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 Chumbe

Livin 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)

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 :)

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