Patience, Art and Upset!

Everybody knows by now that patience is not my biggest quality. I am more a I-want-it-now person. I have been like this as a kid and now I have a job where most things have to be done in an emergency situation. But with art I have to be patient. I have to wait the glue or the paint to dry before continuing a piece. I hate it but there is nothing I can do but wait! so I wait. Ok, I have to do something else while waiting. Here I am waiting the gel medium to dry before going back to my art... the good news is that it is a small piece so it won't take long! :-D

Today I finally got my annual 50 kg shipment that left France on 4 May 2007... more than 4 months... Grrrr... Most of it was ok, some chocolate was stolen and I have a funny pink stain on a T-shirt that has been caused by something mysterious! Hmmm... just do not want to know.

I am very upset now! I like my life in Arusha but there are things I cannot accept! I learn today that a friend of ours got shot Sunday evening at his place. Some people followed friend of his who were coming to his place. They were armed and used their guns at him. He was shot in the throw. Those people stole a car and ran away. At the time the persons with him were in the medical field so he was given appropriate care immediately. He was then evacuated to Nairobi. He is fine and stable now. I am shocked by what has happen but at the same time I am not surprised. Two weeks ago three teenager girls were kidnapped and raped. The international community has always been a target but here it is becoming bad. I have always felt safe living here in my big house even when I was living by myself. I have never been scared driving alone at night even if at all time doors are locked (during the day too) and I drive fast. We already have grids for the windows in the doors, and 24h security (guards and panic buttons). it is standard around here. What more can we do? The international community is bringing a lot to Arusha so why doing that to us. People have already started to leave - Those kinds of incidents is just going to accelerate the departure of many families. The men who has been shot at Sunday is a nice guy. He arrived some one year ago and I cannot imagine he has upset people so they would hurt him. I am sure he was targeted for what he represents: money. In the end what those people got? They abandoned the stolen car and I do not think they got so much money. All of this for nothing! Do not mistake me there. I like this country and the Tanzanian people are nice people. A lot of Tanzanian are horrified by what happened and they think it is not a good thing. Now I just hope the attackers will be caught and spend the rest of their life in prison. They are supposed to be less than 30 years old, it will let them time to think about their crime.