We had an even more chill day today than we did yesterday. We stayed home in our nice Airbnb and played ALL DAY until dinner.

We made multiple different configurations of worlds with little colorful blocks: a school yard, a grocery store, a town, a kingdom, and a tower.

We made little accessories for the people who lived in the above environments. Guitars, violins, swings, bicycles, and more.

Millie made up imagination games like working the front desk of a museum and building a store with a changing room.

We made a paper plane and threw it off every surface we could find. We made a challenge for who could throw it up the stairs.

We made fancy jewelry, including bracelets for everyone in the family, even Judy.

Millie chose a lollipop yesterday at the store and opted to have that instead of ice cream for ice cream Friday.

Nick and I managed to book some flights and plan out upcoming lodging.

Eventually we got hungry enough to leave the house. Everything we have read (guidebooks, Google, Reddit, trip advisor) recommended a place called Khan’s Barbecue so we drove into downtown Arusha to try it. I realized this morning that we have been eating at mostly fancier “Western” style restaurants, so I wanted to try something more local. The roads are very bad and we jumbled slowly towards it.

It was hectic, to say the least. We almost decided to give up when it was impossible to find a safe parking spot, but then one opened up. We parked and walked through a busy market area to the restaurant. This photo does not represent how chaotic it felt!

We sat down immediately and the service was a well oiled machine. We got a plate of tandoor style chicken, kebabs, goat, a bunch of spicy pickled things, fries, different naan breads, samosas, and sweet tamarind sauce.

The waitress, who could have been anywhere from the age of 9 to 60, took our picture. To give you an idea, I asked Nick how old he thought she was, and he answered, “I don’t know, how old is Yoda?” Khan himself (either the waitress’s grandfather, father, or husband) snuck in behind us.

It was really good and worth the chaos. Millie didn’t like most of it but I was still proud of how she proactively tasted everything without our prompting or encouragement. She just picked things up, took a bite, and announced if she liked it or not.

It got dark quickly. The closer you are to the equator, the quicker the sun goes down. And so here it feels like you blink and then it’s the middle of the night. We walked back to the car through the same chaos, but it was now dark. No streetlights anywhere.

We got home to our little house and Millie went to bed. The living room is a disaster, as it should be after a day of pure play.