The journey to Mozambique

My last week in Nairobi was fairly unpleasant, putting it mildly. Amongst other things, I was battling with the flu for what seemed like the umpteenth time. By the middle of the week, I was in a fragile state and had to spend a day in bed to at least get some rest. The medication [really OVER medication] ensued but it seemed to work in a nonchalant fashion as by the weekend I was still blowing and coughing out multi-coloured “things”. Needless to say, I was ready to go!

I was up at the unfriendly hour of 3am on Monday to get ready and head to the airport. I had spent the weekend with my lovely friend, Miss T, who lives in Nairobi (and had done so for the last few weekends) so I said goodbye to her with mixed feelings (sad to leave her but jubilant to leave and hopefully be able to regain my health as this town proved rather unkind to me in that regard). I was at the airport by 5am and went through the motions of checking in, still half asleep. Of course, I was slapped right awake when they told me the charge I’d incurred for excess luggage (I didn’t go easy on the curio and gift shopping in Kenya, I confess). I negotiated and got the price down somewhat but it was still a staggering amount to pay, I felt. We were airborne by 8am and I took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep though the flight to Johannesburg was only 4 hours long and we arrived a little ahead of schedule.

The Tambo airport in Jo’Burg is rather impressive if only for its sheer vastness; it’s generously endowed with all the mod cons. The immigration procedure was very straightforward and within minutes I was done, luggage retrieved and fervently hugging my dearest friend, Miss M, with whom I was going to be spending the next 24 hours before catching my flight to Mozambique. She’d taken a day off work to spend time with me as we’d not seen each other for about 3 years and not only was a full catch up session long overdue, we were supposed to plan our road trip to Namibia and Botswana. She first drove me to her lovely home in the suburbs of Sandton. The parts of Jo’burg I saw on the way were beautiful and well developed. SA is definitely on top of its game, I was tempted to think; though I’ll save my in-depth analysis for when I see the rest of the country later this year. Miss M then announced that she’d booked me into a spa for half a day of beautification followed by an evening of comedy. I was totally unprepared for this kind and thoughtful gesture; I’d envisaged a long lunch followed by sleep. I accepted her offer with a grateful smile knowing that this was exactly what I needed after that last week in Nairobi.

After dropping off my luggage, we went for a lovely lunch accompanied by a glass of wine each and planned our trip. The spa session was splendid! I got a full body massage, a pedicure and a facial; I felt brand new. The beautician admonished me for not taking good care of my skin: “overexposure to the sun and lack of exfoliation”, she said. I was too relaxed and sleepy to explain my activities of the last 11 weeks so I just took her “advice and recommendations” quietly. It was dusk by the time we were done, so we headed to town for the comedy show. The show featured international comedians and there were 7 of them in total. I don’t remember the last time I laughed as hard as the first couple of comedians made me laugh; their names I shan’t forget: Dean Edwards -NY based comedian and Trevor Noah - a South African comedian. The rest were funny too, just not as much as those two. It was a great evening and I went to bed that night giggling and reminiscing about some of the jokes with Miss M.

I was actually very sad to be dropped off at the airport the next morning. She had made my first taste of SA sweet and I wanted to stay. Nevertheless, I checked in, said another sad goodbye and went off to kill the hour I had before the plane took off. This time there was no big deal with excess luggage; I had the presence of mind to leave some of my luggage with Miss M and travel with just the one bag for the rest of the trip, till we link up for the Namibia-Botswana leg
The airline that took us to Mozambique was a small one and there were no more than 40 people on the plane in the end (we did a stopover in Kruger, another part of South Africa, to pick up some more passengers). After 2 hours or so of flying, we arrived in the beach town of Vilanculos. The Indian ocean was in full view, even from the airport; and the weather was an excellent 24 degrees Celsius.

The volunteer program coordinators were there to pick me up, as promised. A short drive later, we were at the volunteer camp, which consists of a cluster of huts and a swimming pool (yay!) and is located a stone’s throw from the ocean (yay!). There are about 12 volunteers in total at the camp now, all European. Each hut houses 4 volunteers, each with a single bed and a set of bamboo shelves; there is also an en-suite bathroom with a shower and toilet.

I arrived just after lunch so introduced myself, hurriedly dropped off my luggage and was off to work. I later found out that there is hot water (yay!) if only in the evenings, 3 meals a day cooked by a local chef; a combination of western and local food (yay!) – okay I will stop yaying now! Unfortunately, electricity does not get as far as our camp so power is available on the camp for only 4 hours a day via a generator. Can’t really complain about that; work seems to take up the whole day and the vicinity is so beautiful so any free time should be spent enjoying the outdoors. By the end of the first day, I knew I would definitely be enjoying my time here

PS. The internet situation in Vilanculos is a tad tricky so I envisage getting in touch once a week or so. Also, things did not exactly go according to plan with the Kenya and Uganda photo and video upload, as referenced earlier. I will try to get them up as soon as is feasible and let you guys know

The impromptu Uganda trip

My host home in Nairobi is quite popular amongst Fadhili volunteers who are placed on projects outside Nairobi. My hostess’ splendid hospitality has earned her a good reputation so when people need to come out to the city for shopping and such and need a place to stay, its her name that usually comes up. Near enough every weekend, and sometimes weekdays, we have someone staying over that isn’t an “original” housemate. A few weeks ago we had a young lady come through who had just returned from a trip to Uganda where she bungee jumped and went white water rafting on the Nile and made it sound excellent. It didn’t take much convincing for all 10 of us staying at the house to sign up for it.

On the evening of last Thursday, we eagerly hopped on a bus from central Nairobi, for what turned out to be an eleven-hour bus ride. The roads between Nairobi and Jinja (the town we were going to in Uganda) were not exactly smooth so we were in for a bumpy ride. The bus was reasonably comfortable (picture a standard coach bus) and we even had more leg room than one would on most economy flights. I was still battling with the flu and hoping to get some rest on the bus ride so it was fairly irritating when a bunch of Kenyans, who we had the misfortune of sitting next to, decided that they would talk and laugh loudly for nearly five hours of the journey. They spoke in a mixture of Kiswahili and English and from what I could gather it was lets-scoff-at–the-West-Africans day. Of course that did not sit well with me so it wasn’t too long before I told them to be quiet (took a lot of composure to do it politely). They took their time but did shut up eventually. We got to Jinja at the crack of dawn and thankfully, there was someone there to take us to the campsite we were going to be staying at. The site was on a cliff overlooking the river. Further upstream, there was an even bigger cliff over which the bungee jumping was to take place.

Uganda is a beautiful country and though the car ride from the bus stop to the campsite was fairly short and it was quite foggy, the lush green foliage, beautifully red earth and the strings of hills in the horizon did not escape me. The air was so fresh and the view from the bar at the campsite was just spectacular: the Nile river at the bottom which just seemed to go on forever, foggy hills meeting the skyline and the cliff on the other side of the river was scattered with beautiful homes that I admired albeit enviously.

Some of my group opted to bungee jump; now for those of you that know me well, you will know that I would NOT in a million years contemplate a bungee jump. I mean why would I consciously jump of a cliff? Don’t care if I’m being harnessed properly, just the thought of jumping off is alien to me. So I was designated the role of camerawoman. I caught them all on camera jumping, one after the other and it started to look like fun. Then my left eye started to feel itchy and funny and an hour later I could barely keep it open. It was swollen and red and streaming with tears; think someone mentioned conjunctivitis (my hostess’s adorable 10.5month son had an eye infection the week before and I do play with him a fair deal so it was not that outrageous to have caught one). I contacted my emergency medical service, a.k.a. my sister, the pharmacist and she recommended something that would put me out of my misery. Someone volunteered to go drug hunting for me and ended up being away for much of the day. I had to keep my eyes shut the whole time cause it was just too painful to keep them open. Finally, at about 4pm she turned up. I applied the drug and it started to feel relief almost instantaneously. I was feeling down though because everyone was in such good spirits and there I’d been, lumped up on the couch pretty much all day. So, at dusk that day I made the bold decision to bungee jump with the sunset in the background in tandem with one of the girls in my group. I was fine walking up to the top of the cliff but I started to panic a bit once I was tied up and had to shuffle right to the edge to be pushed off. I held on tightly to my mate and next thing I knew I was flying down, eyes shut, screaming like a 6 yr old and wondering what the hell I was doing. Must admit that after the initial downward surge, it started to feel good; we bounced around a few times and next thing I knew, we were in a boat, on our way back to dry land. It was short, exciting and downright crazy! I enjoyed it but not sure its an experience I would want to repeat, but who knows? With my eye feeling much better now, I made it an early night as we had a reasonably action-packed day of white water rafting ahead. They showed us a video of the group that had gone out on the Nile that day and it looked like a ton of fun. We spent the night in bunk beds; 4-tiered bunk beds, 15 of us to a room. It was quite the experience; after some chatting and chuckling, we finally fell asleep

We were on the river the next day by about 10am clad in life jackets and clothes that we hoped we wouldn’t lose in the rapids. The rafts were of the blown up plastic kind. Each raft had a guide (an experienced rafter who would save us if anything bad happened and would teach us a thing or two about how to navigate the river) and we were each equipped with a paddle. There were also a few kayakers in the mix, who would also assist with rescue if it came to it. After a brief paddling lesson and instructions on what to do in the strong rapids, we were on our way; in my case with one and a half eyes! The fun began almost immediately; we went through a grade 3 rapid (the rapids that we encountered were graded 1 – 5, with grade 5 rapids being very rough and in some cases with fairly steep waterfalls) after which we attempted a boat flip! Our guide (a fun Ugandan guy) basically tipped the boat over and we were all in the water. We went through 11 rapids that first day, with a lovely lunch break on an island in the middle of the river some time after rapid number 5. Our guide was quite the joker: straight-faced, he pointed out buffalos (actually cows) grazing in nearby plains, referred to croaking frogs as mini hippos and told us that he’d lived on a tiny island right in the middle of the river which had nothing but grass and gigantic tree on it, for 10 years. Apparently he slept right under the tree! (yeah right! but he said it with such a serious look that we almost believed him) Between rapids we enjoyed the calmness of the river, the gorgeous scenery and went swimming. And I kid you not, we were not half way through the day before my eyes were pretty much fully recovered. I reckon swimming in the Nile healed me, biblical style. Who said miracles were not possible?

We were done rafting for the day by 5pm. We camped at a site close to the point of the river where we’d stopped. It was actually a lot of hard work rowing all day and battling with the rapids. There’d been a few bruises and scrapes through the day and one of the girls from one of the other rafts (who is my housemate actually) got a broken nose when someone (another housemate of mine) fell on her whilst they were going through a rapid. We had a splendid dinner that day: grilled beef, chapatti, rice, breadfruit casserole and pasta. Drinks were also aplenty that night. The campsite (I never really found out the location of it) had no electricity so after dinner we retired to a nice cozy fire out in the open and admired the beautifully starlit night. It was fantastic!

The second day of rafting was more chilled. There was a lot more swimming and admiring the scenery than dealing with rapids. There was one grade 5 rapid in which we raft surfed; it was basically a huge wave against which our raft was precariously held with a huge risk of being tipped over any minute; you did not want to get caught in that wave and one girl from my raft fell into it and was sucked in for a while and came out looking petrified; it was crazy and scary but too much fun! Some of the guys also did some individual river rafting after we were done with that. That was fun to watch but me alone with water that rough and a surfboard just did not sound like a good idea. We had lunch on some nearby rocks after that bit of excitement; I sadly fell, pretty hard on some slippery rocks, which of course added to my repertoire of bruises and scrapes.
After 2 days of fun, bruises and such we were ready to head back to the main campsite. We had drinks, dinner, hot showers and called it a day; well I called it a day, the others opted to have a drinking session which ended on a morbid note for one of the lads cause he was so sick. I was never really into that sort of fun, plus it seemed my flu had started to gain momentum again after spending so much time in the water. The second day ended up being a lot colder than the first. I wasn’t complaining though; figured some medication and sleep would set me straight hence the early retirement

We woke up bright and early the next day, flu still nice and strong, to catch the bus back to Nairobi. The 11-hour bus ride felt twice as bumpy as the ride into Jinja; think it was the same route though. We got into the bus station at about 7pm and caught another bus to take us home.

I enjoyed the Uganda trip very much notwithstanding my poor state of health. I hope to go back there some day for a more lengthy stay and maybe even to try my hands at kayaking down the Nile.

Safaris: are they really like “The Lion King”?

Long before I arrived in Kenya, I knew I wanted to partake in the quintessential safari experience. I would have even tried it whilst in Zanzibar but the prices that were being quoted out there were far too outrageous. So of course, I was going to hop and skip at a reasonably priced option once I got here. Now, we were having a discussion at the house the other day, since some of the housemates that were here before me had already been on safari trips (I really ought to stop calling it that as “safari” is Kiswahili for “long journey” so adding the word “trip” is rather redundant). According to some of them, going on safari was like being in “The Lion King”; now that’s a comparison I hadn’t heard before. For you Disney lovers out there, you have to agree with me when I say that Lion King has to be an all time favourite. So that comparison just cemented the fact that I had to experience this adventure firsthand and decide whether or not it was a fair one. So, brimming with excitement and bright-eyed with expectation, I embarked on this adventure last weekend. I will now attempt to relay my experience to you and let you decide if it really is like “The Lion King”.
Day 1 – Friday 10th July
I left the house bright and early to head to the Fadhili office where I was to meet other enthusiastic safari chums and get on a bus to head towards Maasai Mara (essentially the safari district). By way of background, Fadhili has a safari service, which is what I signed up for. Each weekend, volunteers are driven out to the Kenyan countryside to see animals of all kinds in their natural habitat (those who sign up for it obviously). I signed up for the 4-day safari, which included a day trip to the infamous Lake Nakuru and a 3-day stay at the Maasai Mara National Reserve.
Soon after I arrived, two American ladies (also volunteers) turned up and announced that they were going on the same trip as me. We soon found out that the group going out on safari that day was going to be just the three of us; I was abit apprehensive about this as well as it turned out that they were sisters in law who were volunteering out in a remote village in Maasai-land (though we did end up getting along fairly well). The next are of concern fact was that Fadhili had outsourced our trip to another safari company as it was only 3 of us and since there is a big group going out next week, they’d decided to give the safari team a weekend off. Now, as we understood it, half the fun of the safari experience was having a fun, charismatic guide and the Fadhili guy is that and more. We had no idea who this new guide was, so we just prayed that things would work out. In any case, it was just the three of us so we planned on just telling him what we wanted to see if we thought he wasn’t delivering the goods. It turned out that not only was he uncharismatic but he also appeared stoned and soon enough started to make inappropriate comments. It was still three against one so we were not that perturbed. We commenced our drive to the countryside; the plan was to go to Lake Nakuru first, spend the night at a hotel there and head out to Maasai Mara the next day. The drive was uneventful save a stop to stretch our legs at a spot that had a splendid view of the Rift Valley. It’s possibly the largest valley view I’ve ever seen and the road we were driving on was close to the cliff below which the valley lay. We got to Lake Nakuru around late afternoon and soon made our way to the animal reserve. It wasn’t long after we drove into the park, with the roof of our van partly open that started spotting baboons (which have the most grotesque looking rears, a stark contrast to their cute faces), warthogs (with me screaming “pumbaa” in the background which of course scared them away), zebras, impalas and gazelles (both of the antelope family), giraffes, water buffalos, some lionesses with their cubs (who were so very cute; we were no more than 5 metres away from them) and white rhinos. We made our way to the lake itself where we saw far more flamingos across the water than I have ever seen in my life. It was truly picturesque; there were also some very huge pelicans amongst them (I hadn’t actually seen pelicans before) and a few other birds whose names escape me now. Dusk soon came upon us and we retired to our hotel where I had a room to myself (for the first time in 6 weeks; abit eerie actually). There was a hot shower as well, woohoo! Dinner was not particularly exciting but I hit the sheets with a smile on my face cause all in all it was a good day
Day 2 – Saturday 11th July
We had a reasonable lie-in and didn’t leave the hotel till about 9.30am. The drive to Maasai Mara was fairly long although Kenya’s countryside is beautiful so at least we had good scenery to go with it. We drove through fields and fields of acacia trees, saw several hills; villages and settlements cropped up sporadically; we drove through some small towns which were usually a cluster of shops and houses. The roads were a mixture of tarred ones and dirt (very dusty) ones. We did a stopover for lunch in a town called Narok, which was halfway to Maasai Mara from Nakuru. We arrived at our campsite in Maasai Mara around late afternoon. The tents were semi permanent, had comfortable beds and even hot showers (again! yay!); it was all very exciting. We threw our bags down and headed for the National Reserve (which was very nearby). That afternoon we saw ostriches, more water buffalos, more impalas and gazelles, hartebeests (also of the antelope family but a lot bigger than the rest), wildebeests (strange-looking things; they have faces like cows, horns like deer, manes like horses and bodies shaped like those of donkeys; they are quite unattractive. Once a year, around late June/early July they migrate from Tanzania into Kenya, where the grass is apparently greener and head back to Tanzania around September/October; we saw flocks of them throughout our time at the Mara and even though the migration is complete they still move in large groups), birds of all sorts, elephants, more zebras, more giraffes, more lionesses resting and a leopard (which our guide pronounced “layoopard”; we were quite excited about this as one hardly sees them in the Mara. Tired and in much need of grub and some rest, we headed back to campsite. We caught a great view of the sunset juxtaposed against some hills. Dinner was excellent: rice, chapatti (hurray! You guys must be sick of my chapatti rave by now), nyama choma (Kiswahili for roast meat; goat meat in this instance), vegetables and lots of tea. We retired to bed (after nice, long, hot showers) around 8.30pm but it was so worth it as we were quite tired and had a rather early start the next morning
Day 3 – 12th July
The day started with breakfast at 6.30am: sausage, toast, pancakes, eggs and lots of tea. We were hoping to see a hunt of sorts today, as we’d pretty much seen most, if not all the animals that inhabit the Mara. After driving around for about an hour, we saw a bunch of lionesses, think there were six of them in total, feasting on what used to be a wildebeest. Right next them, a lion lay majestically (he was quite a sight to behold; flawless coat and a huge, glorious mane; I was thinking this simba (Kiswahili for lion) does look the part of “king of the jungle”. Once the lionesses were done eating, he ate the leftovers (only fair as the lionesses usually do the hunting and with wildebeest aplenty after the migration, its now feasting season for them). When he was done, the vultures took over the remnants of the feast, fighting amongst themselves for the leftovers; feisty, greedy things they are! The stench of the dead beast and stale blood became strong and we headed to another part of the Mara. We soon saw some cheetahs resting in the fields, good-looking animals they are; closer to cats than lions; if only they were not so menacing! Of course with a van of women, we had to stop right in the middle of the wild for a loo break, very alert and on the lookout for lions and such; needless to say it was a hurried affair for each of us . We had lunch at a safe spot and some frisky monkeys nearby offered some amusement. Another source of amusement for me, and it had started to build up since the start of the journey, were the sisters in law who were now very comfortable around me and were taking to bickering and taking shots at each other in the way that only people with familial ties can. It did get a little nasty at times but I did well to stay out of it. They were two grown women after all. Anyway, once we were done with lunch, we were off to see the Mara river, which serves as home to some hippos (boy do they smell bad) and crocodiles (very big ones I might add). We then went over to see the border between Tanzania and Kenya; on the Tanzania side was the Serengeti and of course we were in the Mara on the Kenya side. Near the border we saw a black rhino (if only its rear; they usually live in the forest as they feed on shrubs and roots of trees). We saw more of some of the animals that we’d seen over the last few days during our drive to exit the Mara. On the way out, our guide announced that we had the option to go see a Maasai village where a donation would be required of us (we understood this to mean that we could give any amount out of the goodness of our hearts but soon found out that there was actually a “fixed” fee for seeing the village – we paid far more than any other volunteers, certainly the ones I live with, had paid before). Seeing the village was quite the experience for me: the Maasai people are very simple and live in houses (well huts really) made of mud and sticks. The men are usually cattle herdsmen (we soon found out that in families, the father decides, rather randomly, who gets to go to school and who gets to herd cattle when the boys are still young). The village grounds was covered in cow dung, which meant that there were flies everywhere, more flies than I’ve ever seen in one place. They are so used to the flies that the children’s faces and bodies are covered with them and at any one point there are at least thirty flies hovering around one person. The children traipse around in dishabille while the mothers cook, etc. Apparently the Maasai choose to live this way as it’s the way their forefathers lived many years before them and its one of the few cultures that has remained unchanged for centuries. We were welcomed into the village with song and dance, which was nice; shown around and soon ushered to the curio stand where we made some purchases. After that, there was quite an embarrassing exchange, which highlighted that the “donation” was actually fee; we made the payment and were on our way. Frankly the experience was quite disturbing for me; I couldn’t get over the kids with flies! I mean all they have to do is clear up the cow dung on the ground, burn a few leaves from the forest, which act as insect repellent and that would take care of it; why would they choose not to?? With that rather morbid end to our day and a cold and flu creeping up on me (I wasn’t sure if my new friends, who admitted that they were recovering from an infection, or excessive inhalation of dust was to blame for this), I hit the sheets soon. I didn’t sleep well cause the flu got pretty bad that night

Day 4 – 13th July
Yet another early start today: 6.30am with no breakfast, we headed straight to the reserve. I did well to take more medication before heading out as what was a sore throat last night was now turning into a cough that came with a nice headache. Anyway, not long after we drove through the gates of the reserve, we spotted a lion and lioness that seemed hungry. We (and a host of other people) hovered in our vans waiting for them to attack a bunch of wildebeest, which they appeared to have been eyeing for a while. After about a 20-minute wait, they charged at the wildebeest (it was really exciting to watch) though they did not get there in time to attack any of them. It was worth it though. Now after seeing some of the animals umpteen times, we were over it! So we drove back to the campsite, had some breakfast and got in the van to drive home. I was pleased at what I’d seen during the 4 days; the illness kind of put a dent on things towards the end but at least I got to sleep most of the way back home. By mid afternoon we were back in Nairobi. I had enough energy to run a few errands but soon found my bed and called it a day

All in all, safari was fun for me! I will leave you to decide if it was deserving of the comparison my housemates made to “The Lion King”

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. :)

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