On our first day, since we have a short wait to meet with our brokers, we take a tour of the city centre of Arusha. This allows us to 'get our legs', and shake off some of the jet lag.
As we move through the day, we come across an 'infamous' piece of signage that we laugh about as we walk the town.
Then, as head back to our hotel before lunch, one of the guys takes a photo of a street vendor directly across from our hotel.
As we work our way through town, we walk past buildings that were constructed in the 1950's and 60's when the British were still investing in the country. Independence came to Tanzania in the mid-60's, and there has been little re-investment into infrastructure since then.
Being in a tropical location, we find fruit is abundant - and it is everywhere.
We're still in our first day, and our brokers are near ready for us. So we are heading off to the building where most of the gem and rough trade are located. Along the way we are accosted by a multitude of street vendors who are hawking their wares - this one happens to be primarily maps. Of course.... I am sharing with him that I don't need a map that I already know my way around town. He chuckles to himself...... and I hear him say as I'm walking away "stupid muzungu".
Here you can see this really is an industrious area. This is early afternoon, and it appears everyone has something to do, or someplace to go.
As we get close to the broker's building, we can see some interesting additions to the architecture nearby.
We've now entered the building and have worked our way up to the second floor. As we wait for everyone to show up, we have a look around. Lots of activity on the street below, and it is either food related, or gem related.
And then we watch as some kind of deal is 'going down'. If this was in a city in north america, we may be thinking some other kind of 'deal'.
As I move into the next post, we will begin to see some more action with regards to actual rough buying.
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