Dodoma Tourist Trail

Dodoma is not known for its tourist attractions, but we always seem to find plenty to show our guests as they take a peek into our life in Tanzania. It has been lovely to have Alison here over the last few days, before she departed yesterday for Arusha and we enjoyed showing her around Tanzania's small capital city, on our Parker-made Tourist Trail of Dodoma.
A big "Thank You" to Alison here for allowing me to use several of her photos on this blog! It is much appreciated! Here are some of the places and events we took Alison to...

Sunday morning at Dodoma cathedral:

Food shopping at Dodoma's market:

Andrew gave Alison a tour of the MAF hangar:

A taste of Tanzanian food cooked by our Househelper, Jane, of traditional "pilau" rice with meat:

 A visit to "Saba Saba" (Swahili for "Seven Seven")- the clothes/ second-hand goods and cloth market -which is open 7 days out of  7, hence the name. Here we are visiting the stall of Elizabeti, one of our Tanzanian friends:

 I even managed to get a surprise purchase on this shopping trip, since, bizarrely, there was a large selection of woolly gloves for sale, despite the boiling midday heat surrounding us! This stall holder was also named Elizabeti :-) She was delighted to sell me 3 pairs of children's winter gloves, as I thought I may as well snap up a bargain purchase of gloves ready for our planned trip to the UK in December this year!

 Another morning took Alison, Joel and I for a wander down Dodoma's main shopping street (One Way Street), where all manner of cloth is available to buy. Alison bought a Tanzanian "kanga" - a large piece of material with a Swahili proverb written across the bottom. These are the ladies who hemmed the cloth for her on one of the street-side sewing machines, which are situated all along the length of One Way Street:

 Traipsing up and down One Way Street in the hot sun can be tiring, so we ducked into this local cafe for some mango juice and a "maandazi"- a Tanzanian treat which tastes a little like a doughnut:

 Over the course of the week, we also managed to fit in a party, with a fun afternoon celebrating at the 1st Birthday Party of  the daughter of MAF friends, introducing Alison to several of our Dodoma friends.
Dodoma does not have an art gallery to visit, but we got the chance to visit a stunning Art Display at Esther + Ben's school on the last day of term, seeing the amazing art work created by the pupils. Esther was proud to show off one of her models admidst the fabulous displays of work:

All in all, we had a great week with Alison and enjoyed showing our guest around as a tourist!