Arusha Tanzania 2006 Day 22 - Finding a Fundi
A fundi is a person who knows what they are doing. They are a specialist, a person in the know, a learned person.
Both Ndebele (or Zulu) and Swahili are part of the Bantu language family and while they are considerably different to the point that a speaker of one can't be easily understood by a speaker of the other, they share many similar word roots, kind of like French and Spanish.
For example, to say "I want to learn Swahili" in kiSwahili you could say:
Nataka kujifunza kiSwahili
where kujifunza is the infinitive "to learn." "Ku" is the infinitive prefix and the root is "-fun(z)-" pronounced basically "foonz." To say "I want to learn Ndebele" in Ndebele, you'd say:
Ngifuna ukufunda isiNdebele
Where "uku" is the infinitive prefix, pronounced differently from the ku in Swahili. In Ndebele it's pronounced "ugoo," but the root is similar. "Funda" versus "funza." Similar things happen in all the Bantu languages. In the house now we have Zulu speakers, Ndebele speakers, Siswati speakers and kiSwahili speakers and each has its little details like this.
Anyway, a fundi is a 'learn-ed one" and when you need something handled in Eastern Africa, you call one. While we've been here we've needed fundis for plumbing, electricity, and sewing.
My wife went and bought some cloth and got measured to have a fundi make her a series of dresses. He was a very kind, genteel man who has a genuine interest in fashion and his little one-room shop was plastered with patterns and designs. Most fundis have been doing whatever they've been doing for a number of years, otherwise they'd be an amateur. You do have to keep on your guard because, unlike the states, there's no guarantee for the work. For example, we had a plumber who did some work for us, and while it was a flat fee, when we found the work to be unacceptable the next day, our only recourse was to either pay the same guy again, or find another who could fix the previous guy's screwup. It's an interesting system largely based on word of mouth, reputation and who's got the tools.
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I'm not a "colonial safari" type by any means. I'm not interested in dressing all in khaki and running after a rhino on a Jeep. We did however want to check out some animals in their (mostly) natural habitat so we hired a local guide and packed the whole family into two trucks for a day of amateur photography. My mom was a the night zoo-keeper at the Washington Park Zoo and worked for the zoo for years and years. She prides herself on her handling of the Asian elephants, although she's never worked with African elephants, so it was a goal to see an elephant or three. Yesterday we headed out from Njiro (outside Arusha where we are staying) to the Ngorongoro Caldera at the Ngorongoro Crater Conservancy/National Park. 
According to 
The Caldera is 2000 feet deep and 14 miles across (620m and 22.5km respectively). An estimated 75,000 animals live in the crater itself. The floor is incredibly level and there's a lake inside. It's basically a big, perfect pasture of green in the middle of an extinct volcano. The view from the top is truly amazing. There isn't a wide-angle lens that can really capture what you see. Make sure you bring high-powered binoculars...not the standard 7x35 kind, but a really nice pair. Borrow if you don't want to buy. 
Halfway through we stopped at the 
The road from Arusha is tarred, but lousy at best with many potholes. Once you get outside of town about 50km you hang a right and the road suddenly becomes perfectly flat and freshly tarred all the way up to the park entrance. The fees to enter are US$50 for Foreigners and 1500 TSH (about US$1.25) for locals. However, the way it consistently works out (we saw this to be the case in Zimbabwe as well) is that it's 50 bucks for Whites and Indians and local prices for Blacks. Even though we were two trucks with 12 people, 5 Americans (3 white, one black, and the baby), 3 Tanzanians and 4 Zimbabweans, we ended up playing US$ for the whites and everyone else paid local. Apparently this is a known "loophole" and African-Americans on safari can get great prices at local parks and museums if you keep your mouth shut and possibly say a few greetings in kiSwa. Some suspicion was arose on the part of the security guards when the teenage girls started jabbering in English as girls do, and it faded away when we hushed them in Ndebele and told them to switch to kiSwahili. What was going to be a very expensive entrance turned into US$150 and ~30,000TSH including the vehicle fee so that was a pleasant surprise - one my wife, as a Shilling-payer on this expedition, was thrilled with considering her recent Americanization.
On the way out we bought some local art from local artists. Typically the smaller the shop, the better chance you're dealing with the artist, or at least one of his/her relatives. If the place takes credit cards, it's likely a "clearing house" or middle man. We went to a shop run by the uncle of a friend of a friend, so even though we were likely "led" there, we were able to use the local connection to get a bulk rate on five nice original paintings. It's a good idea to have both US dollars and TSH on you, as the question will come up how you're going to pay. Pay in the currency that they prefer and you might get a small break on the total price. Also, do try to speak some Swahili in a respectful way, and hopefully make it all the way through a greeting exchange. Depending on who you're working with, I do distinctly get the impression that they appreciate the effort.