Zanzibar

This weekend we went to Zanzibar (that little island off the coast of Tanzania), and it was amazing. It has so much beautiful architecture, rich history, and fantastic beaches. It was a jam-packed weekend that was so fun, and at times ridiculous, that I don’t even know how to retell it. Here goes…

Stone Town
Stone Town is part of Zanzibar City, the capital of Zanzibar. It’s an incredible area with tiny narrow streets, great markets, and lots of churches and mosques. I loved wandering around the city because the architecture is fantastic. It has a lot of Arabic and Indian influence, so everything is very elegant and exotic. Still, it is Africa, so they don’t have a lot of resources to maintain the buildings and historical sites. My favorite parts were the doors; they were all elaborate and elegantly carved.

When we arrived, we took a rickety wooden boat over to Changuu, an even smaller island not too far from the wharf in Stone Town. It used to be a prison, then a quarantine area for Cholera patients, and now it is a resort and tortoise sanctuary. There are tons of HUGE tortoises that were given as a gift from the Seychelles to some rich British resident back in the day.

By far the coolest thing we did in Stone Town was eat at Forodhani Gardens. It isn’t really a garden so much as an alley lined with tons of food vendors. It is the craziest and most energetic place I’ve ever seen! There are tables lined with all kinds of fish, octopus, squid, meats, and delicious fried snacks. They even have an oh-so-delicious “pizza” made with flour, water, and egg topped with bananas and chocolate. You go to a vendor, tell them what you want, and then they grill it up for you. Everyone either stands around or sits on any spare space available on the street to eat. I had my first taste of barracuda, and it was fantastic! Overall it was the best meal I’ve had since I’ve been here.

Spice Tour
Zanzibar is famous for its spices, so Saturday we went on a spice tour. We drove out into the countryside and saw village after village situated in these forests of palm trees. The houses are made out of mud and sticks, and the people live so simply. I’d love to try it out someday. The tour was in one of these villages where they grow everything from cinnamon to henna, and cloves to iodine. Being the little tree nerd that I am, I absolutely loved hearing about all these

plants and their different uses. There is this one tree (mwarobaini in Swahili) that is used for all kinds of medicinal purposes: pain, fatigue, Malaria, and even as a natural pesticide. At the end of the tour we got to eat all of their delicious fresh fruits!

Abdul the Taxi Driver
Our taxi driver was crazy. He was with us for the whole weekend, but I still don’t really know how to describe him. First of all, he drove like a maniac. My life flashed before my eyes every time I got in the car. When he picked us up from the port, we drove about 3 miles before we ran out of gas. Abdul leaned out the window to a guy next to us at the intersection and asked to borrow his motorcycle. Surprisingly, the guy said sure, so Abdul drove away on a stranger’s pikipiki while we sat in an intersection completely confused. The next day the car almost overheated. He stopped to add some water to the radiator and lost the cap. He tried to fashion one out of bits of trash from the side of the road, but we ended up having to get another van and another driver (but Abdul stayed with us anyway…).

One night we asked him where we could find some good places to eat. He kindly offered to drive us to a good spot; he ate with us and even brought his wife. Conveniently he and his wife hurried off right before the bill came, so we were stuck paying for them both. After that we went to a bar next door to play some pool, and Abdul shows up around midnight to convince us to go to downstairs to a club (of course, he didn’t pay his own cover charge or anything…). The club was totally empty; it was just us and Abdul breakin’ it down on the dance floor. Although, between my hippy dancing and Sarah’s white girl break dancing, we pretty much got the party started.

Along with Abdul we acquired another Zanzibar native to our group. Her name was Nora, but that’s about all I know because I never heard her say anything. She knew our professor, who was leading the trip, but no one really knows how. She did come back to Dar with us, and brought a TV that she bought on the way to the spice plantation. It was very random. I never have a clue what is going on in this country.

The Beach
We spent one night at this beautiful beach resort on the East coast. The water was perfectly blue and the sand was so white. It was some of the softest sand I’ve ever encountered, and it felt like you were walking on jelly. Some of us went snorkeling, which was fun. We took another rickety wooden boat out to a small reef. I don’t think it was too healthy, but there were a lot of cool tropical fish. Other than that we pretty much sat on the beach drinking pina coladas and enjoying delicious food. It was beautiful and relaxing and I fully plan on going back another weekend.

Photos

After hearing how many laptops got stolen last semester, I became a little paranoid. The only thing I would be really devastated to lose would be my photos, so I decided to upload them to webshots. If anyone is interested, the site is:

http://community.webshots.com/user/rpsteven

Back in the US... sort of.

My first trip to the US embassy was a little useless. We went to register, but it turns out you can only do that online nowadays. I was extremely pleased with the bathrooms, though; they have soap AND toilet paper! But four daladalas and a trek through the city outskirsts isn’t really worth a good bathroom experience. Our next visit was a little more fun.

This weekend was our first in Dar. Of all the places we could have ended up, it was the US embassy. There is a Marine base there, though I don’t know why (maybe because it was bombed in the ‘90s). Anyway, they live on the fun side of the embassy, not the business side. They’ve got a bar, pool table, basketball court, and good music. So, we ended up at a throw-down with Marines at the US embassy in Tanzania. Not how I expected to spend a Friday night, but fun nonetheless. And we weren’t the only wazungus (i.e. foreigners), which was a nice change!

The Roof

I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of things around here. My Swahili is getting better, slowly but surely. I can find most places on campus, and I’ve done my first load of bucket laundry. The water is out again, but I’m prepared with a bucket full, and I don’t have to haul it up six flights of stairs. I’ve only been here for a week, and classes haven’t started yet, but I think this will be a good home for me for the next 5 or 6 months.

My favorite place so far is the roof of my dorm. It’s 9 stories up, and since no one here is worried about lawsuits, you can scramble up to the very top. It has the most amazing 360° view! I was expecting city all around and was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of greenery. The city sprawls out along the coastline, but the university is far enough from the bustling urban center to have a surprising peace about it. Looking East, there are some open green spaces and even a few ponds between me and Dar, and opposite that is the sunset. Right now, there are a few clouds in the sky that are turning nice and rosy. It’s a nice peaceful sunset; not one that knocks you off your feet, but one you can watch and appreciate the view, the breeze, and the calm from way up here. The night is amazing from the roof, too. It’s too windy for mosquitoes, and you can see the stars. I was surprised how many stars you can see considering the city size. I hope this tranquil place isn’t too popular during the semester!

Mwenge

Well Tanzania is shaping up to be a pretty excellent adventure. This week we went to Mwenge which is a town/ district/ neighborhood not too far from campus. It’s about a five minute daladala ride (the ramshackle overcrowded minivans) smushed up against countless other town-bound locals. There is actually a daladala hub in Mwenge, so when you get there the first thing you see is like 100 vans and minibuses and tons of people.

The town is kind of what you think of when you think of an African market: uneven dirt roads lined with tons of shops selling everything from cell phones to handicrafts to hot plates. There is this one section with tons of small fruit & veggie vendors. We wandered toward the back (to the $0.50 papayas) and there were cages and cages of chickens! In the midst of all these chicken cages at the back of a fruit market was a random pool table. My goal for the semester is to play pool with the chicken vendors.

While we were there, we all bought buckets. It took some tricky maneuvering getting those back on the daladala, but it was well worth it. What a handy piece of plastic. The water in our dorm was off for a few days, and between the humidity and dust I needed a shower pretty badly. Sarah and I took our buckets down to this block of spigots nearby to get some water. After washing all the grease out buckets (they were originally full of vegetable oil), we had to haul them up 6 flights of stairs, which was amazingly difficult. I tried the whole African strategy of carrying it on your head, but it turns out I am too much of a pansy for that—it’s way harder than it looks. When I finally got my water, I had the most refreshing bucket shower ever. Naturally, the water came back on right after that.

One night this week I went to Mwenge to tutor. There are a handful of students, especially exchange students that volunteer to teach English to woodcarvers working there. The night I went, they were having discussions about life in Tanzania. The general consensus was that life is bad (for obvious reasons: expensive education, lack of funds, poor and/or corrupt government, etc). Most of the men were worried about getting food on a day-to-day basis, and none of them owned their own home or had insurance. The one guy who argued that life was actually good and didn’t need to worry about food said that he spent Tsh3000 a day, which is about $2.50 - $3.00. The whole thing was very enlightening, and I can’t wait to go back next week.

Karibu!

Well I’m finally here after 3 days of planes and airports. On the way over, Sarah and I had a long layover in London where we met up with one of the other guys on the program. We did some express sightseeing and then sat down for a beer/ ale in a quaint little pub. Very British. Also very different from Dar es Salaam.

I’ve settled into my dorm room which is on the 6^th floor of a highrise (HJ style). Being up so high, we get a nice breeze, which is crucial. On the ground, it’s like being on the surface of the sun, but up here it’s probably 10 degrees cooler. I have a little balcony with a view of the treetops, and I can see all the way down to the Indian Ocean! Apparently our dorm is much nicer than the guys’. They have no breeze, no view, and no internet. Suckers.

I met my roommate this morning. She walked in while I was sleeping in my underwear under my ghetto-fabulous mosquito net. Needless to say, I think I made a good impression. We also started intensive Swahili lessons today, which is good. Most of the students speak English, but we’ve already run into lots of communication mishaps. There is this convenient little shop right near my dorm where they sell fruit, water, toilet paper, etc. It’s really cheap (breakfast there cost me like 10 cents!), but none of the guys running it speak any English. So far hand gestures and my minimal Swahili vocab have worked well, and a few of the students have taught us some of the oh-so-hip lingo.

Campus is much nicer than I expected. Some of the buildings are a little dilapidated, some have holes for toilets, but there are lots of trees and green spaces and they even have a swimming pool! Also, instead of squirrels, we have MONKEYS! There are definitely some things that will take getting used to, like…

• The unbelievable humidity
• hand washing laundry in a bucket
• cold showers (no water heaters...)
• carrying around my own toilet paper
• temperamental plumbing (for example, we haven't had water for 2 days now)
• Brushing my teeth with bottled water
• avoiding baboons around campus
  

My biggest cultural experience so far was going to the local supermarket. To get there, you take a daladala (public transportation). Named because the conductor (different from the driver) used to hang out the side yelling “dollar, dollar!” they actually only cost about a quarter no matter where you go. They are these color coded minibuses that run all over the city and the conductor will cram as many people in as physically possible—I counted 24 in what should have seated about 10. It was, well, interesting.

I can’t wait till it starts feeling like home, and I really can’t wait till the water comes back on. Hope everyone is doing well back home!

Tutaonana baadaye,

Parker