So I’m staying at the volunteer apartment provided by the orphanage where I’m working.  Not only is the internet in and out here, but so is the water and the electricity.  I’m so hardcore Africa!  It makes me wish that I bought those zip-off-into-shorts-pants so I could look the hardcore part too.  I guess I’ll just have to wear those awful khaki pleated pants and look like someone you want to give a wedgie to instead. 

Anyway, I went on my first Tanzanian outing to the market for some grocery shopping.  It was an open air fresh produce market.  Considering that I normally eat from two food groups—string cheese and chocolate—I was a little out of my element shopping there.  I quickly got overwhelmed and pretty much bought anything anyone shoved in my face.  I wound up with about 15 bananas, 20 cloves of garlic, 5 pears, a bunch of peanuts, and 3 cucumbers.  Perfect ingredients for a banana and barf salad, right?  Afterward I found my way to the western market and spent $20 (kind of a fortune) on cereal, milk, hot dogish meat things, bread, baked beans, coffee, and jelly.  They felt like great selections when I was at the market, but by the time I went to fix something for myself, they all kind of seemed like banana and barf salad ingredients too.  Maybe I’ll get skinny from this.  Or more likely maybe I’ll spend even more money commuting to town and finding the ice cream store that’s listed in my guidebook.  I’ll keep you posted.