Hmmm...

Not much to say of the last few days since our first sale of banana fibre products to Massai Wanderings Safaris on Tuesday.

We were supposed to go to an orphanage on Wednesday for the first time – but that was delayed once again as Lema (my host) was too busy during the day. As well as running the Tengeru Cultural Tourism programme – a very popular philanthropic local tourist operation – he seems to know pretty much everyone of importance in the Arusha area, leading to a hectic social schedule (that has been unfortunately tied up with funerals lately).

I'm looking forward to helping out in the orphanage, as a change of day-to-day scenery would be nice. In honesty, though, it was nice to have a break from the productive craziness that was Monday and Tuesday of this week.

Rather than waste at home all day, I took off to a cafe in Arusha to plunder some faster wi-fi internet and indulge in a few western delicacies. A strawberry milkshake and fruit salad with ice cream gave my stomach a dairy overload as I sat in the very relaxing Via Via restaurant (last mentioned in “Grey in TA”) for three hours. Located in the gardens surrounding the German Boma (fortress) – one of the oldest buildings in the city and a relic of Arusha's colonial origins – it's a very trendy spot, popular with expats, volunteers, tourists and locals alike. The staff speak English and the food is deliciously familiar to mzungu tastebuds. It's fast becoming my favourite haven from the daily grind of squeezing into daladalas, getting stared/shouted at for my skin colour and feeling the dull but persistent pangs of homesickness.

My favourite taste of the west, though, is the fact that I can access websites that either take too long at home or aren't compatible with dial-up speed – like Facebook, Metacritic, Kokatu, CBC, etc. With milkshake curdling on my month-old beard whilst I surf the web like the console cowboy I've always been, it's not dissimilar to being virtually transported back home for an afternoon. Who would have thought that I'd miss my virtual life as much as my real one?

As such, I think I'll go nuts this Saturday and spend the majority of the day at Via Via. It looks like they offer a killer all-day breakfast – complete with steak, for God's sake.