We woke up early today (kind of hard not to when there are roosters crowing and children yelling in Swahili outside your window starting at 6 every morning) and headed to Tarime, a village about an hour away that is bigger than Ntagacha and has a market. We were almost out of food at the guesthouse back at COH but fixed that problem by buying about 25 mangoes, a basket each of lemons, tomatoes, oranges, pineapples, avocados, and onions, and due to a small miscommunication ended up with some baby formula as well. And thanks to witnessing the purchase of meat at a roadside stand today I think we are all vegetarians for the remainder of the summer. Tarime is not exactly a place that gets a lot of tourist action, so the market isn’t filled with lots of touristy craft type things, but rather fresh fruits and vegetables, spices, beans, fabrics, and any other necessities the villagers might need. Everyone managed to find some beautiful authentic treasures including handmade bracelets and fabric to make pillows. Given that Tarime is the farthest thing from a tourist destination, we were mini-celebrities of some sort. Mostly they just laughed at the “American girls” and wanted to shake our hand and make fun of our Swahili. Occasionally we heard bride prices being discussed. Thankfully we had Maria from City of Hope with us so she could demand 500 cows and 200 monkeys for each of us. We learned that many of the older women and men in these villages think that we make money off of any pictures that we take, so they will get very upset and demand money from you if you take pictures. Having a market full of women approaching you and yelling in Swahili is a little unsettling so that explains the lack of pictures. I need to learn how to say “Hi I think your culture is really beautiful and would just like to capture it in this photo really quick so I can remember it. I promise I will not sell this picture” in Swahili. I’ve discovered that getting past the “rich American” stereotype is really difficult. Integrating yourself into a culture like this takes an incredible amount of time, energy, and trust. It is not a hard bridge to build with the children, but the adults are a different story. After exploring/shopping for a few hours we stopped for lunch at a restaurant with no name or menus… hmmm. Maria was translating for us and what I thought was going to be fish and potatoes was actually an entire plate of french-fries and a small chicken bone on the side. No complaints I guess! Now it is just a monsoon back here at City of Hope so we are hanging out here in the guesthouse listening to the rain on the tin roof and occasionally discovering new spots where it leaks. Families, here is a picture to let y’all know that Mary, Alice, and I are alive and well!