TAN: tijin'ga l'laanyisho mee l'laanyuni

- Maasai proverb (It is better to be the one waited for, rather than the one waiting.)
Rafael showed up at 9:30 a.m. as promised, but he was not ready to depart. He insisted that the truck needed to be washed and he was short a spare tire. I went with him to complete these tasks. The tire repair place tried to sell him on a completely shot tire. He refused and they brought out a new tire that he complained cost way too much. Negotiations went nowhere, so eventually he just got his rim back. I asked him if the price was inflated because he had a mzungu with him. He thought that this was probably the case and dropped me back in Micocheni, promising that his errands would take another twenty minutes.
Four hours later, Rafael returned after a call from us. The errands had been run, but we still weren’t able to leave because a driver had not shown up. It turned out that the driver had not gotten the message that his serveces were needed and was still out in Handeni, the town near the Maasai Steppe.
We sat down and enjoyed a two-hour conversation with Rafael. We chatted about our situation, ethnobotany, AIDS, female genital mutilation, the food and wine culture in France, the culture of the US, and the state of decency in the world. Rafael eventually excused himself to go in search of food.
After Rafael had gone, we headed over to the handicraft market in Mwenge. Chantal and I picked up a couple of things and Sandrine went hog wild while managing to swing some incredible bargains. An old Rastafari named Joseph herded us over toward the taxis in the local market part of Mwenge. It looked very interesting there and we all agreed that we should come back when we weren’t burdened with handicrafts.

The woodcarvers in the center of the Mwege handicraft market with the fruits of their labors.

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