Arusha's City Streets

Months ago I started a blog post titled "general specifics" in which I intended to describe Arusha, since I suspect that most people don't have a good idea what life in the city is all about (I certainly didn't before arriving). I was going to provide a lovely map, give information about population size and major industries, then describe the sights, sounds, and smells of the city and surrounding villages.

Notice everything is in past tense. Every time I sat down to write this post it ended up feeling completely inadequate. I just couldn't do justice to the experience of Arusha. I needed images. So, for several days now the camera has been our (secret) companion on outings to town and we have collected images (again, on the sly) of Arusha. Now if only I could also bottle the smell and record the sounds, then we'd be in business.

A few images from Arusha (again, captions proceed the images):

Our road, during the long rains...

and a week or two post long-rains.

Driving the Nairobi-Moshi Road, runs north of the city center.

Furniture for sale, on the side of Nairobi-Moshi Road.

People moving cars.

Our driver.

Billboards at one of the main roundabouts.

Radio salesman, downtown.

Begging.

 Building downtown.

Pulling into traffic, main road running through the center of town.

Mkoko tenes, the main method by which things (every and anything) 

are moved around the city;

 including small car parts (that's what you can't see in this one),

mattresses,

and food (here, bags of potatoes).

Vendors, downtown.

Not an uncommon site; misjudged the turn, slid into a ditch.