The dogs howl in chorus whenever a plane flies overhead.  Jack always starts, his thick, frankly smelly exterior giving voice to a surprisingly high-pitched moan.  Soon Sheba, his mother, joins in.  And then, just wanting to belong, the ultimate me-too, Pumba, Jack’s sister (and possibly daughter?) adds her tinny howl.  They carry on until they can no longer hear the plane.  They also bark occasionally at things on the other side of the gate, things they can’t see, things they’d like to eat or scare or play with.  And, when, they’re really bored, they wrestle, Pumba sounding like a wounded Wookie as she prances on her hind legs.  All of this is exceedingly noisy, but when I pointed out to Craig that dogs can be de-voiced (I wasn’t really serious), he said, “Kind of defeats the purpose of having them.”  And so they persist, running out of the gate every time it opens, entirely ignoring any white person’s plea that they come back, but promptly responding to Maria or Halifa or Issa or really any Tanzanian.  They love running outside because there is a giant trash heap there and they invariably bring back treasures they have discovered: half a snake, a poopy diaper, and, yesterday, three used condoms.

Susan and Craig are out of town.  During the day the house is filled with people who work for their non-profit, Savannas Forever.  These people are all very friendly and I only know half their names.  They all have laptops and they like to share their music with everyone in the house.  Some of the music is quite good.  The rest is Celine Dion.  Tanzanian love for Celine Dion is bordering on occult.  They play her music videos in the airport, bus driver’s crank “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” out windows, and today I was treated to a private concert while trying to work on my written preliminary exam.  To be fair, she didn’t only play Celine.  We also heard from such favorites as Bryan Adams (Have You Ever Loved a Woman), Rod Stewart, N’Sync, and a bunch on women whose names I don’t know, but, god, do I know their songs.  It was like I had been transported back to high school, driving around my small town late on a weekend night, when the only non-country radio station slipped from cheesy modern pop into easy-listening favorites from the 80s and 90s.  I was torn between settling into the nostalgia and tearing my ears off.

In the evening, it’s just me.  Mosquitoes that have flooded into the house thanks to doors and windows being left open, begin to feast in earnest around 6:00.  I try not to think about malaria.  Instead I cook dinner, weirdly concocted mixtures of vegetables and pasta, or a haphazard catch-as-catch-can of cereal and breakfast meats (I’ve recently discovered pork sausages and plan to make the most of them for the next 5 days).  The bacon I purchased earlier today was described as “streaky bacon” and tasted and looked mostly familiar.  If I get really bored I run “errands”, climbing on the rickety daladala to head to the local mall, where I purchase overpriced European imports and occasionally watch a movie (I’ve seen Burlesque, How Do you Know, and Red since I’ve been here…two new movies start today…I will probably go to one tomorrow).  Sometimes the daladala is completely full but you still get on, climbing in, your crotch sort of pressed into someone’s shoulder while you suck in your butt and hold onto whatever you can find.  Meanwhile, you crane your neck downward because the ceiling isn’t really that high (daladalas are really just crappy soccer mom vans from the 60s) and hope you get off at the right stop.

I am officially bored in Arusha.