Just a quick message- I am leaving in a few hours to head back to the states. I will be flying from Zanzibar,to Dar, to Nairobi, to London, and finally to Dulles Airport, Washington DC!!! I will be arriving sometime on Wednesday. Its going to be a very long trip back with long layovers and flights, but at least I will have friends with me to keep me entertained :) I am honestly not really looking forward to going back to the US at this point and the transition and culture shock. Zanzibar has really become my home. I am starting to get good at swahili, have made lots of friends with the locals here and have really gotten used to life here. None the less, I am VERY excited to see all of my friends and family, and my dog. I am also excited to eat cheese and bacon (which can not be found on this island), and to take a hot shower (i think i have taken 3 hot showers here-haha). I will post once more when i get back to fill you in on how i spent my last few days in Zanzibar :)
Hope to see some of you soon!
love,
Emily
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Pictures from paradise!
On top of the world....or maybe just the light house :)
Babs and I on the swinging bed
Coconut Crab!
The Jetty
"Study" and Nap beach
Sunset Hut
The boat ride on the way to ChumbeLivin in paradise...... Chumbe Island
So it's been awhile since I have posted. Right now I am at the end of my Independent study project which has been going on for the past 28 days. I spent three weeks on Chumbe Island, and let me tell you, it was amazing. Chumbe is a tiny tiny island approximately 8 miles off the coast from Stone town. When I say tiny I mean that its only 1.1km long and 300 m wide (One day I even swam around the entire island!). There is a light house on the island and when you climb to the top you can easily see the entire island, as well as the coast of Dar Es Salaam in the distance and of course Zanzibar. The only thing that’s on the island is an eco-lodge that takes 15 guests at a time. The entire lodge is totally sustainable so everything is solar powered, they have gray water filtration, composting toilets, and they collect rainwater because there is no freshwater on the island Chumbe also has a really cool education program where they bring local students to the island for the day to learn about coral reefs and conservation. So during the day there would maybe be about 50 people on the island, but some of the days I was there, there were only 15 other people. It was great though! My house was right on the beach and I would leave the back doors open at night so I would fall asleep and wake up to the sound of the waves. One of the coolest things that you can do while on Chumbe is watch the sun rise over the ocean on the east side and then watch the sunset over the ocean on the west side in the evening. I was there with one other girl doing research on the reef, and let me tell you, our days there were extremely busy and we had to stick to a tight schedule. After waking up and having breakfast sitting on the jetty, we would have to decide whether we wanted to go snorkeling or whether we wanted to just sit on the beach and study. We had to make very difficult decisions, like where is the best place to take a nap? On the beach? On the lounge chairs on the beach? on the swinging bed by the beach (there was this bed that was under a little hut on the beach that was suspended by ropes so it could swing!)? Also should we take a nap before, or after lunch, or both? J After lunch we would usually go snorkeling again and then hang out on the beach until 5:30 where we would then go to our “sunset hut” to watch the sunset. After dinner we would play board games and card games with the rangers that live on the island, it was fun to teach them new games and a great way to practice our Swahili! The other student that I was with was doing a project on diurnal and nocturnal fish families. So after dinner we would go night snorkeling! At first I was a little scared to go snorkeling at night even though we had an underwater flashlight, but after a few times I got used to it and got to see some really awesome things! Although we didn’t see many fish at night, there were other animals that came out at night that I had never seen during the day. I saw huge colorful lobsters (probably 3 feet long), really big hermit crabs, eels, a crocodile fish and more. Also during the night you can see all of the bioluminescence in the water that the plankton make. When the moon wasn’t out, every time you moved there would be this huge burst of little neon-green specks all around you!
Oh and I did work on a project while on chumbe as well, well at least for part of the time J I took a survey of the sponges that are on the reef, collected some sponges , and am now in the process of compiling a booklet about sponges for chumbe as well as doing some taxonomic lab work. I also have a 30 page paper due on Friday which is what I am working on right now at the university of marine science here (and is what I should be working on now instead of updating my blog, haha).
One more thing: yesterday I was standing in the street on my way to the University talking to a friend that had passed by me and all of the sudden I heard this huge crash ahead of me. I looked past my friend to see the biggest cloud of dust ever and a three story building completely collapse! The building was nestled in between 2 other buildings and it brought part of another building down as well! It was crazy! All of the cars driving by where covered in a thick layer of dust and the building was crumbling into the road! I was standing there flabbergasted because a building just collapsed! But all of the locals where just standing there laughing! (Apparently the building was abandoned though so no one got hurt which was good). There’s certainly a new adventure here everyday!
Well I must get back to paper writing. After my ISP is due I have a Swahili final exam and then about a week to hang out in stone town and other parts of Zanzibar with the other students, which means I will be on the beach working on my tan during that time, haha. My plane leaves on the 12th and I will arrive in Washington DC on the 13th during the day. I will try to update once more before I leave Z-bar.
Hope everyone is doing well!
Emily
(I will post a few pictures from Chumbe later)
Oh and I did work on a project while on chumbe as well, well at least for part of the time J I took a survey of the sponges that are on the reef, collected some sponges , and am now in the process of compiling a booklet about sponges for chumbe as well as doing some taxonomic lab work. I also have a 30 page paper due on Friday which is what I am working on right now at the university of marine science here (and is what I should be working on now instead of updating my blog, haha).
One more thing: yesterday I was standing in the street on my way to the University talking to a friend that had passed by me and all of the sudden I heard this huge crash ahead of me. I looked past my friend to see the biggest cloud of dust ever and a three story building completely collapse! The building was nestled in between 2 other buildings and it brought part of another building down as well! It was crazy! All of the cars driving by where covered in a thick layer of dust and the building was crumbling into the road! I was standing there flabbergasted because a building just collapsed! But all of the locals where just standing there laughing! (Apparently the building was abandoned though so no one got hurt which was good). There’s certainly a new adventure here everyday!
Well I must get back to paper writing. After my ISP is due I have a Swahili final exam and then about a week to hang out in stone town and other parts of Zanzibar with the other students, which means I will be on the beach working on my tan during that time, haha. My plane leaves on the 12th and I will arrive in Washington DC on the 13th during the day. I will try to update once more before I leave Z-bar.
Hope everyone is doing well!
Emily
(I will post a few pictures from Chumbe later)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
City of peace and SAFARI
I went to Dar es Salaam (translated for House of Peace) for 10 days. Dar is a city of close to 5 million people, which is a ton of people, considering that Zanzibar only has 1 million people. It is the largest city in Tanzania, and 2nd largest city in Eastern Africa (following Nairobi, Kenya). Although it is a big city, full of horrendous traffic, the worst air pollution I have ever seen (it was actually difficult to breath some of the time), and even a few skyscrapers (I had forgotten what a building with more then 3 stories looked like!) the people there still live with a village mentality, and the infrastructure surrounding the city is clear evidence of this. Downtown Dar is extremely small for the population of the city, and surrounding downtown are mass amount of small concrete/mud/coral one story homes with tin roofs. Being in Dar reminded me that I am living in a place that is struggling with development. While traveling on the bus to one of our snorkeling field trips one day it really hit me hard that I am living in a third world country. I was literally holding back the tears as we passed through countless number of streets that were full of these tiny little houses, and watching little kids play in the streets wearing tattered clothes that were too big for them. A large percentage of the people in Tanzania make $1 a day, and in many cases that dollar has to support an entire family. It really made me think about my life style, and I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of guilt as I was thinking about how back in the America I would easily spend $5 at starbucks, while people here have to feed a family on maybe a $1 a day. It made me realize that after seeing how people live like this then there is absolutely no way that I can sit back and not do anything about it. There is no way I can be apathetic to this situation, that is not only happening in Tanzania but I am sure in many places in the world. There is no way that I can go back to America in May and continue to live the way that I was living before. The question that I now face is how do you actually do something about this? Is it wrong for me to go back to America and spend the five dollars on starbucks? How do you even begin to approach helping out a struggling city of 5 million people, let alone an entire nation? These are questions that I have been wrestling with and haven't really come to any conclusions yet except that I know the only way to begin helping these people and changing my life style is through a little at a time.
On a lighter note, after our trip to Dar we traveled four hours south-west to Mikumi National Park for SAFARI! Upon driving into the park to our accommodation we passed by all sorts of big game like baboons, elephants, buffalo, impala, zebra, and giraffe!!! Yeah and we weren't even on the safari yet. Over the course of three days, we went on four safaris, driving in these awesome land rovers for a couple hours each time. My favorite part was that the land rovers basically had an entire sun-roof on the entire ceiling, so you could stand on the seat with your head sticking out of the car the entire time. Mikumi is an absolutely amazing and gorgeous place. The lodges that we stayed in overlooked the African Savanna with a mountain range in the background. Every morning I would wake up, look in the "front yard" and see herds of zebra and impala, with elephants and giraffe in the far off distance. I can't even tell you how amazing the sunsets were there as well. It was literally like a 360 degree sunset, everywhere you looked the clouds were a beautiful pink and orange and just looked so beautiful against the mountains. I also can't even tell you how amazing it was to see all of these wild animals that I have dreamed about seeing since I was little (thanks to the Lion King, haha). If a picture is worth a thousand words, I guess I'll leave you with tens of thousands of words then :)
On a lighter note, after our trip to Dar we traveled four hours south-west to Mikumi National Park for SAFARI! Upon driving into the park to our accommodation we passed by all sorts of big game like baboons, elephants, buffalo, impala, zebra, and giraffe!!! Yeah and we weren't even on the safari yet. Over the course of three days, we went on four safaris, driving in these awesome land rovers for a couple hours each time. My favorite part was that the land rovers basically had an entire sun-roof on the entire ceiling, so you could stand on the seat with your head sticking out of the car the entire time. Mikumi is an absolutely amazing and gorgeous place. The lodges that we stayed in overlooked the African Savanna with a mountain range in the background. Every morning I would wake up, look in the "front yard" and see herds of zebra and impala, with elephants and giraffe in the far off distance. I can't even tell you how amazing the sunsets were there as well. It was literally like a 360 degree sunset, everywhere you looked the clouds were a beautiful pink and orange and just looked so beautiful against the mountains. I also can't even tell you how amazing it was to see all of these wild animals that I have dreamed about seeing since I was little (thanks to the Lion King, haha). If a picture is worth a thousand words, I guess I'll leave you with tens of thousands of words then :)
Tomorrow I leave for Chumbe Island (a tiny island 8 miles off the Coast of Stonetown) where I will be for about 3 weeks working on my Independent Study Project. I am going to be taking a survey of the sponges on the reef there, so basically I am just going to be snorkeling everyday and hanging out on the beach the rest of the time. It's going to be a hard life :) I won't have internet while I am there, so I won't be able to post again until I get back. However I may be able to come back to Stonetown once a week to check my e-mail, so feel free to send me a message! All the best!
Emily
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Pictures!
Plane ride from Zanzibar to Pemba Island, Homestay brothers and sister from Pemba Island (i had a hard time getting them all to look at the camera at once, so this is the best picture i got :)), and boat from Prison Island. Picture of a red colobus monkey from Jozani Forest, the sun setting from one of my favorite places to hang out called Africa House, and me holding one of the sea stars from Prison Island!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Pemba Island and Queen of the Jungle!
So it has been awhile since I have last posted and there are so many trips that I have gone on to tell you about! I went to Pemba island for ten days and it was quite an adventure(Zanzibar is made up of two main islands, pemba and unguja).We took a tiny little 15-passenger plane from Stonetown to Pemba and it was only a 30 minute flight, but all of the views were absolutely amazing! I quickly learned that Pemba is very very different from Unguja even though they are very close together.Pemba has rolling hills and many forests, while Unguja is very very flat.Pemba is also dramatically less developed then Unguja. It only has 3 hotels and tourists don't really visit. In Unguja tourism is the largets industry and its where all the money comes from.Pemba's electricity is also preety bad, as the whole island gets its power from just one generator, so needless to say the power goes off everyday there for hours at a time. In most places there is also a lack of running water (the family that I was staying with didn't have running water). Despite some of the conditions, Pemba is beautiful and I actually liked it better than Unguja because of the rolling hills.The people were extremely nice and completely chill.I stayed with a rather larger family there.My host mom has 8 kids ranging from the ages of 5 to 20, and 4 of the kids lived in the house I was at.I never meet my host dad because he has 2 other wives so he was at their house at that time (it is legal to have 3 wives in Zanzibar!!!!!!).I spent most of my time playing with the kids and we had fun coloring together.Before I left my host mom was joking around with me and told me that the 5 year old, Abubakar, was a gift to me and that I could take him back with me to America (and I totally would take him with me because he is so cute!).While in Pemba we took lots of field trips and visited a rubber plantation, an essential oil distillery, and a salt production farm.We traveled around in a bus that had asian writing all over it which was rather funny and we took that bus on roads that I didn't know cars could drive on! At some points the entire bus was at a 45 degree angle.Most of time we also would have at least 10 kids chasing our bus at screaming Mzungo! (which means white person).The day before we left we took a boat ride out to Misali island which was amazing.It is a protected area, so only rangers live on the island and there is no development.I could just walk out like 10 feet from the beach and there was amazing snorkeling and coral reefs.I saw awesome parrot fish and on the boat ride we even saw dolphins that were right next to the boat!!!!After returning to stonetown we had a day off, so we took a boat ride out to Prison island to do some snorkeling.It was so much fun! We went snorkeling for a few hours and the coral reefs just never cease to amaze me and I always see some awesome fish that I have never seen before.We took a picnic lunch with us and ate on the boat and then went to the shore and just explored the beach because it was low tide.That was my favorite part because I saw so many little sea creatures that I had never seen before.I saw lots of crabs, snails, sea cucumbers, sea anemones, and the most amazing star fish EVER!There was one part in the water where there were at least 50 star fish in one spot.They were about the size of my hand and were all different colors like bright orange, blue, red, and green.After exploring the beach we went back to the boat and spent like an hour just jumping and diving off of the boat.It was a very fun day off and I got a nice tan I just got back from JozaniForestand was there for 4 days, cam back to stonetown, and then went back to Jozani for a night to camp because I liked it so much.It is a national park and it is special because it has red colobus monkeys.Every time I walked out of our house I would always see at least 3 monkeys and usually at breakfast we sat outside and watched monkeys playing with each other on top of the trees. The monkeys there are very used to humans even though they are wild because so many tourists visit.The other day I was hiking through the forest and they were 5 monkeys literally 2 feet away from me sitting by the path!They also have a nice nature trail that goes through a mangrove forest. One of the reasons that I went back to the forest was to work on a research project about a sea turtle conservation project that they have there.Right now it is "Portfolio" time so we have had 5 days to work on a mini research project.We have been on our own for everything so we had to find our own housing and meals.We were given 16,000 shillings a day (basically like 13 dollars) to pay for everything so its been quite an adventure trying to find cheap housing and pay for meals with that, however so far I have been successful. I am staying in an apartment in stonetown right now with 7 other people (it’s a 2 bedroom apartment) so it’s a little tight but very cheap.We are having a lot of fun though cooking our own meals and we have camping mats so sleeping on the ground isn't that bad.Tonight we are making grilled cheese which I am very excited about!The locals basically never eat cheese and cheese is very hard to find, but we found this tiny American supermarket that sells cheese! Quite exciting, haha.Tomorrow I will be working on writing up my research paper on the sea turtle sanctuary, will be presenting on Thursday, and then have a mid-term on Friday.This is definitely the most work I have done while be here, but its not too bad at all compared to the work I would be doing in Richmond>On Sunday we leave for mainland Tanzania will be traveling to the capital of TanzaniaDar Es Salaam.I will be there for 10 days and then am traveling south to Mikumi National Park for 2 days for a safari!!!! I am very excited to see some giraffes and lions and elephants!!!!!!Once we get back from safari I will be on stonetown for a little bit and then the first week of April is the start of my month long Independent Study Project. Yesterday I went to chumbe island (chumbeisland.com, check it out) and went snorkeling there ( I saw some huge fish and a squid!), climbed the lighthouse, and went on a nature walk.The island is only 1.1 km long but is the epitome of a tropical island and is sooooo gorgeous! I liked it so much that I talked to the rangers there, and decided that I will be staying there for the month of April working on my Independent study project.I am going to be snorkeling just about every day and taking a survey of the species of sponge that exist on their coral reef.The rangers are excited because they have never had anyone research the sponges there and I am excited because I get to live on a beautiful island for almost all of April!!!They are also giving me a fantastic price, the tourists that stay on the island pay $250 a night, and they are only going to charge me 8,000 shillings (of course my lodging won't be as nice, but who cares!).Well I have now written a book and grilled cheese is calling my name, so I must go Hopefully I will be able to post again sooner with some pictures (my memory card reader is not working at the moment).I really can't believe that it is already March and time is just flying by here!!!Love and miss you all!!Emily
Friday, February 13, 2009
Fast Facts about life in Zanzibar
- the currency here is Tanzanian shilling and $1 is equal to 1300 shillings. It's pretty nice because I always feel like I have a lot of money because a 10,000 dollar bill looks like so much (when in reality its less than $10).
-Square blocks do not exist in Stonetown and all of the streets are very narrow and curvy. Most of the streets are not even big enough for a car to drive through and street signs do not exist. Even if you keep making left turns you would bot make a circle, but end up on the other side of town. Lets just say that with my directional skills I have already gotten lost many times because the town is like a maze! Right now I know how to get to the internet cafe, the SIT office, and my house which is pretty good for me! Oh and here pedestrians have no right at all. Motorbikes, bicycles, cars, trucks and vans all go REALLY REALLY fast and they never slow down even if they see someone crossing the street. They also drive on the left side of the road, so its taken me awhile to decide what side of the road I should stay on when a motorbikes is coming.
-Since the Zanzibar archipelago is also known as the spice islands, we have spice tea with every meal. Its really good and in my house we usually have ginger tea. A typical meal consists of rice, lots and lots of fried bread, fish, and fresh fruit (papaya, mango, bananas, and pineapple). We eat meals sitting on a mat on the floor and use our right hand to eat everything. And let me tell you, eating rice with your hand is an art that I have yet to master. My homestay mama even tried to teach me how to pick the rice up with my fingers, and ended up just laughing at me because it went everywhere :) There are also a lot of hot peppers in some of the foods. Let me just give you a word of advise. DO NOT mistake a hot pepper for a carrot. Some how I have managed to do that twice and both times I thought i was about to eat a Delicious carrot and as a result my mouth felt like it was on fire for 2 hours, haha.
-Zanzibar is not a very big island but there are lots of islands around it. It takes about 45 minutes to drive the width of Zanzibar and about 3 hours to drive the length from the longest points.
-Everyone here LOVES soccer and the kids play everyday. My host family really likes Manchester United and they are always watching it on tv, which I quite enjoy :)
-Sometimes I accidentally speak Spanish instead of Kiswahili and everyone looks at me really strange. I don't know how people can speak multiple languages and keep them separated!
-They tell the time differently here, which was really confusing in the beginning. The day starts at 6 am. So when its 7 am they actually say its 1. So 12:30 pm, would actually be 6:30. The funny thing is that they all set their clocks on english time but they only refer to Kiswahili time.
-There are chickens, and cats, and even a few cows roaming through most of the streets. It doesn't even seem weird to me any more when I see a chicken and her chicks walking by my front door.
-Right now there are a ton of tourists in Zanzibar for the Busara Music Festival. Its held in the old fort and groups from all over Africa come to play. I am planning on going to that tonight and tomorrow night with my friends.
-We took a boat ride to prison island and went snorkeling there. The corals are always so amazing to me and I even saw a blue starfish! We went on the island as well and I got to feed these really big tortoises that can live up to 150 years old!!!! I actually got sea sick because the water was so rough when we were snorkeling, but the tortoises made me feel better :)
-There are strong British, Arabic, and Indian influences in Zanzibar culture. 99 percent of Zanzibar is Muslim so I always hear thier call to prayer 5 times a day. Most of the people here speak Kiswahili, English, and Arabic.
-At the Institute of Marine Science where i have class everyday they have an aquarium with a loggerhead turtle! I helped take care of a loggerhead turtle this past summer at the Virginia Living Museum so i was excited to be able to visit the turtles relative :)
- Right now it is the hottest part of the year. It is very humid and probably around 90 F every day. Today it is raining which is really nice because it is still really sunny and bright, but the perfect temperature outside!
Alright, that's all for now. Hopefully I have given you a glimpse of what life is like here. I hope everyone is doing well and surviving through winter time! Ta ta for now!
Emily
-Square blocks do not exist in Stonetown and all of the streets are very narrow and curvy. Most of the streets are not even big enough for a car to drive through and street signs do not exist. Even if you keep making left turns you would bot make a circle, but end up on the other side of town. Lets just say that with my directional skills I have already gotten lost many times because the town is like a maze! Right now I know how to get to the internet cafe, the SIT office, and my house which is pretty good for me! Oh and here pedestrians have no right at all. Motorbikes, bicycles, cars, trucks and vans all go REALLY REALLY fast and they never slow down even if they see someone crossing the street. They also drive on the left side of the road, so its taken me awhile to decide what side of the road I should stay on when a motorbikes is coming.
-Since the Zanzibar archipelago is also known as the spice islands, we have spice tea with every meal. Its really good and in my house we usually have ginger tea. A typical meal consists of rice, lots and lots of fried bread, fish, and fresh fruit (papaya, mango, bananas, and pineapple). We eat meals sitting on a mat on the floor and use our right hand to eat everything. And let me tell you, eating rice with your hand is an art that I have yet to master. My homestay mama even tried to teach me how to pick the rice up with my fingers, and ended up just laughing at me because it went everywhere :) There are also a lot of hot peppers in some of the foods. Let me just give you a word of advise. DO NOT mistake a hot pepper for a carrot. Some how I have managed to do that twice and both times I thought i was about to eat a Delicious carrot and as a result my mouth felt like it was on fire for 2 hours, haha.
-Zanzibar is not a very big island but there are lots of islands around it. It takes about 45 minutes to drive the width of Zanzibar and about 3 hours to drive the length from the longest points.
-Everyone here LOVES soccer and the kids play everyday. My host family really likes Manchester United and they are always watching it on tv, which I quite enjoy :)
-Sometimes I accidentally speak Spanish instead of Kiswahili and everyone looks at me really strange. I don't know how people can speak multiple languages and keep them separated!
-They tell the time differently here, which was really confusing in the beginning. The day starts at 6 am. So when its 7 am they actually say its 1. So 12:30 pm, would actually be 6:30. The funny thing is that they all set their clocks on english time but they only refer to Kiswahili time.
-There are chickens, and cats, and even a few cows roaming through most of the streets. It doesn't even seem weird to me any more when I see a chicken and her chicks walking by my front door.
-Right now there are a ton of tourists in Zanzibar for the Busara Music Festival. Its held in the old fort and groups from all over Africa come to play. I am planning on going to that tonight and tomorrow night with my friends.
-We took a boat ride to prison island and went snorkeling there. The corals are always so amazing to me and I even saw a blue starfish! We went on the island as well and I got to feed these really big tortoises that can live up to 150 years old!!!! I actually got sea sick because the water was so rough when we were snorkeling, but the tortoises made me feel better :)
-There are strong British, Arabic, and Indian influences in Zanzibar culture. 99 percent of Zanzibar is Muslim so I always hear thier call to prayer 5 times a day. Most of the people here speak Kiswahili, English, and Arabic.
-At the Institute of Marine Science where i have class everyday they have an aquarium with a loggerhead turtle! I helped take care of a loggerhead turtle this past summer at the Virginia Living Museum so i was excited to be able to visit the turtles relative :)
- Right now it is the hottest part of the year. It is very humid and probably around 90 F every day. Today it is raining which is really nice because it is still really sunny and bright, but the perfect temperature outside!
Alright, that's all for now. Hopefully I have given you a glimpse of what life is like here. I hope everyone is doing well and surviving through winter time! Ta ta for now!
Emily
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Mr. Bean Boat and the amazingly clear water!Saturday, February 7, 2009
Flipper and Familia
Mambo!
In which you reply "Poa"! Its basically slang for saying hi that all of the young people use around here, and Poa means cool, or fresh which I think is pretty funny.
So I went to Paje village last weekend and stayed at this really nice beach resort. One morning we got up at 5:30and took a 30 minute bus ride to another part of the island and we got to swim with wild dolphins which was amazing! We took a boat out pretty far and the guide found the dolphins for us. Once he found them we all would jump out of the boat (with all of our snorkeling gear on) and swim right above them! We tried to swim with them and follow them, but let me tell you, dolphins are fast (Flipper is really faster than lightning!). My little fins could not keep up with them, but we were still able to stay near them for a few minutes. We saw several families of dolphins and some of them would even come to the surface just a few feet away from me (we weren't allowed to touch them though). My favorite part was watching a mom and baby dolphin swimming around together and playing, it was so cute! And just to make the day even better, after we swam with the dolphins we went to a butterfly center and got to see hundreds of beautiful butterflies flying all around! It was definitely a good day.
On Thursday i moved in with my host family. They are nice and welcoming and have a nice house. I think they must be pretty well off compared to some of the other families that live here. We have a maid who does all of the cooking and cleaning, and we also have a normal bathroom and a shower (I am very thankful for that!). Most of the other people in my program are staying with families who have outhouses and they have to take bucket showers, so i got lucky with mine :) Besides my host mama and baba, I live with a 14 year old boy (who speaks some English, so he is basically my translator), a 6 year old girl, a really cute 4 year old boy (whose name is muda :)) and their niece lives with them and she has a 1 year old baby. So whenever I need something to do i have lots of kids to play with so I love that! I have my own room that has a desk, sofa, and a fan so I am quite happy! I will be staying there until the 14th. So everything is going well there, although the language barrier can be really difficult sometimes. Since I have only had like a week of Kiswahili class I have a VERY limited vocabulary, so its hard sometimes. I have got all of the greetings down but after that it takes me like 5 minutes to say a sentence that they will understand. I know it will get better though, and they are very willing to help me learn and are constantly teaching me how to say things.
Well my time is up again! I will post again soon to tell you about my adventure at prison island and I am sure I will have more stories about things that happen with my host family.
Kwa heri,
Amalya (my new kiswahili name)
In which you reply "Poa"! Its basically slang for saying hi that all of the young people use around here, and Poa means cool, or fresh which I think is pretty funny.
So I went to Paje village last weekend and stayed at this really nice beach resort. One morning we got up at 5:30and took a 30 minute bus ride to another part of the island and we got to swim with wild dolphins which was amazing! We took a boat out pretty far and the guide found the dolphins for us. Once he found them we all would jump out of the boat (with all of our snorkeling gear on) and swim right above them! We tried to swim with them and follow them, but let me tell you, dolphins are fast (Flipper is really faster than lightning!). My little fins could not keep up with them, but we were still able to stay near them for a few minutes. We saw several families of dolphins and some of them would even come to the surface just a few feet away from me (we weren't allowed to touch them though). My favorite part was watching a mom and baby dolphin swimming around together and playing, it was so cute! And just to make the day even better, after we swam with the dolphins we went to a butterfly center and got to see hundreds of beautiful butterflies flying all around! It was definitely a good day.
On Thursday i moved in with my host family. They are nice and welcoming and have a nice house. I think they must be pretty well off compared to some of the other families that live here. We have a maid who does all of the cooking and cleaning, and we also have a normal bathroom and a shower (I am very thankful for that!). Most of the other people in my program are staying with families who have outhouses and they have to take bucket showers, so i got lucky with mine :) Besides my host mama and baba, I live with a 14 year old boy (who speaks some English, so he is basically my translator), a 6 year old girl, a really cute 4 year old boy (whose name is muda :)) and their niece lives with them and she has a 1 year old baby. So whenever I need something to do i have lots of kids to play with so I love that! I have my own room that has a desk, sofa, and a fan so I am quite happy! I will be staying there until the 14th. So everything is going well there, although the language barrier can be really difficult sometimes. Since I have only had like a week of Kiswahili class I have a VERY limited vocabulary, so its hard sometimes. I have got all of the greetings down but after that it takes me like 5 minutes to say a sentence that they will understand. I know it will get better though, and they are very willing to help me learn and are constantly teaching me how to say things.
Well my time is up again! I will post again soon to tell you about my adventure at prison island and I am sure I will have more stories about things that happen with my host family.
Kwa heri,
Amalya (my new kiswahili name)
Friday, January 30, 2009
Hajambo from Zanzibar!
Hajambo rafiki!
Other words for, hello friends!
After almost 2 full days of traveling and a total of 4 hours of sleep I finally made it to Zanzibar on Wednesday morning! The flights were long, but my long layover in london turned out to be really fun because we (me and the other students that I was traveling with) went into the city and got to see Piccadilly circus. I had never been to london before, and although I was only in the city for about 4 hours I really like it and definetly plan on going back. The plane ride to Zanzibar was filled with amazing views of my first glimpses of Africa. I saw Mount Kilmanjaro from afar, and the arial view of Zanzibar was SO beautiful!! The water is the clearest and bluest water I have ever seen, and it some parts it looked like it was glowing, almost like a neon blue, since it is so clear! Upon arrival we found out that 11 out of 15 peoples luggage was lost (we think it got stuck in heathrow) so that has been a challenge, but we finally got our luggage today! I am very happy to have clean clothes again (i am sure that other people are more grateful that i have clean clothes too, haha).
We started Kiswahili lessons the 2nd day, and I have already learned so much! We will being having lessons twice a day, for two hours at a time and by the end of the program the teacher said that we will all be fluent! I am surprised that it can take that short of a time to learn a language that I had never even really heard before. But even after 2 classes I can already have a conversation with the local people! I am surprised that my brain is working this well after being on break for almost a month and a half! Yesterday we had the perfect opportunity to practice our Kiswahili. As a traditional SIT event, all of the students were dropped off in random parts of the city we are in (Stone town) . We were in groups of 3 and each group had a map and a list of taks to accomplish. We had to navigate our way around the city finding all of the things on our list and had to make our way back to the SIT office in 3 hours. It was quite an adventure considering we had only had 2 hours of Kiswahili lessons and now had to ask all of the locals for directions. All of the locals were extremely nice and very willing to help when they heard us speaking Kiswahili. A lot of them laughed at us but helped us out with pronouncing as I am sure we were continuously slaughtering their language. Some people actually just stared at us wondering what in the world we were saying, but they were still very friendly. One thing I love about the people here is that they all say hello to you when you walk by. It is actually extremely rude here to walk by someone and not say hello. I think that it is very nice and it made me feel very welcome. I found it interesting that whenever my group would walk by a group of American tourists that the tourists would not say one word and just keep walking. They didn't even say hello, and its not if they couldn't tell that we were Americans. So I love the friendly and inviting atmosphere here so far :)
Today has been my favorite day so far. The Inn that I am staying at is only a 5 minute walk away from the beach, so the whole group walked to the coast and we took a 20 minute boat ride to a really large sand bank. We rode in a boat that was called Mr. Bean which I thought was funny. The view was absolutely amazing. You can see several other islands from there and the weather is also perfect. It has been about 90 F during the day and it is very humid. The night time is perfect temperature, as it is still warm but with a very cool breeze. And you can see SOOO many stars since there aren't many lights around. I even saw a planet! Anyways back to the sand bank, we went snorkeling in a coral reef and that has not to be that coolest thing I have ever done before. I just floated effortlessly above hundreds of vibrantly colored fish and lots of coral. I saw soo many different types of fish that were beautiful shades of blue, and yellow, and orange. I saw a really big puffer fish, some sponges, and I think I might have even found Nemo :) Well at least I found Nemo's home. The water is so clear that you can see really really far and I felt like I was in a movie or something because it was almost too beautiful to be believable. I am very excited to go snorkeling again, and on Monday actually we are going to swim with dolphins!!!! One funny thing is that since I didn't have my luggage yet, I went swimming in pants and a long sleeve shirt, and had to rent snorkeling gear. The fish were probably wondering what I was doing, haha. After snorkeling we went back onto the large sand bank and had a picnic which was a culinary delight! We had fresh pineapple, passion fruit, and papaya, lots of bread, nutella, tea, fish, cake, and more! All of the fruit and juice here is very good and there are lots og mangos (i Love mangos!). The picnic was very picturesque as were watching boats pass by and looking at the view of the city and other islands. Of course i thought of you all when I was there, and thought about my friends who were probably in class while I am here sitting in a tropical paradise :) I will upload pictures next time so that I can share with you all :)
We leave tomorrow morning for a beach village and will be there until late Monday. I should be able to have internet access at least once a week, as there are many internet cafes around and it is pretty cheap. I know this post was rather jumbled, but my next post will be better as I will actually think about what I am going to write before going to the Internet cafe and having a time limit to write a post (pressure!). So as my time is running out that's all for now! I will update again soon :) Oh and you should know that spelling is my worst subject, so I probably spelled some things wrong! Alrighty, ta ta for now!
Love,
Emily
Other words for, hello friends!
After almost 2 full days of traveling and a total of 4 hours of sleep I finally made it to Zanzibar on Wednesday morning! The flights were long, but my long layover in london turned out to be really fun because we (me and the other students that I was traveling with) went into the city and got to see Piccadilly circus. I had never been to london before, and although I was only in the city for about 4 hours I really like it and definetly plan on going back. The plane ride to Zanzibar was filled with amazing views of my first glimpses of Africa. I saw Mount Kilmanjaro from afar, and the arial view of Zanzibar was SO beautiful!! The water is the clearest and bluest water I have ever seen, and it some parts it looked like it was glowing, almost like a neon blue, since it is so clear! Upon arrival we found out that 11 out of 15 peoples luggage was lost (we think it got stuck in heathrow) so that has been a challenge, but we finally got our luggage today! I am very happy to have clean clothes again (i am sure that other people are more grateful that i have clean clothes too, haha).
We started Kiswahili lessons the 2nd day, and I have already learned so much! We will being having lessons twice a day, for two hours at a time and by the end of the program the teacher said that we will all be fluent! I am surprised that it can take that short of a time to learn a language that I had never even really heard before. But even after 2 classes I can already have a conversation with the local people! I am surprised that my brain is working this well after being on break for almost a month and a half! Yesterday we had the perfect opportunity to practice our Kiswahili. As a traditional SIT event, all of the students were dropped off in random parts of the city we are in (Stone town) . We were in groups of 3 and each group had a map and a list of taks to accomplish. We had to navigate our way around the city finding all of the things on our list and had to make our way back to the SIT office in 3 hours. It was quite an adventure considering we had only had 2 hours of Kiswahili lessons and now had to ask all of the locals for directions. All of the locals were extremely nice and very willing to help when they heard us speaking Kiswahili. A lot of them laughed at us but helped us out with pronouncing as I am sure we were continuously slaughtering their language. Some people actually just stared at us wondering what in the world we were saying, but they were still very friendly. One thing I love about the people here is that they all say hello to you when you walk by. It is actually extremely rude here to walk by someone and not say hello. I think that it is very nice and it made me feel very welcome. I found it interesting that whenever my group would walk by a group of American tourists that the tourists would not say one word and just keep walking. They didn't even say hello, and its not if they couldn't tell that we were Americans. So I love the friendly and inviting atmosphere here so far :)
Today has been my favorite day so far. The Inn that I am staying at is only a 5 minute walk away from the beach, so the whole group walked to the coast and we took a 20 minute boat ride to a really large sand bank. We rode in a boat that was called Mr. Bean which I thought was funny. The view was absolutely amazing. You can see several other islands from there and the weather is also perfect. It has been about 90 F during the day and it is very humid. The night time is perfect temperature, as it is still warm but with a very cool breeze. And you can see SOOO many stars since there aren't many lights around. I even saw a planet! Anyways back to the sand bank, we went snorkeling in a coral reef and that has not to be that coolest thing I have ever done before. I just floated effortlessly above hundreds of vibrantly colored fish and lots of coral. I saw soo many different types of fish that were beautiful shades of blue, and yellow, and orange. I saw a really big puffer fish, some sponges, and I think I might have even found Nemo :) Well at least I found Nemo's home. The water is so clear that you can see really really far and I felt like I was in a movie or something because it was almost too beautiful to be believable. I am very excited to go snorkeling again, and on Monday actually we are going to swim with dolphins!!!! One funny thing is that since I didn't have my luggage yet, I went swimming in pants and a long sleeve shirt, and had to rent snorkeling gear. The fish were probably wondering what I was doing, haha. After snorkeling we went back onto the large sand bank and had a picnic which was a culinary delight! We had fresh pineapple, passion fruit, and papaya, lots of bread, nutella, tea, fish, cake, and more! All of the fruit and juice here is very good and there are lots og mangos (i Love mangos!). The picnic was very picturesque as were watching boats pass by and looking at the view of the city and other islands. Of course i thought of you all when I was there, and thought about my friends who were probably in class while I am here sitting in a tropical paradise :) I will upload pictures next time so that I can share with you all :)
We leave tomorrow morning for a beach village and will be there until late Monday. I should be able to have internet access at least once a week, as there are many internet cafes around and it is pretty cheap. I know this post was rather jumbled, but my next post will be better as I will actually think about what I am going to write before going to the Internet cafe and having a time limit to write a post (pressure!). So as my time is running out that's all for now! I will update again soon :) Oh and you should know that spelling is my worst subject, so I probably spelled some things wrong! Alrighty, ta ta for now!
Love,
Emily
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Let the adventure begin.....
First of all I would like to explain the title of my blog, since most of you are probably wondering what in the world it says. While in Zanzibar I will be taking a beginners’ class and learning Kiswahili. Kisiwa Kwachu means "Island Fun" in Kiswahili, which I hope to have lots of while in Zanzibar :) I have been browsing my pocket Kiswahili-English dictionary trying to learn some useful phrases and I also found out that the word for lion is simba (wow Disney, that’s creative!).
I leave from Dulles Airport tomorrow night around 10pm. I am taking a group flight with other people that are in my program (my program consists of 14 other American students from all over the US.) I have a 7 hour flight to Heathrow-London, and then once I am there I have an 8 hour lay-over. Hopefully I can find something fun to do there ( I am not sure if I will be able to leave the airport). At least I will get to know the other students in my program. From London I then have an 8 1/2 hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya with a 2 hour layover. And finally I take a 2 hour flight to ...... ZANZIBAR, Tanzania!!!! So hopefully I will arrive in Zanzibar on Wednesday morning, at which point I will want to take a 12 hour nap but will probably be thrown into orientation events.
I will begin with an orientation in Stone Town, followed by the beginning of Kiswahili language training at a nearby beach village. Kiswahili classes will continue for another two weeks in Stone Town where I will be staying with a Swahili family. At the same time, I will be attending lectures at the Institute of Marine Sciences working on various observation assignments, and traveling on short field trips. I am not sure what my schedule will be after that, but I know that I will be going on several excursions in Zanzibar, Pemba Island, the other large island in the Zanzibar archipelago, and to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city. The last month I will be working on my Independent Study Project (I am hoping to study bioeroding sponges in coral reefs ).
Well that's all for now, the next time I update I will be in Africa!
I leave from Dulles Airport tomorrow night around 10pm. I am taking a group flight with other people that are in my program (my program consists of 14 other American students from all over the US.) I have a 7 hour flight to Heathrow-London, and then once I am there I have an 8 hour lay-over. Hopefully I can find something fun to do there ( I am not sure if I will be able to leave the airport). At least I will get to know the other students in my program. From London I then have an 8 1/2 hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya with a 2 hour layover. And finally I take a 2 hour flight to ...... ZANZIBAR, Tanzania!!!! So hopefully I will arrive in Zanzibar on Wednesday morning, at which point I will want to take a 12 hour nap but will probably be thrown into orientation events.
I will begin with an orientation in Stone Town, followed by the beginning of Kiswahili language training at a nearby beach village. Kiswahili classes will continue for another two weeks in Stone Town where I will be staying with a Swahili family. At the same time, I will be attending lectures at the Institute of Marine Sciences working on various observation assignments, and traveling on short field trips. I am not sure what my schedule will be after that, but I know that I will be going on several excursions in Zanzibar, Pemba Island, the other large island in the Zanzibar archipelago, and to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city. The last month I will be working on my Independent Study Project (I am hoping to study bioeroding sponges in coral reefs ).
Well that's all for now, the next time I update I will be in Africa!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
