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!

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