Day 3 – We left at about 9 am to go to the Tanzanian tourist board. However, the tour guide wasn’t ready for us in the morning so we planned to go there after lunch.
We then ended up going to the African art gallery instead. There were many beautiful paintings in there that we all looked at they were all very detailed. There was also many handmade sculptures which were all so well done. We looked around the gift shop where there was so many nice things. I ended up buying an elephant key ring and two bracelets. We then left there to go to the Arusha coffee lodge where the Shanga Foundation was based. The purpose of the workshop was to support people with disabilities like hearing loss and give them jobs. Before we went in the tour guide taught us some Swahili sign language. We learnt words like hello, how are you, good job and thank you.
There was people doing threading, beading, painting and glass making. They had a huge pile of discarded glass in the back of the shop where they get make all of their items with. The man that was giving us the tour said they “take rubbish and turn it into treasure” which was a really nice quote. We watched one of the men make a glass elephant which was very cleaver and looked amazing when he was finished. Around the shop they had loads of glass wind chimes and all the pebbles on the floor were made out of glass bottles.
Once we had finished up there we went for lunch at a sports bar style restaurant. He asked what we wanted for food but no one was to sure what they wanted so he took us into the kitchen as showed us how the food was made and what they had in there. I had rice, chips and lamb, the lamb was so nice however we all ordered way too much food so we couldn’t finish it all.
After that we went to the Tanzanian Tourism Board to speak to a man that works there. He explained what they position is and what they do there. He said there main role was to promote tourism in Tanzania to different market types. They also promote tour operators and preserve the wildlife in Tanzania.
On the coach journey back to the hotel the driver played some Tanzanian music for us to show us what he listens to. Once we got back to the hotel we all chilled by the pool until dinner at about 6:30. For starter we had leek soup and for dinner we had macaroni, chicken and vegetables, I thought it was very nice.