Journey Toward Karatu (Day 6: May 23)

Today we woke up at our hotel and had to pack our bags because right after breakfast we were leaving to depart to the next hotel in Karatu, preparing us for our homestay for a couple of nights. We had a wonderful breakfast of crepes, fruit, yogurt, omelets, and juice. After breakfast, we brought our bags over to the bus to load them up and then depart for our trip. Our first stop of the day was visiting the Maasai people and exploring their village. When we got there we were greeted by woman and kids of the tribe as there a celebration for them. Later, we were able to shop and buy some of their home made crafts. A lot of them were crafted out of beads and metal rods creating cool animal structures and bracelets. After this we split off into two groups, we both got to explore and ask questions about the Maasai peoples daily lives. It was incredibly interesting to find out how similar and different their lives were to ours. Some of us also got our fortune told by an elder in the village, this was done by taking our shoes off, offering something, spitting in a cow horn, and a rock collection. Most of the fortunes were very similar.


After the Maasai village, we had lunch at a banana plantation in Mosquito River, it was full of traditional Tanzanian cuisine and was super good. We learned about red bananas and how they were grown. From there we went to the Makonde wood shop and watched them carve some things out of wood and learned about how they emigrated from Mozambique to Tanzania and how their main purpose was to carve wood. It was super cool and a lot of us bought things. From there we went to an art gallery nearby full of colorful handmade paintings and again, some people purchased some art.


Later, we drove to Karatu to stay at our hotel, swam in the cool pool, did our daily ANCHOR and called it a night!


Charlie & Robbie 







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