alli goes to the mall.

Earlier this week one volunteer representative, deemed '”warden", from each region here in Tanzania gathered in Dar es Salaam for a two day training on the safety and security plan. Little did they know that when they selected Alli, Rebecca, Sarah, Cameron, and Duncan to represent our hoods, it can get a little crazy…

It was Monday night and a bunch of us decided to go out to the mall in Dar for a little dinner and a movie. This place is incredible, and looks like it was plucked straight from suburban America, complete with a fast food restaurant called Marrybrown’s (a wannabe Wendy’s). After a fine meal of chicken sandwiches, french fries and FOUNTAIN SODA with ice cubes, I was standing in line waiting to get a brownie when it happened. Now I should mention, two people had gone to the bathroom, abandoned their belongings with me so I was not only carrying my bag, but Natalie’s purse on my shoulder, Dan’s huge backpack on my back, and his cowboy hat sideways on my head. As I was waiting in line, I noticed two fine young gentlemen sitting at a small café-type table. One was wearing a hot pink satin shirt that was unbuttoned very low with pants so white they glowed. The other was wearing a polo shirt with his collar popped and skinny jeans or something. They were both drinking oversized cappuccinos from white mugs. Now this might sound a little funny, but mind you, people that look like this don’t exist in my life. Dirty village children and saggy grandmas are all I know, and I guess I’ve been in the village for too many moons…Anyways, I guess I spent just a little too long ‘admiring’ them and how ridiculous and out of place they looked (when in reality I’m the one that looks ridiculous at this point) because when I came out of my trance and I looked up through the glass wall that separated us from the rest of the mall, Sarah and Cameron were standing outside watching me…watch them. They had long since lost it and were laughing hysterically at me, and I soon followed. As soon as I looked up and saw them laughing at me, I realized how ridiculous I probably looked, like a dirty bag lady who is in the big city for the first time and in shock at people who look like this. I started laughing and couldn’t stop, I had to remove myself from the brownie line, exit the restaurant and proceeded to squat down to keep it in until I could gather myself and stop laughing….instead, I completely peed in my pants laughing so hard. Now this isn’t the first time uncontrollable laugher has led to peeing in my pants, especially not in this country, but this time was one for the books…

peace