Every Monday, farmers, merchants, and ranchers from all over the area come to Obuere (South Shirati) to sell anything and everything available in about a 60 km radius. The area that normally is an empty courtyard and the makeshift soccer field on which I played on Saturday (when I was asked to referee and then was informed that I was obviously biased towards my friends’ team and didn’t know half the rules of soccer and so relieved of my duties) had become the scene of at least a thousand vendors crammed into wooden booths, sheets spread out to reserve space and herds and herds of animals. Ranchers selling goats, cows, sheep, and donkeys for anywhere from 3000 Tsh/goat ($2) to 300,000 Tsh/cow ($200). Farmers selling rice, beans, cassava, pineapples (nanasi), passion fruit, avocados, maize, and fried goods that I have fallen in love with: kitumbua which is like a fried rice cake that tastes like fried rice pudding and some fried dough whose name I can’t for the life of me remember (migazi?). Vendors selling anything from shoes to kitchen necessities to traditional cloths to various sundries. And the clothes! Gobs and gobs of clothes! We’re still not entirely sure, but I think the Salvation Army or other donation organizations in the US must distribute clothes (I’m guessing not for profit but selling at cost of shipping) to registered vendors who then sell them to the local area. The t-shirts are from all over the US, whether a racing shirt from the Juvenile Diabetes 5K in Harrisburg, PA, a commemorative shirt from regional Scouting day in North Carolina, a Froot Loops t-shirt, or a Chicago Cubs jersey (I almost bought it, but it was torn). I even found Power Ranger sheets just like the ones I grew up with and even more oddly, the same St. Jude t-shirt that all of us on the Up Til Dawn board were given for our fundraising efforts with St. Jude…over the next 8 weeks, I will be on the lookout for a shirt from Arkansas or LR.
Tonight, we celebrate one of our hostel-mates’ (Akeel) birthday. It just so happens to also be one of Esther’s sons’ birthday and another son’s birthday tomorrow…so we celebrate! Esther (Dr. Kawira) baked a “mahogany” cake, which is a frosting flag of dark brown (mocha), white (vanilla), and poopie brown (peanut butter), but unfortunately for me is all chocolate cake (I must admit that when I walked in and saw the cake and frosting on top, I thought…hmm, I’ve never seen a country’s flag be dark brown, white, then light brown; what an ugly flag! Haha). To my delight, she also made popcorn and had ICY COLD cokes for all of us. For the next hour I munched on salted popcorn (one of my vices) and Fanta chungwa (orange). We also enjoyed the cello skills of Esther and guitar skills of James (as true, cliché Americans, we jammed out to Hootie-Hold My Hand, Oasis-Wonderwall, and of course Happy Birthday.
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