Monday

Today, I woke up and went down to the hotel restaurant. There, Hannah and I had tea and bread. The tea was odd, nothing I have tasted in America (though I've never really had tea in America before anyway). When I asked what it was, the server said it was called ginger milk tea. I guess that means it has some sort of milk made of ginger in it or something, which anyone could probably guess. The bread was fresh out of the oven and amazing! The crust crackled as I broke it open, and the dough inside was fluffy and white. I could smell it from at least twenty feet away, which I found out as I went over to get more tea. Regretfully, I had to finish it so as to get on to what I was doing today.

After breakfast, Hannah and I rode our bikes down to the famous Kolo Kondoa Rock Art Sites to learn a bit about them. When we got there, our guide introduced himself as Abasi, then took us to the rock art sites, telling us about each one in turn. The paintings were all red. I asked why, and Abasi told us that it was because the natives only had red berries to use. These berries were all mashed together in a bowl with water, then the artists used the local plants to paint it on in various pictures.

One of my favorite pictures was of a gazelle running away from Tanzanian native. I don't know why this picture resonates with me so much, being the animal lover that I am. I guess it was just how it made me realize how much Americans take for granted. If you were a native way back when in Tanzania, you couldn't just go to the local supermarket, you had to hunt for your food with spears, chasing pray for maybe days, weeks. If not, you were gathering every berry that you could find, making sure they were clean and not poisonous. It makes me appreciate my life all the more.
Eventually, the tour was over, and we went back to our hotel. Dinner tonight was duckling dar es salaam. Basically, this was a duck cut into pieces, and sauteed in tomato, curry powder, and red pepper. It was really good, but I felt kind of guilty about eating the duck. It made me feel sad to know that this was once a live animal, and is not anymore. It lightened my spirits a little bit to hear that the duckling was only served to very special guests. This meant two things: one, the hotel restaurant servers thought of us as special, and two, they didn't serve it very often.

Finally, Hannah and I went to bed. We knew that we had another big day tomorrow.