City Girl II

End of my second full day in town. It's raining again, which is really quite a refreshing change from Longido weather of the past few weeks. Everyone seems to be talking about climate change here. It's very real to people that something's just not right. Droughts, heat waves then excessive rain, all of which cause incredible difficulty here – to livestock, crops, roads, you name it. Sad to realize that a country which is adding so little to the problems of global climate change may bear the brunt of those changes without sufficient financial resources to really cope with them.

Today I overate (ending with the cold bottle of beer I just finished minutes ago, before scurrying home in the downpour), spent an inordinate amount of time on the internet, enjoyed a visit to the Arusha home of Tina, our field coordinator in Longido, bought excessive amounts of Christmas chocolate at the ShopRite mzungu supermarket (plus replenishment of my stock of tuna fish and ramen noodles of course), enjoyed a long phone conversation with the women of Project TEMBO in Ottawa, spent lots of time talking to the street vendors, and generally had a good time. I think this stint of town-time was just what I needed. Thank you to everyone who is taking the time to send emails. I treasure them all.

And now, to sleep. Hopefully the rain means that the street noise will be minimal tonight and I may actually get a solid night of snoozing.