Thursday July 7, 2011 – Saba Saba…A Tanzanian work holiday

Got the ingredients to make pizza’s with the boona baana kids tonight. Luckily Shoppers and the local duka were open because it is the Saba Saba holiday today so many of the shops and businesses are closed. The holiday celebrates the 1954 founding of the TANU or Tanganyika African National Union, a Tanzanian political party. Saba Saba means “seven seven” in Kswahili and in Dar es Salaam there is an International Trade Fair held every year on this date. Mary told us that they never go it and that we shouldn’t either because we would get mugged! One year she was walking down the street with her daughter near there and she got pushed down on the ground and they wanted money and she was so worried about her daughter, but when she got up her daughter was hitting the man, which made her even more fearful but nothing bad came of it. Also got pictures printed off for the scrapbooks were planning on making for each one of the kids so they have something special with pictures of themselves and some of us in them when we leave. We made pizzas with the kids and they had so much fun. We played peaches and pits with them and just hung out outside for a bit, talked, laughed, told stories, and took pictures.