The past few days have been full of relaxation and exploration as our trip comes to a close. On Saturday, we said goodbye to Musa’s boma and made our way back to TCDC. When we arrived, we were lucky enough to take part in the last day of the Knowledge Art Networking (KAN) Festival. The TCDC campus was full of visual art including murals and sculptures. We attended different lectures and film screenings and tried a variety of different foods around the TCDC campus. In the evening, we had the opportunity to attend a concert filled with different East African music artists. It was interesting to take part in a different aspect of Tanzanian and African culture. This was a large contrast to what we have been experiencing in the bush!

Sunday was filled with exploring Arusha. We started our day by going to a gem store where many students purchased some of the rare Tanzanite gemstone. This stone is only found and mined in Tanzania. Afterwards, we did another run to the Maasai Market. We all felt much more comfortable saying no to persistent vendors and bartering for items we wanted to purchase. We ended our day in the city with a delicious lunch with our guides. It was fun to catch up from the past month and very hard to say goodbye to Roza, Killing’ Ot, Leboy, and Musa.

We are currently packing up the last of our belongings and are excited to head home soon! 25 hours of travel, here we come!

See you soon,
Danielle and April