that anytime someone gets an education they head for the cities to try and get some money. This inevitably leaves the uneduacated behind in the village creating a bit of a wasteland of sorts where the village becomes less and less desirable as a place to live. His goal (Mr. Fox that is) is to make the village a better place to be, so he is putting lots of resources and ideas towards making the village in his area near Fox Farms a better place. It is an interesting concept that I think I would like to look into more thoroughly. I'd like to see what are the main differences between village life and city life and how the two compare. We'll see how it pans out, but at any rate I'm on the look out for a project I can start here in Tanzania. We'll see.

It's been pretty quiet recently, so not much to report. There may be some more pictures in the near future for the blog.