Kwaheri Zanzibar, Jambo Kenya!

Saying Goodbye (Kwaheri in Swahili) isn’t usually fun for me so I try to avoid it as often as I can. Leaving Zanzibar is not exception; instead I’ll say: “see you later” because I think I will be back someday. I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay on this island, even the “worst” parts of it. I think its set a pretty high bar for the rest of my trip and I will miss it!

I will miss the white sandy beaches; the beautifully turquoise ocean; the brilliantly starlit nights (especially those nights when the moon shone bright and cast its light across the ocean); the exquisite sunrises and sunsets; I will miss the bike rides (oh I will miss the bike rides and all the bruises and scrapes that came with it), the befuddled stares of the villagers that soon turned into welcoming smiles, the students at JTTI (especially the ones that kept me well humoured), the kids at the nursery schools (especially the devilish ones that were usually up to no good but still laughed and wriggled around when you tickled them); I will miss being covered in paint and the fun discoveries that came with it (like learning that insect repellent is a great paint remover!); I will miss the food, though I should be able to live on chapatti and spicy rice in Kenya but then again it might not be the same

That said, I’m pretty excited about Kenya. I think one month of village life has had me craving for a bit of a more city-like experience and Nairobi is just perfect for that. I’ve heard a lot about it and just can’t wait to see it for myself. I’m excited about the placement I’ll be doing out there as well. This time round I will be working in an orphanage for 6 weeks. The setup for accommodation will also be different; I’m ditching the big brother-esque experience for a live-in with a local family which I think could be quite fun. I’m hoping that it will prove better at least on the food front. I also happen to have a few friends in Kenya so will be a good opportunity to catch up and get good advice on the dos and don’ts.

So my flight is all confirmed and I head out tomorrow afternoon. Once I’m settled in, I will be in touch to let you guys know how it’s all panning out. I’m crossing all the crossable parts of my body, praying that the internet situation will be as good as I expect so I can finally, finally post some photos.

And on that note, I say Jambo (Hello in Swahili) Kenya, hope you are as ready for me as I am for you!

Fun, Fun, Fun!

I’ve been rather mute recently on my non-work activities so thought I should give you guys a full update. In my first weekend in Zanzibar, I made a trip to Nungwi and Kendwa, on the north coast of Zanzibar (may well have mentioned this in passing a few posts ago). The first stop was Nungwi, which is 2 hours away from Jambiani by car. I’d heard a lot about this place: how beautiful it was and the myriad of fun activities like snorkelling, diving, etc that one could indulge in. So expectations were pretty high. First off, I went along with what turned out to be a very bad hotel recommendation. I mean I’m working off a budget and all but this place that I ended up staying at was somewhere far below budget accommodation; it goes by the name: Jambo Brothers. The room looked like it needed a good clean, the sheets were stained, someone sighted a maggot on one of the beds, the bathroom needed a scrub and on the first night I felt a roach crawl up my leg in the dead of night. It was THAT bad. It was therefore refreshing to find out that the rest of the experience lived up to expectations. Spent the Saturday with a group of tourists and volunteers on a snorkelling trip to a nearby island called Mnemba, which is meant to be some sort of celebrity getaway place, so we, being the non-celebrities that we are, were forbidden to go there. Lunch was excellent: grilled tuna (pretty well seasoned with garlic, ginger and other spices) and rice (now got to say, Zanzibarians know how to cook rice; I’m yet to eat badly cooked rice here). We part-sailed back to Nungwi and appreciated a lovely sunset.

Spent that evening at Kendwa, a nearby village where a full moon party was ensuing. Think I may have mentioned this already, but it was just not as good as I expected and it seemed to be fertile ground for gropers and creeps to do their business. I was very happy to leave at a decent hour if even to a bed in a cockroach-infested hotel. The journey back to Jambiani was a very welcome one the next morning

Partially scarred from the Nungwi-Kendwa experience, the decision was made to stay in Jambiani the following weekend. Got some swimming done; ate good food at a local restaurant (Zanzibarians also make a mean chapatti; I think I’m actually addicted to it now) and just enjoyed good conversation and relaxation time with the other volunteers and some tourist friends I’d made in the village. There is a local bar that I spend a fair amount of time at each week because it’s the only place in Jambiani with wireless internet (plus its FREE), the owner and his staff are very friendly and its always buzzing with people and good music. By the end of this weekend, Nungwi was but a distant memory

The other volunteers wanted to go swim with dolphins the following weekend, which sounded like a good idea and I tagged along even though I thought we were being charged an outrageous price. How often does one get to swim with dolphins? Figured it was worth the sacrifice. We were up at a very unfriendly hour of 5.45am on the Saturday to embark on our adventure. The taxi picked us up at 6.15 and must say that I’m probably right in guessing that the driver had not showered for at least a week. He also thought it wise to keep the windows up and turn on the fan. I started to have a bad feeling about the whole thing immediately. Anyway, we endured the B.O. for the half hour ride it took to get to the beach at Kizimkazi, another village. The weather wasn’t looking too good either, it was cloudy and the sun was nowhere to be found even though it was past sunrise at this stage. We got into a boat that looked more like a canoe and set off on what ended up being a very bumpy ride. We were in the boat for a good 45 mins before we got anywhere near the dolphins. I felt seasick the whole time; the dolphins finally emerged but apparently were not in the mood for swimming with people so the others got in the water for a whopping 5 mins (I was frankly feeling too sick to even go near the water) and our guide announced that it was time to head back to shore! Once on shore, we were treated to breakfast consisting of tea and chapatti sprinkled with sugar (they almost had me there) but the venue was someone’s living room. We were supposed to pay the driver once we got dropped off. Given the unsatisfactory nature of the experience we were unwilling to pay the quoted price and we negotiated it down to something we felt was slightly more reasonable. A few hours later, the coordinator for the volunteer project comes searching for us (we’d retired to a nearby pool to chill and try to put the experience behind us), demanding to know why we didn’t pay the full price that was agreed. Apparently our negotiating was worthless cause we had to pay the headline price regardless of how bad the experience was; but more interesting to note was that she was up in arms about the whole thing and wouldn’t back down on this point. Anyway, we soon found out that African Encounter, the mother organisation for our volunteer project gets a cut on the fees we pay for the various expeditions that are organised for us, hence the ridiculous prices! Needless to say, we were not planning on booking anything else through them

So last weekend, with mixed feelings and expectations, the other volunteers and I got on the dala-dala (local bus) for a trip to Stone town. Now, I’m sure variations of dala-dalas exist in every African country; in Ghana we call them tro-tros. For those of you not in the know, let me try to explain what a dala-dala looks like: imagine a moving van but with the rear part, shaped like a rectangular box, made out of wood instead of metal. The long side of the rectangle (which lines up with the tires) is partitioned wide enough so one could stick one’s head out; the seats also run along this long side facing each other. The drivers try to fit as many people as possible into this space so the ride is often nice and cozy. Stonetown is an hour and a half away from Jambiani and it was quite a bumpy ride. Being used to this sort of mode of transport, I was able to chuckle quietly at what must have been quite the experience for the other volunteers

Once in Stonetown and very keen to not repeat the hotel fiasco of Nungwi, we went in search of a decent hotel. Again, we’d been given recommendations; our first stop was far too reminiscent of Jambo Brothers so we politely declined and enroute to the second recommendation, we found a gem that we thoroughly enjoyed staying at. We spent most of our time in the central part of Stonetown; the layout of this part was an eclectic mix of meandering streets (which actually looked more like alleyways); the buildings had kind of a Spanish feel to them and each street was lined with hotels and shops (which were storey buildings that had homes on the top floors) and people roaming these streets in a quest to sell their wares. It wasn’t particularly clean but had such a good vibe to it: women sitting around chatting, men playing board games, children playing football in the street, motorbikes and cycles zooming past at full speed (which got a bit scary at times), people hollering out their wares, etc. We spent some time shopping, which involved a huge amount of heckling, and retired to the infamous Africa house for cocktails and a rather disappointing sunset (which was a minor cause the atmosphere was pretty cool). We had dinner at the night market where the food was just excellent; imagine a garden turned square, right by the beach, the tiny orange glow of what was left of the sun in the distance juxtaposed by palm trees; chefs (appropriately attired) selling all kinds of grilled meats and seafood, chapatti, chips, drinks and something called Zanzibar pizza (which is kind of a stuffed crepe that can be of the savoury or sweet kind; I had the sweet kind for dessert, it was stuffed with bananas and had a chocolate topping). I was in food heaven. Fully stuffed, we made our way to a local bar for some live music, very cheesy live music, which made it all the more fun. And of course, we did a sing-along!

We did the spice tour on the Sunday. Zanzibar is famous for being a leading producer of spices; we visited spice farms and fruit farms, saw first hand how most spices are grown and ate very good fruit. We had spicy pilau rice (a totally scruptuous speciality in Zanzibar; I’ve got the recipe and will be trying my hands at it as soon as I get the chance), chapatti and curry for lunch. We checked out the Mangapwani slave caves and nearby beach (which was apparently used during and after the slave trade by the Arabs to illegally trade slaves).

Exhausted from the trip, we retired for some quality Italian ice cream, near our hotel, which was perfect in the heat and was just an apt way to end the weekend. :)

3 weeks already ?!

Can’t believe that this much time has gone by! I’ve now got just over 10 days left in Zanzibar and I know I’m going to miss it

Its been raining a lot recently, in fact for most of the last 2 weeks and I do like the rain here. Its torrential and comes full on for hours at a time; you could just sit and watch it fall but of course that is not what I spend my time doing. Earlier this week we had to walk through the rain to get to and from the schools, which wasn’t exactly fun. The breeze was significant in strength so even though we used umbrellas and raincoats, we still got fairly wet. The rain also tends to leave in its wake, a nice collection of puddles (more like ponds in some cases) scattered around the village, which makes for fairly treacherous bike rides. Thankfully I have so far managed to escape any atrocity in that regard but one of the other volunteers tried dodging a kid running across the road on one such day and wound up flying into one of these puddles. She was not impressed! She did not suffer any major injuries; only a few cuts and bruises and of course a nice coating of mud to complete her attire for the morning

Teaching remains enjoyable and I always look forward to it. We teach the kids from Monday through to Thursday for a couple of hours each day. They are usually great to work with: full of energy (its quite exhausting at times actually), eager to learn and play games (they love lego and playing duck duck goose or red light, green light) and are all very friendly. At one school, they’ve lately become really frisky, partly I think, because they are used to us and the novelty of impressing us has worn off. They especially like to run around and play versions of catch-me-if-you-can amongst themselves whilst screaming and hollering. Some of them also have a great way of balling up in a corner to pretend they are crying, just to get attention, which was cute at first but quickly became irritating! There is also usually quite a scramble for pencils with erasers; apparently the ones without erasers are just not good enough. Its quite funny watching how the girls behave vs the boys when lego pieces are being handed out. The boys just get on with making something whilst the girls hide whatever pieces you hand out to them and ask for more; spend half their time seeking more lego pieces than actually using them to create something. The language barrier of course makes organising/controlling them quite the challenge (though my Swahili vocab has expanded somewhat to deal with these situations) and coping with their shenanigans this week has sapped a fair amount of energy from me.

Working with the older students has been brilliant and since we split the class by competence, things have been working rather splendidly. I think I will miss teaching them the most

We’ve done a decent amount of painting at the local high school though we are still far from finishing it all. Don’t think we will get there before I leave but its felt fairly rewarding seeing the transformation our work has effected. Our bodies also undergo some transformation each time we paint, being the professional painters that we are; we often emerge from the school smeared in paint (white or blue) or limestone! We’ve also been planting trees at one of the local schools (to provide some shade and aesthetics) and it would be interesting to see if they remain standing in a few years’ time. I hope I will come back to Zanzibar someday, if even for a short holiday

In other news: on Wednesday, I miraculously lost my phone on a bike ride! Well, it wasn’t a miracle but I was silly enough to leave my phone in my pocket and forgot to take it out as I left the house hastily for school (do I ever learn?). I realised I’d lost it when I arrived there and was clearly distraught. Luckily, and this is truly unbelievable, someone in the village found it and after trying to contact the number several times (with the help of a local Maasai guy), we got hold of him and he returned the phone. I have concluded that when riding bikes I should only be allowed to carry one thing: myself, ‘cause clearly adding any other “load” proves problematic

I have now given up on trying to upload photos anywhere whilst in Zanzibar. The internet situation here is just not compatible for that sort of activity. So I’ve decided that seeing photos of my escapades so far will have to wait till I get to Nairobi next month, sorry guys! :(  I do have some good shots though so hopefully you will not be disappointed once you see them

Wish me luck for my last 10 days! :)

 

 

 

Re: On Imposition

Thought I’d do a slight diversion from the usual travel and activity updates and talk about something that a friend was blogging about a few weeks ago. He spoke of the role of parents in their children’s lives, specifically on whether or not the former should be imposing their views/beliefs on the latter. To see his full blog, please click here

Aside from the issues addressed in said blog, I think there is an underlying question that needs to be highlighted. That it’s not just a question of whether or not one’s views are relevant or true enough to be imparted onto kids but also there has to be the question of am I as a parent providing the right tools for my child to develop good thinking? At the end of the day a person’s views are formed by some fusion of what we are trained to believe and the views we develop based on how we think, experience, societal influence, etc. My parents were most definitely the imposing kind and till this day there are times when I hear my mother’s voice in my head cautioning me when I’m about to do certain things. This however is not to say that I agree with all my parent’s beliefs and views and as I’ve grown, I’ve had to spend some time thinking and forming views of my own. I can say that this is probably also true for most of my friends

Modern day parents I think are increasingly faced with what seems like a dilemma as to how much of an imposition they should be on their kids vs how much of a laissez-faire attitude they should employ when it comes to how the kids develop their own views of the world. I think this was part of the underlying concern of the mother in question

To an extent, parents’ imposition is almost less relevant to what views people form (as children or adults) cause in the long run people form their own views regardless of upbringing (how many times do we hear of serial killers/criminals that were brought up in staunchly religious homes ?). I think equally (if not more) important is teaching kids how to develop good thinking because it, like any other skill in life, requires not only practice but good training /solid building blocks

I’ve recently been reading a lot of work done by a renowned psychiatrist called Edward de Bono (who incidentally coined the term lateral thinking) and he spent most of his career doing work on thinking and how to develop it as a skill. He’s of the view, and I agree with this, that good thinking is not a function of intelligence but rather a skill that can be taught and developed in everyone, smart or not. He also talks about how the education system does not cater adequately to developing the best thinking techniques, something that parents usually presume their children get by going to good schools. In his view, it is imperative therefore that parents take on the responsibility of helping kids develop this skill. Perhaps his work biases my view somewhat on the subject of the importance of good thinking in general. But in my view, it’s a good bias. His books titled “teach your child how to think” and “the use of lateral thinking” are worth reading

At the end of the day if parents are to impose their views on kids, which I agree is a responsibility/obligation on their part (let’s face it, if children are left on their own to develop their own views, they will be chopping their fingers and toes and running around stark naked in no time!), then they must themselves have views developed through good thinking. That way they not only impart good views onto their kids but also help them to develop good thinking techniques. With the avalanche of problems facing the world today, we cannot have enough good thinkers around, in my humble opinion

The Others

I think I’ve made mention in my last few posts about the divas that joined the volunteer project about a week or so ago. Thought I’d do a full piece on them cause frankly, they are that insufferable!

Just go give a bit more colour on the characters in question: they are Persian, obviously very wealthy (as in more money than sense, as one of the other volunteers put it) and its difficult to see how they were taught anything about courtesy and good manners. They are studying in London at the moment (university level) and for some reason (more on that later) they decided to spend 3 weeks out of their summer holidays volunteering (read: holidaying) in Zanzibar

Their attitude has just been appalling: they turn up to work if and when they feel like it; take part in lesson preparation if they feel so inclined; spend more time taking “me and the African kids” photos than actually teaching them anything; complain incessantly about everything (hello, which part of volunteering in Africa has 5 star treatment plastered all over it?); think our Swahili lessons are the best time to get on their blackberries; think its okay to get drunk and consequently turn up to activities late even though its been made explicitly clear that our attitude as volunteers is watched closely by the villagers (who incidentally are staunchly Muslim) and impacts the way AI is perceived and ultimately affects the work it does around here; would rather spend time tanning, listening to their music loudly, talking (well more like bragging) about their outrageously expensive lifestyles to each other than doing anything else

I do not have a problem with what they do with themselves cause I honestly could not give a hoot about it, but once their attitude starts to affect the whole volunteer project and acts as a demotivator to those of us that actually want to be here and do the work, then I think it becomes a problem, a big one I might add

All of this of course begs the question: why are they here? They are wealthy enough to book a swanky holiday to Zanzibar and do whatever the hell they please, so why would they sign up to a volunteer project? As I understand it, it was this over an internship in London. So they’ve kind of been forced to be here which defeats the purpose of the whole idea of volunteering in the first place.

The second question one might ask is: what is being done to put them in their place? We (the other volunteers who actually want to be here and are dedicated to the work) have been told that they receive a strong warning and if they mess up one more time after that, they will be chucked off the program. My sincere wish is that it comes to that

The sad thing is that having them here means that they’ve taken the spots of people who could have been more committed to the program, cared more about the work that was being done here and actually wanted to make a difference. Thinking about that really infuriates me!

On a more serious note:

Zanzibar’s biggest contributor to GDP is its tourism sector. Life in Jambiani fully reflects that. The beachfront is lined with hotels, resorts, bars etc. The problem in the village (and indeed all of Zanzibar) is that most people cannot communicate in English and most people are not qualified to work in the sector. So what tends to happen is that people from mainland Tanzania and neighbouring countries flood in to take jobs that rightfully belong to the local people. A Canadian couple now based in the village have set out to do something to fix this problem. They’ve set up a tourism institute, which seeks to train people not only in tourism-related trades but also computer skills and Basic English. They’ve formed an alliance with African Impact (AI) on the computer training and English-teaching front so we go to the institute (Jambiani Tourism Training Institute – JTTI) every morning to teach people aged 18 and above some English and help them with any problems they may have in computer literacy. I really enjoy the English-teaching part. The problem with the way the class is run at the moment is that we don’t really follow a set curriculum and volunteers just sort of wing it and teach random bits of English to these people. Added to that is the fact that there seems to be quite a wide competence range amongst the students that isn’t usually considered so some of the students speak good English (and pick up whatever you teach them quickly) whilst others can write things down but can barely construct a sentence let alone engage in conversation. Some of them have a great way of regurgitating whatever you teach them but once you start to probe a bit more, they get stuck, suggesting that they did not really grasp the concept in the first place. So, the other volunteers and I are now in the process of seeing what can be done at least about splitting the class according to competence levels to maximise what each student gets out of the class. It would really help if I spoke fluent Swahili but I’ve gotten around that problem so far by getting the brighter students in the class to translate to Swahili for everyone else once they understand what’s been taught and that seems to be working well. There isn’t much we can do about the curriculum but there is a grammar book lying around the house that we are following for now. I hope for their sakes that the coordinator tries to maintain some form of continuity in how they are educated (its quite frustrating that this hasn’t been well enforced in the past): making sure volunteers communicate what they teach to each other; testing the understanding of the students in a versatile way; giving them homework, etc.  So far the students seem to be responding well to some of the changes we are implementing and attendance has been very good (vs. quite sporadic when we first arrived)

AI is also affiliated with a few nursery schools in the village. We spend a few hours in the mornings with these schools teaching them Basic English. The kids are aged 5 -7. Again there are many problems with how these kids are being educated, especially at one of the two schools that we work with. The first is that there are local teachers at these schools who are supposed to act as facilitators (the kids are essentially educated in Swahili and we just come by a few hours a day to teach them some English). Ideally, the teachers should be helping us by acting as translators, be involved in the lesson preparation phase so that we match what they are being taught in Swahili with the English version. Of course, this doesn’t happen. I’m told the local teachers are volunteers who don’t get paid so what they do instead is feed the kids and do the barest minimum on the education front. It turns out that most of them are not qualified either, which is also worrying. They leave us to do whatever with the kids whilst they mostly sit around chatting with each other. I’m told AI has done it best to ensure that the teachers collaborate well but they just don’t seem to be bothered. We try our best but I’m not sure that will be enough; these kids may learn how to count and say a few words in English but I can’t say that they will have good Grammar if the status quo is maintained. The second problem, quite similar to that mentioned about the JTTI students earlier, is that these kids have different competence levels: some of them a dyslexic and some are pretty good at writing and learning in general. It’s frustrating to see the weaker ones not get as much out of our efforts. The fact that non of us are qualified teachers doesn’t help either but we try to give them as much individual attention as possible and keep the learning as fun and engaging as can be.

Perhaps it’s a bit over-ambitious to want these kids (and the JTTI students) to do well in their English-learning. I feel for a country that derives most of its income from tourism, its imperative. If poverty is to be eradicated from the village then Jambiani people should be competent enough to set up businesses, attract people worldwide to come to their village through good advertising, keep the environment clean (in a green way I might add) and in short become self-sufficient (presently all the hotels and resorts appear foreign owned and as mentioned before even the workers are not from Jambiani). Of course, some of this can be done in Swahili but the bulk of their clientele will be English-speaking, which makes it sort of important that they pick up the language. If we do a mediocre job, it only slows the process of them getting there!

PS. i have bad news: the divas did end up painting loo at the local school but i missed out on the photo opp; i was sent to paint another school at the same time. I'm sure I'll have other equally entertaining news soon though :)

Is it just me or...?

I think I’ve settled in well but I must say that I can’t help but notice something about the way the locals interact with me. First off, I should reiterate that the other volunteers are all Europeans or Caucasian Americans and we were joined by some Iranian divas yesterday (more on that later). All the locals call out to us volunteers (mostly to say hi, what’s up, that sort of thing) as we cycle to through the town on our daily rounds or as we stroll round in the evenings or hang out on the beach. In most cases they reel out words in Swahili to me, most of which I do not understand, something they seem somewhat taken aback by. One crazy old lady in the township actually had a go at me (or at least so it seemed); I could not understand a word she was saying but her look was disapproving, she gestured accusingly and kept repeating the word mzungu (which translates as white person)…so the conclusion I’ve come to is that obviously not that many black people (if any at all) engage in volunteer work in this village. The villagers must wonder who this crazy black woman is who wears her hair in dreads (a few of them call me rasta already), obviously can’t ride a bike well (there have been a few incidents of me flying by on the bike with the wind in my hair, followed swiftly by dubious dodging of rocks and potholes and dare I say, a few falls), dresses like an mzungu and can’t speak Swahili (I think this aspect of my weirdness actually dilutes my blackness in their eyes). As I learn more Swahili and hopefully am able to communicate well, I’ll try to validate some of these impressions

Last weekend was spent at the lovely north coast of the island in a village called Nungwi. I thought the beaches in Jambiani were pretty awesome but the ones in Nungwi are just breathtakingly beautiful. I need to upload photos but the internet on the island is a bit slow and i'm being abit lazy about it, but soon, I promise

Anyway, talking about Nungwi’s picturesque features was a digression from the issue I wanted to discuss. I did the trip with a few fellow volunteers (one of whom is a Swiss girl who is not part of our programme but is volunteering in the village for 3 months, trying to set up a school in the middle of the Jozani forest; a Brit girl; an American girl and a Brit boy. We had the distinct pleasure of meeting and acquainting with another group of English girls who had been in Nungwi for a while. They were aged about 19 and were on a gap year before going on to university. They happened to be friends with the guy in our group, who incidentally seemed quite taken by them. The other girls in my group (who are cool and I get on well with) and I were there to enjoy the beach, go snorkelling and attend a full moon party in a nearby town called Kendwa. These ladies on the other hand wanted to get good tans, meet some men (black men specifically) and partaay (read: get drunk and high). In short, we did not want to hang out with these girls but because of our mutual “friend” we ended up going to places with them (granted, it worked out a lot cheaper that way). But I could not help but wonder if this was what gap years was all about. I overheard one of them saying to someone that she was going to Oxford to study theology because she was fairly religious (really??!). I didn’t take a gap year myself and I’ve understood it to be a time to travel, mature and experience independence. None of that seemed to apply to this group…but maybe it’s just me

It’s also worth mentioning that the full moon party was slightly anti-climatic; it was basically a rave filled with drunken tourists and far too many local men on a groping spree. The other girls and I ended up strolling the beach, which was awesome in the moonlight and chatting around the bonfire. We missed the acrobat acts cause we got there a bit late but I’m sure that would have been fun to watch

The recent additions to the house seem to be an interesting lot. Amongst their first questions were: is it okay to smoke weed on the beach? They don’t seem too keen on the food either (frankly neither am I but I eat it anyway; and they are 10x skinnier). They came fully equipped with loud speakers, so the house is now like a disco when they are around and they don’t seem eager to make friends with the rest of us (save said “friend” mentioned earlier who instantly bonded with them). But its just first impressions, things might change; I’m keeping an open mind

Ps. Last week, our programme coordinator asked if we would like to paint the toilet at the local high school; we are in the process of painting the whole school at the moment. Now the toilet at this school is of the pit latrine kind and having a full appreciation of what pit latrines are all about, I politely declined….well, my negativity may have influenced a couple of the other volunteers to say no too BUT the coordinator made it clear that we were under no obligation whatsoever and after checking out the latrines themselves, they saw where I was coming from. So, our new diva friends were given this kind offer too and they’ve agreed to complete the task. Not sure they fully appreciate they are in for but it will be interesting to see how they cope. More on that next time :D

Zanzibar - Settling in

I survived the long flight and transit time in Dar es Salaam and got to Jambiani safely. The journey was fairly uneventful except for this one dude in Dar who tried to get me to store my luggage in a really dodgy-looking room for $10 for the 8 hour transit time (which ended up being 9 hours) and i politely declined...i thought stuff like that happened only in west africa...

The airport in Zanzibar was about 1.5hrs from the volunteer house, which is conveniently located a stone's throw away from the beach. I can't begin to describe what the beach in Jambiani looks like...white sand, turquoise water, miles and miles of coconut trees. I will upload some pictures soon though i'm not sure even those do it justice. I am told that the beaches at the northern part of the island are even better, so looking forward to seeing that. I plan to spend the weekend there with the other volunteers. The house is big enough for 10 people though there are only 5 of us now with more to come at the weekend. Must say that the setup is very reminiscent of secondary school (boarding school i mean) in Ghana: bunk beds, mosquito nets, shared bathrooms, organised meals (more on that in a bit), etc. Can't help but make comparisons. Most of the volunteers are aged 19 - 20 and we all seem to be getting on well. There are 2 Americans, 2 Brits and myself for now (there were 2 Austrians earlier in the week). The volunteers come continuously throughout the year and tend to stay for 3 - 4 weeks

Before i say anything else, i need to rant abit about the food! Personally, i think that part of traveling and fully experiencing another country/culture is getting to sample its food. Now, we pay African Impact to provide our accomodation and food so they've furnished us with a local chef. But so far we've only been served western food: pasta, mashed potatoes, salads, etc ?! Yesterday was the first time i got to eat proper Zanzibarian food and that was at a local restaurant.I'm told there isn't much they can do about the menu: basically you eat what you are given...which i don't mind...but, the thought of eating mostly western food for the next 3.5 weeks is not appealing, I must say!

On volunteer work itself: this week has been abit slow on that front as the schools that we are supposed to teach at are on a week's holiday, which apparently was an impromptu decision made at the end of last week. We usually teach in the mornings and spend the afternoons doing other community work. Anyway, it turns out that all the schools and amenities are quite far away from the volunteer house so we have to cycle to these places each day. Now, guess who doesn't know how to ride a bike? :) One of the volunteers taught me how to ride one on the beach on Tuesday; must say i picked it up quicker than i thought i would and though i've fallen a few times since, nothing tragic has happened yet. I actually enjoy it and it was high time i learnt how to ride anyway!

In terms of community work, we've been spending this week painting the local high school which has been in need of a face lift. We are also putting up some fences and planting some trees; the fences are meant to prevent the local goats from eating the trees that we plant. The fences are built from sticks that are cut from local trees and the ropes are made from coconut husks. Jambiani people are pretty resourceful and have a great way of making use of every part of the coconut. It turns out that alot of their cuisine is coconut milk based and they use the husks for ropes, making roofs for their houses, etc.

Must confess that there has been a fair amount of bumming around on the beach, reading and playing games (we had an ultimate frisbee match on the beach yesterday which was tons of fun) this week. The excuse of course is that we are trying to make the most of our week off from school as next week will be fairly hectic

The biggest challenge expected with teaching next week will be my ability to communicate effectively in Swahili and English....i've been taking Swahili lessons all week and the locals are very friendly so they talk to us all and laugh at our pidgin Swahili...we're getting there but it will take time obviously. The language does not seem overly complex but like anything else, only practice will make me better

The only tragedy so far has been losing my ipod on a bike ride. I was listening to it and honestly did not notice the music stop cause i was so focussed on the bumby road (and the roads in Jambiani are very bumpy!) and trying to avoid a fall. I guess it is quite funny in hindsight but i was not a happy bunny when it happened! :)