Sandton & A Tanzanian Lunch

Height differences though ....

   Only two weeks of uni until mid-semester break! I'm so excited, particularly because I'm hoping that by the time we fly off I will have 3 out of 4 of my major essays submitted and I'll hopefully not have to stress about essays while we are away! (But knowing me I'll probably still be studying while on holiday ...)

   Life hasn't been too interesting as its that point in the semester and everyone is quite busy. In class last Monday we watched the movie Hotel Rwanda, which was about the Rwandan Genocide. It was a very emotional movie and I really recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Rwandan Genocide, or who hasn't even heard of it. It's a conflict that I didn't know of until last year at university, but that changed the lives of millions of people. On Tuesday we watched another movie (one of my lecturers was away that week), Invictus, which was a much more friendly movie about reconciliation between whites and blacks soon after Nelson Mandela became President, using rugby to bring South Africa together.
 
   On Wednesday a few of us went to Sandton for a shopping trip. Sandton is known as the richer downtown area, the buildings are nicer, the roads are good, and you can see the affluence. Upon entering the main shopping centre its easy to forget that you're in Africa and not back home. In the end it's basically just like any other shopping centre, lots of stores, bright lights and you end up getting lost and tired looking for what you want. (I ended up buying a new camera lens at Sandton, I'm super happy with it and very excited to start taking more snaps!)

Massive statue of Nelson Mandela at Sandton

    After Sandton we took an Uber to an area called Rivonia which has an Asian supermarket. I was with Vivian (Malaysia) and Rin (Japan) who have been missing Asian food since being here so it was quite exciting. They had really cheap tofu and they had heaps of products that I hadn't seen in South Africa before (unlike in Melbourne, there is a massive lack of Asian food here). We bought so many groceries that day it was ridiculous.

All this tofu for 18rand!

    On Friday, one of Vivian's friends invited us [the exchange students] over to have a Tanzanian lunch at her house. She lives about 1km from the uni and is from Dar es Salaam. She was incredibly sweet, making us a massive meal of coconut rice, a red cabbage veggie stew and chicken. I made some hummus to bring over (plain and beetroot flavour) and we had a lovely afternoon at her house.

Hummusssss

Coconut rice!!

Red cabbage veggie stew - can't remember what the name is in Swahili but it was delicious. 

Featuring the fried rice Justin brought.

    It was a really nice day eating some really good food, she used so many different spices and it's making me consider going back to Tanzania in January during the summer holidays ... She also gave us plenty of leftovers. By the time it got dark we were all tired and full. Good food and good company is good for the soul.