Mwanza

Musoma is a small town by unitedstatesian standards, but rather large for the area when many of them have only a handful of houses surrounded by some large gardens then a vast expanse of nothing, or at least nothing human influenced. For that reason Musoma is a hub of activity for surrounding areas, getting produce and stuff in its market from miles around. So it seems big sometimes, until there is someplace bigger. Mwanza is the second biggest city in TZ, we think, after Dar and it is about 260 km south of Musoma (if you want miles, do the math. Something like 150). We take the bus, but the big one, not one of the polluting mini buses. It drops us off on some random(as far as we can tell) street in the city, and we set off. The contrast is startling, really. It is really a city. One thing that is an interesting difference city to country is the cars you see. In the country and in Musoma there are almost strictly Toyotas. there might be a Mitsubishi or Suzuki every once in a while, and VERY rarely anything else (one Honda in Musoma and couple Nissans) Notice a trend? Yeah. All Japanese. In the city, there is slightly more variety, and only a bit more than 2 in 3 are Toyotas and there might be a Ford, Peugeot, Mehindra etc. This is a very small example, but it just illustrates the differences. We do some shopping for the house because there is a lot of stuff that one simply can't buy in Musoma.
After a few hours of shopping (we got lots of African fabric for clothes and curtains, some bathroom fixtures and some other stuff) we catch the bus home. This proves more difficult than planned as the main office was not where we were dropped off, so we take a taxi there. At the main office, we buy tickets back to Musoma and sit down to wait. While we wait, Evan points out how the man sitting across from us looked very very similar to Heath Ledger, only black. I had noticed him, but until he pointed it out, I didn't notice how much he actually did resemble the actor. Later, once we got on the bus (he does too) we sneakily take a picture of him, pretending to take pictures of the outside and eachother. The busride home is uneventful, but the busdrivers go SO fast on these roads, and people buy stuff through the windows of the bus when we stop. Both are normal here, apparently.