We all have our own personal motivations for doing what we do with our lives. Oddly enough, though, we assume certain people (such as celebrities) have ulterior motives while others get off without scrutiny.
Personally, I don't mind the Angelina Jolies and Brad Pitts and Bonos of this world leveraging their celebrity status to make a difference. The fact is, they usually care about what they're doing quite a bit more than many of Africa's current volunteers - and they also generate much more publicity that turns the fickle eye of the global media onto an area in dire need of attention.
In an effort to reveal the ulterior motives of the average Joe, I recently posted a lens (article) on Squidoo that looks at the Top 6 Misguided Reasons for Volunteering in Africa.
Check it out. And by all means, please disagree with me and tell me why I'm wrong!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
An island is only isolated if you can't use your iPhone.
Last night was Zanzibar's fourth blackout in two weeks.
In Canada, it’s fair to say we take electricity for granted. On those extremely rare occasions where we lose power, everyone’s usually in the same boat – enjoying the nostalgia of lighting candles and having conversations that aren’t distracted by the TV, and comforted by the implied knowledge that an hour later everything will be back to normal.
Back in May, Zanzibar had a month-long blackout. Some businesses survived by running expensive generators; others just closed up shop. No computers, no TV, no lights, no fridge, no fans, no A/C. A glimpse into life in centuries past, except much worse since our lives revolve around the presumption that these things will work.
It puts our dependency on technology in perspective. Spend today imagining the effect of a long-term blackout in your city. The obvious ones – computers and TV and electric heaters – would be a pain in the ass, but tolerable as you remember the fun of the outdoors and the comfort of hot cocoa.
The one thing I think we’d all struggle with is communication. No e-mails or Facebook would only be the beginning. Your cell phone would be toast. You’d try to take advantage of the relic that is your parents’ landline until you realize you don’t know anyone’s number (they’re all memorized in your cell’s contact list). Technology might not be our direct friend, but it's the direct link to our friends, and we could expect prolonged periods of loneliness and isolation without it.
Fear not: there are no blackouts coming to destroy your electronic life. But it’s worth putting in perspective how much of your life is dependent on your ability to plug in. It's worth remembering that the entire system crumbles if you remove a single element. And just maybe, it’s worth taking a couple of conscious steps towards freeing yourself from the clutches of technology – even just for peace of mind.
In Canada, it’s fair to say we take electricity for granted. On those extremely rare occasions where we lose power, everyone’s usually in the same boat – enjoying the nostalgia of lighting candles and having conversations that aren’t distracted by the TV, and comforted by the implied knowledge that an hour later everything will be back to normal.
Back in May, Zanzibar had a month-long blackout. Some businesses survived by running expensive generators; others just closed up shop. No computers, no TV, no lights, no fridge, no fans, no A/C. A glimpse into life in centuries past, except much worse since our lives revolve around the presumption that these things will work.
It puts our dependency on technology in perspective. Spend today imagining the effect of a long-term blackout in your city. The obvious ones – computers and TV and electric heaters – would be a pain in the ass, but tolerable as you remember the fun of the outdoors and the comfort of hot cocoa.
The one thing I think we’d all struggle with is communication. No e-mails or Facebook would only be the beginning. Your cell phone would be toast. You’d try to take advantage of the relic that is your parents’ landline until you realize you don’t know anyone’s number (they’re all memorized in your cell’s contact list). Technology might not be our direct friend, but it's the direct link to our friends, and we could expect prolonged periods of loneliness and isolation without it.
Fear not: there are no blackouts coming to destroy your electronic life. But it’s worth putting in perspective how much of your life is dependent on your ability to plug in. It's worth remembering that the entire system crumbles if you remove a single element. And just maybe, it’s worth taking a couple of conscious steps towards freeing yourself from the clutches of technology – even just for peace of mind.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
How much bargaining is too much?
Once again, pardon my absence. This time, I feel like it’s justified, since I was nursing a fight with malaria for the last week. Couldn’t have been at a worse time, really, since I was supposed to host a HIV awareness workshop for any member of staff associated with the Aga Khan Development Network – a pretty big group.
The workshop went on, but not without some emergency power-puking near the halftime mark: by the end of it, I was curled into the foetal position on a mat outside the door. Luckily, four injections later I am back to the white ball of energy my co-workers and basketball teammates expect.
The tourists are back in full swing at this point despite the sporadic torrential storms of the short rain season. There’s a stark contrast between the two main groups of tourists that visit Zanzibar: the wealthy elite, who pay outrageous money (up to US$1,000 per night) for all-inclusive resort packages on the beaches of the East Coast; and the deal-hunting backpackers, who scamper through Stone Town bargaining down every price regardless of the original quote.
As a Stone Town resident, I’m regularly frustrated by the abundance of the latter. Don’t get me wrong, I love backpacking and I love bargaining. But ultimately, there’s a difference between getting ripped off, and ripping off the salesman who’s too desperate to say no to your final price.
This simple graph illustrates the price of “stuff” in the market in nearly any African or Asian country. By market, I mean any store without walls: the food market, souvenirs, street meat, clothes, whatever.
Obviously, the longer you stay and bitch about the price, the lower the price gets. This makes perfect sense, because a few passers-by don’t know about bargaining and simply accept the first price offered to them (to the profit and delight of the salesman). Unfortunately, this rarely happens.
Salesmen are almost always middlemen. Farmers are too busy tending their crops to sell them, just as wood carvers and sewers are too busy working. As a result, nearly every salesman pays the local market rate for whatever they are selling, then hopes to sell it at a small premium to make enough money to feed his family.
With that in mind, let’s put this price curve in the context of the item’s cost to the salesman, which obviously doesn’t get any cheaper for him. Every extra dollar he sells it for is an extra dollar in his pocket - worth noting since a backpacker bargaining from $4 to $3.50 is saving about 14%, but if the item cost $3 he is cutting the salesman’s profits in half.
Now I’m all about bargaining and not getting ripped off. But in my opinion there comes a point when backpackers take it too far. They have a tendency of hammering down prices to absurd levels, well below a “fair” price just to test their bargaining abilities. I mean, at some point, when you’re paying $1 for a hand-carved necklace, is the extra 10 cents really anything but ego-stroking?
My personal favourite is when backpackers tell the locals they are “poor” travellers to gain sympathy, when the locals fully understand that the price of a return plane ticket to Zanzibar costs more than they would likely make in 10 years. Buddy, don’t bother.
Although we all have different backgrounds, North Americans and Europeans come from privilege. We can’t empathize with people who have endured true poverty – scraping to make enough money to feed yourself or your family.
Don’t get me wrong, I will walk away from some guy doubling the price because of the colour of my skin… But I try to have the decency to know when enough is enough: a massive portion of thick-cut fries and salad for 80 cents might be a rip off to a local, but you won’t catch me complaining.
The workshop went on, but not without some emergency power-puking near the halftime mark: by the end of it, I was curled into the foetal position on a mat outside the door. Luckily, four injections later I am back to the white ball of energy my co-workers and basketball teammates expect.
The tourists are back in full swing at this point despite the sporadic torrential storms of the short rain season. There’s a stark contrast between the two main groups of tourists that visit Zanzibar: the wealthy elite, who pay outrageous money (up to US$1,000 per night) for all-inclusive resort packages on the beaches of the East Coast; and the deal-hunting backpackers, who scamper through Stone Town bargaining down every price regardless of the original quote.
As a Stone Town resident, I’m regularly frustrated by the abundance of the latter. Don’t get me wrong, I love backpacking and I love bargaining. But ultimately, there’s a difference between getting ripped off, and ripping off the salesman who’s too desperate to say no to your final price.
This simple graph illustrates the price of “stuff” in the market in nearly any African or Asian country. By market, I mean any store without walls: the food market, souvenirs, street meat, clothes, whatever.
Obviously, the longer you stay and bitch about the price, the lower the price gets. This makes perfect sense, because a few passers-by don’t know about bargaining and simply accept the first price offered to them (to the profit and delight of the salesman). Unfortunately, this rarely happens.Salesmen are almost always middlemen. Farmers are too busy tending their crops to sell them, just as wood carvers and sewers are too busy working. As a result, nearly every salesman pays the local market rate for whatever they are selling, then hopes to sell it at a small premium to make enough money to feed his family.
With that in mind, let’s put this price curve in the context of the item’s cost to the salesman, which obviously doesn’t get any cheaper for him. Every extra dollar he sells it for is an extra dollar in his pocket - worth noting since a backpacker bargaining from $4 to $3.50 is saving about 14%, but if the item cost $3 he is cutting the salesman’s profits in half.
Now I’m all about bargaining and not getting ripped off. But in my opinion there comes a point when backpackers take it too far. They have a tendency of hammering down prices to absurd levels, well below a “fair” price just to test their bargaining abilities. I mean, at some point, when you’re paying $1 for a hand-carved necklace, is the extra 10 cents really anything but ego-stroking?My personal favourite is when backpackers tell the locals they are “poor” travellers to gain sympathy, when the locals fully understand that the price of a return plane ticket to Zanzibar costs more than they would likely make in 10 years. Buddy, don’t bother.
Although we all have different backgrounds, North Americans and Europeans come from privilege. We can’t empathize with people who have endured true poverty – scraping to make enough money to feed yourself or your family.
Don’t get me wrong, I will walk away from some guy doubling the price because of the colour of my skin… But I try to have the decency to know when enough is enough: a massive portion of thick-cut fries and salad for 80 cents might be a rip off to a local, but you won’t catch me complaining.
Monday, November 3, 2008
No treats here... purely tricks.
So it turns out I’m an international jackass.
Which is comforting, because at times I thought it was only in Canada. Halloween helped prove me wrong, though: in a last-minute desperate attempt at pulling together a costume without spending money, I dressed as a ‘70s version of Boris Becker (with matching six-inch white shorts and an electric fly swatter as a racket).
… which is a jackass move in Canada, but at least people will laugh it off. In mostly Muslim Zanzibar, the joke was lost on people, who thought I was gay or just a total loser. Kiswahili saved absolutely nothing. It was a night awkwardly spent sitting down as much as possible, and drinking as much as possible to forget the awkwardness of the situation (which didn’t work). Also didn’t help that Halloween costumes were a bit scarce – of 200 people at the bar, I’d say a dozen had costumes – meaning most people just assumed that guy with the tiny white shorts was carrying around an electric fly swatter in case the mosquitoes started to creep near my upper thighs.
The blessing in disguise is that three German tourists happened to be partying at the same bar, and absolutely loved my tribute to their tennis hero. In between death glances and me covering my junk, these proud gentlemen were always there to cheer me on.
Other than Halloween in Zanzibar, it was a fairly standard week: plenty of work, plenty of learning Kiswahili, and no Internet. As such, I’ve decided to delve into the basics of food here in Zanzibar. As far as mannerisms, men usually eat before women, and most everything is eaten with your hands – occasionally a pain since Muslim cultures designates that you only use your right hand to eat (although you are allowed to use both for tearing apart tougher stuff like chicken).
The food here is wonderful, albeit interestingly different. For starters, you can get plenty of classic food for very cheap: fresh fruits and veggies, bread, eggs, tea, fish and meat. For a premium price, you can get an even wider variety: cereal, chocolate bars, cheese, peanut butter, and even Pringles. Unfortunately, where a loaf of bread costs 30 cents and a small box of cereal costs $6, it’s best to stick to the basics.
Luckily, the basic afford a nice variety of tastes not readily available at home. One simple delight is a fresh dafu, or young coconut, whereby you lop the top off and drink the coconut juice (which hasn’t yet turned into milk). After you finish, the salesman will gut the insides for you for a slimier (but heartier) snack to finish it off. The whole thing costs about 30 cents, and it’s usually a pretty fun social setting right after work.
Another cheap local snack is muhogo, or cassava. Vendors will barbeque these large roots and sell them for between 10-20 cents for what essentially tastes like a baked potato, loaded with spicy salts. It’s a killer snack and locals lose their minds if they see you eating it.
Cashews are supposed to be cheap, but it seems as though they’re only sold to tourists so the prices are quite high. Instead, you can pay five cents for a little bag of fresh peanuts almost anywhere you go. You can recognize the salesmen because they all rhythmically jangle a handful of small coins to attract your attention, then lift a tray full of peanut packs for your convenience.
The list of quick, cheap treats goes on: sliced pineapple, watermelon and jackfruit; pre-bagged popcorn; dates; and incredible sugar cane juice (vendors use these giant steel machines to help extract fresh sugar cane juice, which they strain with ice and serve).
For meals, street food is a beauty. The cheap local favourite is rojo, which is a stew or soup of sorts that literally translates to “gravy” – rather appropriate, since I’m pretty sure it’s the reheated remains of the grease they used to cook their meat skewers. Whatever it is, it’s delicious, and you mix it potatoes, meat, hard-boiled eggs and even salad for about $1 per serving.
A personal favourite, available almost everywhere, is called chipsi mayai. Essentially, it’s a french fry omelette. The chef tosses a serving of pre-cooked fries into a pan, then adds two eggs and cooks it – optionally with pieces of beef or chicken, and always topped with ketchup, spices and salad. A heart attack sandwich, but just so damn good.
Meat is a riskier venture, since cooking it yourself involves selecting your own cuts of meat from the butcher (which usually consists of a guy in a window with a full cow hanging from the ceiling, ready to slice) and there are plenty of fatty pieces in the meat you need to work around. Alternatively, you can buy chicken, but unless you want to pay the premium price for pre-cooked skewers, you’re gonna have to kill and skin that sucker yourself. I’ve convinced myself I’ll do it eventually, but I’m definitely procrastinating.
The other day, my local street food chefs demanded that I roll through with a camera, so we had a pretty wild photo shoot. I’ll post the pictures on Facebook when I get some decent Internet – your guess is as good as mine.
All told, the food is unreal, and if you’re smart you can feed yourself for a week for the cost of one meal at a tourist restaurant. Recently, I started buying potatoes, peppers, carrots, onions and tomatoes in bulk to throw together some mean stirfry, which is entirely easier on the budget – and healthier than eating rojo and chipsi mayai six days a week. It was getting to the point that a concerned group of local fish salesmen were sitting me down and telling me to cut down, since my eating habits would turn me into a buana mvivu (“lazy gentleman”).
What I wouldn’t give for a bag of Sour Patch Kids right now…
Which is comforting, because at times I thought it was only in Canada. Halloween helped prove me wrong, though: in a last-minute desperate attempt at pulling together a costume without spending money, I dressed as a ‘70s version of Boris Becker (with matching six-inch white shorts and an electric fly swatter as a racket).
… which is a jackass move in Canada, but at least people will laugh it off. In mostly Muslim Zanzibar, the joke was lost on people, who thought I was gay or just a total loser. Kiswahili saved absolutely nothing. It was a night awkwardly spent sitting down as much as possible, and drinking as much as possible to forget the awkwardness of the situation (which didn’t work). Also didn’t help that Halloween costumes were a bit scarce – of 200 people at the bar, I’d say a dozen had costumes – meaning most people just assumed that guy with the tiny white shorts was carrying around an electric fly swatter in case the mosquitoes started to creep near my upper thighs.
The blessing in disguise is that three German tourists happened to be partying at the same bar, and absolutely loved my tribute to their tennis hero. In between death glances and me covering my junk, these proud gentlemen were always there to cheer me on.
Other than Halloween in Zanzibar, it was a fairly standard week: plenty of work, plenty of learning Kiswahili, and no Internet. As such, I’ve decided to delve into the basics of food here in Zanzibar. As far as mannerisms, men usually eat before women, and most everything is eaten with your hands – occasionally a pain since Muslim cultures designates that you only use your right hand to eat (although you are allowed to use both for tearing apart tougher stuff like chicken).
The food here is wonderful, albeit interestingly different. For starters, you can get plenty of classic food for very cheap: fresh fruits and veggies, bread, eggs, tea, fish and meat. For a premium price, you can get an even wider variety: cereal, chocolate bars, cheese, peanut butter, and even Pringles. Unfortunately, where a loaf of bread costs 30 cents and a small box of cereal costs $6, it’s best to stick to the basics.
Luckily, the basic afford a nice variety of tastes not readily available at home. One simple delight is a fresh dafu, or young coconut, whereby you lop the top off and drink the coconut juice (which hasn’t yet turned into milk). After you finish, the salesman will gut the insides for you for a slimier (but heartier) snack to finish it off. The whole thing costs about 30 cents, and it’s usually a pretty fun social setting right after work.
Another cheap local snack is muhogo, or cassava. Vendors will barbeque these large roots and sell them for between 10-20 cents for what essentially tastes like a baked potato, loaded with spicy salts. It’s a killer snack and locals lose their minds if they see you eating it.
Cashews are supposed to be cheap, but it seems as though they’re only sold to tourists so the prices are quite high. Instead, you can pay five cents for a little bag of fresh peanuts almost anywhere you go. You can recognize the salesmen because they all rhythmically jangle a handful of small coins to attract your attention, then lift a tray full of peanut packs for your convenience.
The list of quick, cheap treats goes on: sliced pineapple, watermelon and jackfruit; pre-bagged popcorn; dates; and incredible sugar cane juice (vendors use these giant steel machines to help extract fresh sugar cane juice, which they strain with ice and serve).
For meals, street food is a beauty. The cheap local favourite is rojo, which is a stew or soup of sorts that literally translates to “gravy” – rather appropriate, since I’m pretty sure it’s the reheated remains of the grease they used to cook their meat skewers. Whatever it is, it’s delicious, and you mix it potatoes, meat, hard-boiled eggs and even salad for about $1 per serving.
A personal favourite, available almost everywhere, is called chipsi mayai. Essentially, it’s a french fry omelette. The chef tosses a serving of pre-cooked fries into a pan, then adds two eggs and cooks it – optionally with pieces of beef or chicken, and always topped with ketchup, spices and salad. A heart attack sandwich, but just so damn good.
Meat is a riskier venture, since cooking it yourself involves selecting your own cuts of meat from the butcher (which usually consists of a guy in a window with a full cow hanging from the ceiling, ready to slice) and there are plenty of fatty pieces in the meat you need to work around. Alternatively, you can buy chicken, but unless you want to pay the premium price for pre-cooked skewers, you’re gonna have to kill and skin that sucker yourself. I’ve convinced myself I’ll do it eventually, but I’m definitely procrastinating.
The other day, my local street food chefs demanded that I roll through with a camera, so we had a pretty wild photo shoot. I’ll post the pictures on Facebook when I get some decent Internet – your guess is as good as mine.
All told, the food is unreal, and if you’re smart you can feed yourself for a week for the cost of one meal at a tourist restaurant. Recently, I started buying potatoes, peppers, carrots, onions and tomatoes in bulk to throw together some mean stirfry, which is entirely easier on the budget – and healthier than eating rojo and chipsi mayai six days a week. It was getting to the point that a concerned group of local fish salesmen were sitting me down and telling me to cut down, since my eating habits would turn me into a buana mvivu (“lazy gentleman”).
What I wouldn’t give for a bag of Sour Patch Kids right now…
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Tourist extremes
First off, apologies to all five of this blog’s faithful readers for the two-week hiatus. The transition to my new office has been unkind to my updating abilities: the pace of work has skyrocketed, and only one computer in my office has Internet access – I usually get a chance to use it once every two days or so.
The past two weeks have been particularly eye-opening, since I was able to see both extremes of the tourism that Zanzibar has to offer. Two weeks ago, I played a serious tourist card and headed south to Kizimkazi, where tourists flock to swim with dolphins. Luckily, we took the early bus and our boat was first on the water, which seriously made the difference.
In the early morning, the turquoise sea reflects the sunlight in a really strange way, and the water glimmers with a metallic texture that reminds you of a computer screensaver. After a ten-minute boat ride, we see two dorsal fins peek above water and our guide tells us, quite casually, to hop in. I throw on a snorkel and some flippers and see a dorsal fin reappear just as I’m jumping in, and I dive underneath to see a massive grey bottle-nosed dolphin diving below me.
I swim 20 metres above him for about a minute, until he finds a group of five other dolphins, who start to spiral around in other, and it looks like they're either wrestling or dancing. I don't really care, because before I know it, all six are barreling towards us and dive out of the sea together. Soon I’m swimming as fast as I can, right in the pack, dodging dolphins six inches in front of me for two adrenaline-pumping minutes. Jellyfish have stung my entire body, but I’m too numb with excitement to feel it.
After that outrageous experience, which already made the daytrip worth its 30-dollar ticket, we ate some lunch and headed to Jozani Forest. Here we hung out with a big crew of near-extinct red colobus monkeys, the highlight of which was when a monkey with an amputated arm tried to steal another monkey's baby. It was painfully awkward and hilarious. Shortly after, we
walked through mangroves during low tide, swung on their incredibly powerful roots for awhile, then headed back into town.
The next day was a five-dollar boat trip to Chunguu Island (Prison Island), which used to house slaves, then eventually a quarantine station for Zanzibar. Now it's the home of a tortoise sanctuary, and for 2 bucks you can play with a few dozen MAMMOTH tortoises whose ages go up to about 185 years. They're actually surprisingly quick and crafty, and one bit off a chunk of my sandal while I was feeding his friend. Soon enough, though, we realized that the trick was to give these guys a big ol' neck massage, at which point these giant beasts just melt and relax.
I paid a cumulative 37 bucks for the entire weekend's activities, which is hardly fair considering the intensity of some of the activities. It was also nice to take a break from speaking Swahili, which is surprisingly exhausting when you're always fumbling over words and trying to piece together broken conversations. Unfortunately, my other tourist extreme highlighted this weakness in all its glory.
Last week, I travelled with two Peace Corps volunteers to the small, isolated island of Tumbatu. This is a place that has been written up in travel guides as a place not to go unless you are fluent in Kiswahili, since the islanders are considered quite aloof and unfriendly to visitors. Their island, however, is an integral part of Zanzibar's history, where Arabian leaders built a giant palace when this little stopover was the capital of all Zanzibar roughly 800 years ago.
The boat ride over was eerily calm, which made the translucent waters indistinguishable from the morning sky except for a smattering of dhows and fishing canoes along the horizon. The island is appropriately dagger-shaped, and giant Baobab trees tower over the palms, keeping an ominous lookout for potential intruders. We pass over waves of coral and beautiful tropical fish, but this is hardly a place to go snorkeling, since not making fools of ourselves is definitely first priority.
Thankfully, my two colleagues have been living in rural Tanzania for the past two years, and Peace Corps volunteers are initiated with three months of intense language training, so they are pretty fluent and handle almost the entire discussion. Our boat driver drops us off around the corner from the main entrance to the village, which only makes us stick our more as we approach the beach to say hello to a group of young men. The first thing they do is take us to the village Sheha (think elder or leader), where we sign a guestbook that informs us we're the seventh people here in the past three months.
The entire trip is awkward, but interesting nonetheless. The village looks like most rural villages in Zanzibar, except that the dirt road is replaced with a road lined with solidified coral and white seashells everywhere. There's not much left of the ruins of the old palace of the Sultan of Zanzibar, or the giant mosque he'd commissioned, mostly because they were also built with coral, which didn't stand the test of time very well. One very cool aspect is that the entire island (of about 14,000 people) has independent electricity thanks to a network of solar panels.
Zanzibar's tourism industry is growing every year (I've read about 20-25% per year despite rising travel costs) and it's easy to see why. There's something for everyone. I've yet to go scuba diving in the many legendary spots (where you can see schools of tuna, giant sea turtles and hammerhead sharks, among others), visit the holding cells of Zanzibar's once-thriving slave market, or go on a spice tour. I figure I'm here for a while, so no rush... besides, I've been trying to eat, speak and live like a local as much as I can, and it's not like the most of the population here have the disposable income to indulge in activities like this! Thanks to rising food prices, the average Zanzibari budget drops about 60% of total income on food. Add rent, clothes and transport (if you can) and there's usually nothing left.
Work has been very interesting: four field visits to schools, a couple of which were in the deep bush (i.e. Dongongwe, with a population of 150) and every trip gives more credit to the work my organization does. In the spirit of keeping single blog posts from turning into novels, I'll cut off here, but since karaoke and beach trips are the only weekend plans, I'll discuss some of the cooler aspects of my work next week.
Also, I've been getting individual requests for topics: mannerisms, food, intensity of religion, etc... so if anyone wants to know anything specific about Zanzibar, I'd be happy to share. There are all sorts of subtleties that I don't think to mention, but it's really some of the more interesting stuff.
Hoping you all have well-thought-out Hallowe'en costumes,
Graham
The past two weeks have been particularly eye-opening, since I was able to see both extremes of the tourism that Zanzibar has to offer. Two weeks ago, I played a serious tourist card and headed south to Kizimkazi, where tourists flock to swim with dolphins. Luckily, we took the early bus and our boat was first on the water, which seriously made the difference.
In the early morning, the turquoise sea reflects the sunlight in a really strange way, and the water glimmers with a metallic texture that reminds you of a computer screensaver. After a ten-minute boat ride, we see two dorsal fins peek above water and our guide tells us, quite casually, to hop in. I throw on a snorkel and some flippers and see a dorsal fin reappear just as I’m jumping in, and I dive underneath to see a massive grey bottle-nosed dolphin diving below me.
I swim 20 metres above him for about a minute, until he finds a group of five other dolphins, who start to spiral around in other, and it looks like they're either wrestling or dancing. I don't really care, because before I know it, all six are barreling towards us and dive out of the sea together. Soon I’m swimming as fast as I can, right in the pack, dodging dolphins six inches in front of me for two adrenaline-pumping minutes. Jellyfish have stung my entire body, but I’m too numb with excitement to feel it.
After that outrageous experience, which already made the daytrip worth its 30-dollar ticket, we ate some lunch and headed to Jozani Forest. Here we hung out with a big crew of near-extinct red colobus monkeys, the highlight of which was when a monkey with an amputated arm tried to steal another monkey's baby. It was painfully awkward and hilarious. Shortly after, we
walked through mangroves during low tide, swung on their incredibly powerful roots for awhile, then headed back into town.
The next day was a five-dollar boat trip to Chunguu Island (Prison Island), which used to house slaves, then eventually a quarantine station for Zanzibar. Now it's the home of a tortoise sanctuary, and for 2 bucks you can play with a few dozen MAMMOTH tortoises whose ages go up to about 185 years. They're actually surprisingly quick and crafty, and one bit off a chunk of my sandal while I was feeding his friend. Soon enough, though, we realized that the trick was to give these guys a big ol' neck massage, at which point these giant beasts just melt and relax.
I paid a cumulative 37 bucks for the entire weekend's activities, which is hardly fair considering the intensity of some of the activities. It was also nice to take a break from speaking Swahili, which is surprisingly exhausting when you're always fumbling over words and trying to piece together broken conversations. Unfortunately, my other tourist extreme highlighted this weakness in all its glory.
Last week, I travelled with two Peace Corps volunteers to the small, isolated island of Tumbatu. This is a place that has been written up in travel guides as a place not to go unless you are fluent in Kiswahili, since the islanders are considered quite aloof and unfriendly to visitors. Their island, however, is an integral part of Zanzibar's history, where Arabian leaders built a giant palace when this little stopover was the capital of all Zanzibar roughly 800 years ago.
The boat ride over was eerily calm, which made the translucent waters indistinguishable from the morning sky except for a smattering of dhows and fishing canoes along the horizon. The island is appropriately dagger-shaped, and giant Baobab trees tower over the palms, keeping an ominous lookout for potential intruders. We pass over waves of coral and beautiful tropical fish, but this is hardly a place to go snorkeling, since not making fools of ourselves is definitely first priority.
Thankfully, my two colleagues have been living in rural Tanzania for the past two years, and Peace Corps volunteers are initiated with three months of intense language training, so they are pretty fluent and handle almost the entire discussion. Our boat driver drops us off around the corner from the main entrance to the village, which only makes us stick our more as we approach the beach to say hello to a group of young men. The first thing they do is take us to the village Sheha (think elder or leader), where we sign a guestbook that informs us we're the seventh people here in the past three months.
The entire trip is awkward, but interesting nonetheless. The village looks like most rural villages in Zanzibar, except that the dirt road is replaced with a road lined with solidified coral and white seashells everywhere. There's not much left of the ruins of the old palace of the Sultan of Zanzibar, or the giant mosque he'd commissioned, mostly because they were also built with coral, which didn't stand the test of time very well. One very cool aspect is that the entire island (of about 14,000 people) has independent electricity thanks to a network of solar panels.
Zanzibar's tourism industry is growing every year (I've read about 20-25% per year despite rising travel costs) and it's easy to see why. There's something for everyone. I've yet to go scuba diving in the many legendary spots (where you can see schools of tuna, giant sea turtles and hammerhead sharks, among others), visit the holding cells of Zanzibar's once-thriving slave market, or go on a spice tour. I figure I'm here for a while, so no rush... besides, I've been trying to eat, speak and live like a local as much as I can, and it's not like the most of the population here have the disposable income to indulge in activities like this! Thanks to rising food prices, the average Zanzibari budget drops about 60% of total income on food. Add rent, clothes and transport (if you can) and there's usually nothing left.
Work has been very interesting: four field visits to schools, a couple of which were in the deep bush (i.e. Dongongwe, with a population of 150) and every trip gives more credit to the work my organization does. In the spirit of keeping single blog posts from turning into novels, I'll cut off here, but since karaoke and beach trips are the only weekend plans, I'll discuss some of the cooler aspects of my work next week.
Also, I've been getting individual requests for topics: mannerisms, food, intensity of religion, etc... so if anyone wants to know anything specific about Zanzibar, I'd be happy to share. There are all sorts of subtleties that I don't think to mention, but it's really some of the more interesting stuff.
Hoping you all have well-thought-out Hallowe'en costumes,
Graham
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Ask your mom or ask your dad
So I’m starting to regret bringing my Macbook to Zanzibar. It’s perpetually dusty everywhere and my fresh white keyboard has turned a grimy shade of brown. I went to plug in a flash drive today and a spider crawled out of the USB port. It’s got me wondering if Apple covers insect-induced short circuits?
Now that Ramadhan is finished, my host organization’s doors finally opened… on the one-month anniversary of arriving in Zanzibar. Luckily, my intern predecessor kept some seriously intricate records of her 8-month internship and it looks like I’ve got plenty of work to do. My main responsibility is writing “profiles” of our network of preschools, which often involves me visiting these schools: hanging out with the kids, listening to their stories, taking pictures and so on… my first school visit is tomorrow.
After writing for Metro, I’ve gotten used to pounding out copy under strict time constraints, so throwing these profiles together shouldn’t take too long. There’s plenty more to be done at ZMRC, but I’m also contemplating a side project.
I think I mentioned earlier that a local study showed that roughly 8% of young Zanzibaris use heroin. With about 65% of the population under the age of 25, that means that up to 5% of all Zanzibaris use heroin. That’s fucked up. The worldwide usage rate is about a dozen times lower.
More fucked up? The product is cut with so much flour that users barely get high and end up spending all their cash just to chase a fix. To help solve this problem, apparently one in ten heroin users in Stone Town have resorted to a gross little technique called “flash blood.” It’s simple: instead of taking out the needle after you take a hit, your friend uses it to extract your blood, then shoots your blood into his arm to get the residue of the dope. As you can imagine, a bit of a risky practice – particularly when HIV rates are rising.
I’ve got to do something about this, but it’s tough to know what. I’ve been trying to contact local organizations who might have some access to these communities: I figure I’m the last person who could convince a broke, homeless addict not to lift off so I’m better off finding people they trust.
Either way, it’s nice to put my work in context, since these madrasa preschools are giving kids a realistic chance to survive a struggling education system and give them opportunities later in life. When the average size of a single-teacher classroom is 100 kids (sharing a dozen textbooks) it’s easy to see why kids have a hard time sticking with it.
Sorry about that... A bit intense. As a change of pace, here’s three things that speaking Swahili did for me this week:
1. A dude I met on the daladala a few weeks ago called me and invited me to Pemba (Zanzibar’s other main island) for the weekend. I couldn’t go on such short notice, so instead he paid for my daladala to his home 20 minutes outside of town and introduced me to his family over a couple of sodas. I’m going there for dinner tomorrow night, and he already introduced me to the chicken we’ll be eating.
2. Stumbled across a place where a bunch of crates of Cokes being were stacked and managed to negotiate a sweet wholesale price - $6.50 for a crate of 24 (restaurants charge a buck a piece).
3. During a normal day of lounging on a hammock at the normally-empty Kendwa beach, a couple of butt-naked local children ran into the ocean, followed by their deaf older brother and eventually the rest of the entire family. After a few sentences in Swahili, I ended up swimming with them, albeit with my bathing suit.
This week’s strange Swahili lesson is a rant on family:
Mama means mother, which makes sense. Kaka means brother. You’d think dada would mean father, but it doesn’t: it means sister. So I figured papa would be father, but that doesn’t fly either because it means shark. Dad is baba. By the time I get around to this, they think my dad is my sister, who happens to be a shark.
First league basketball game tonight! Time to see if our intense, three-hour, water-deprived practices pay off in victory.
Now that Ramadhan is finished, my host organization’s doors finally opened… on the one-month anniversary of arriving in Zanzibar. Luckily, my intern predecessor kept some seriously intricate records of her 8-month internship and it looks like I’ve got plenty of work to do. My main responsibility is writing “profiles” of our network of preschools, which often involves me visiting these schools: hanging out with the kids, listening to their stories, taking pictures and so on… my first school visit is tomorrow.
After writing for Metro, I’ve gotten used to pounding out copy under strict time constraints, so throwing these profiles together shouldn’t take too long. There’s plenty more to be done at ZMRC, but I’m also contemplating a side project.
I think I mentioned earlier that a local study showed that roughly 8% of young Zanzibaris use heroin. With about 65% of the population under the age of 25, that means that up to 5% of all Zanzibaris use heroin. That’s fucked up. The worldwide usage rate is about a dozen times lower.
More fucked up? The product is cut with so much flour that users barely get high and end up spending all their cash just to chase a fix. To help solve this problem, apparently one in ten heroin users in Stone Town have resorted to a gross little technique called “flash blood.” It’s simple: instead of taking out the needle after you take a hit, your friend uses it to extract your blood, then shoots your blood into his arm to get the residue of the dope. As you can imagine, a bit of a risky practice – particularly when HIV rates are rising.
I’ve got to do something about this, but it’s tough to know what. I’ve been trying to contact local organizations who might have some access to these communities: I figure I’m the last person who could convince a broke, homeless addict not to lift off so I’m better off finding people they trust.
Either way, it’s nice to put my work in context, since these madrasa preschools are giving kids a realistic chance to survive a struggling education system and give them opportunities later in life. When the average size of a single-teacher classroom is 100 kids (sharing a dozen textbooks) it’s easy to see why kids have a hard time sticking with it.
Sorry about that... A bit intense. As a change of pace, here’s three things that speaking Swahili did for me this week:
1. A dude I met on the daladala a few weeks ago called me and invited me to Pemba (Zanzibar’s other main island) for the weekend. I couldn’t go on such short notice, so instead he paid for my daladala to his home 20 minutes outside of town and introduced me to his family over a couple of sodas. I’m going there for dinner tomorrow night, and he already introduced me to the chicken we’ll be eating.
2. Stumbled across a place where a bunch of crates of Cokes being were stacked and managed to negotiate a sweet wholesale price - $6.50 for a crate of 24 (restaurants charge a buck a piece).
3. During a normal day of lounging on a hammock at the normally-empty Kendwa beach, a couple of butt-naked local children ran into the ocean, followed by their deaf older brother and eventually the rest of the entire family. After a few sentences in Swahili, I ended up swimming with them, albeit with my bathing suit.
This week’s strange Swahili lesson is a rant on family:
Mama means mother, which makes sense. Kaka means brother. You’d think dada would mean father, but it doesn’t: it means sister. So I figured papa would be father, but that doesn’t fly either because it means shark. Dad is baba. By the time I get around to this, they think my dad is my sister, who happens to be a shark.
First league basketball game tonight! Time to see if our intense, three-hour, water-deprived practices pay off in victory.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The freedom of food consumption
For the first time since I’ve been here, I’m allowed to eat and drink in public.
The Holy Month of Ramadhan, the Muslim fasting season, ended Wednesday. This is a big deal, because I love food. And because it's constantly scorching hot in the middle of the day, and now it's okay to drink water to stay hydrated instead of sneaking sips under my office desk.
My body was dropping health hints to me all week, including a terrifying weekend bout with a stomach bug. I spent all day Friday and most of Sunday making bathroom trips in 30-minute intervals. I figure it happens to everyone once and I'm lucky to get it over with now. I also figure my mind is justifying the awful things my body was doing to me.
Sunday, after getting blackout drunk on Saturday night (which, to be fair, was pretty sober, but Stone Town was suffering from a city-wide blackout), we hit the sandbank again for some swimming and snorkeling. This time, though, we were there for the tides to rise and the island to disappear entirely. It was extremely cool to walk up past the tides as they swallowed the island; the currents came from both sides, and the water pressure cascaded into huge splashes of water that could knock you off your feet. Extremely weird looking back on the boat ride home: the island was gone.
So Wednesday was the beginning of Eid - the celebration that marks the end of Ramadhan. Basically, it's a time to feast and lavish children with toys and money. For the daytime festivities, my friend Giddy invites me to his uncle Juma's small stone hut, hidden in the dusty side streets just out of town. Inside, the one bulb that used to flicker with sporadic light has burnt out, leaving small windows as our only light source. Breakfast is more of an early dessert: we eat six or seven different types of cakes and play with the kids, after which we go our separate ways before a massive lunch feast.
Shortly after 1pm, Juma’s house is packed with relatives and their friends: more than 20 people cram into the room. The heat and sugar attract flies that triple us in numbers. In waves, we sit circles of five or six on a straw carpet and feast on chicken, rice and vegetables. Gidibo’s cousin gives a couple thousand shillings to one of the youngins, and a few minutes later we’re drinking ice cold Cokes and feasting on a rare dessert – chocolate-covered ice cream bars.
Juma privately takes me aside and tells me he's actually impressed with my brutal Swahili and says I'm welcome to practice the language at his home any time. All I have to do, apparently, is knock on the door during the day time and tell them what I'd like cooked for dinner, then just show up at night. What service! His hospitality comes with a warning: that it's easy to watch six months in Zanzibar fly by and learn almost nothing.
“As a matter of fact,” he says (and this is how he starts nearly every sentence) “It is you yourself who will decide how much you learn while you are here… Language is only part of it. Swahili is a rich culture.”
At night, the children gather for a massive festival of food, toys and carnival games (roulette, ring toss, and so on). More than a hundred tents crowd a huge field and kids come to spend their Eid cash on toy guns, dolls, balloon animals. Most of this money has been collected by going door-to-door with a tupperware container in classic "trick or treat" fashion. As the sun sets on the carnival, a bass-pumping children's disco opens up and the kids let loose with some serious dance moves. The party rocks until midnight.
It's a pretty jubilant time to be in Zanzibar. Tourists have been flooding the streets on the "now's the time to come" advice of Lonely Planet & Co., but none of the locals seem to care. Families are content to spoil their kids a little with gifts and fresh new clothes to celebrate a month of religious sacrifice. Women parade the streets in far greater numbers than I've seen since I've been here (sadly, they're usually inside cooking the gigantic evening meal) and their kangas are every colour of the rainbow.
All in all, it's just nice to see everyone smiling. And to be able to eat meat on a stick for lunch.
Seeing people so happy makes me think of home and the things I miss. Other than the obvious ones (my family, Steph, my friends, my dog) there are a few luxuries I feel are worth mentioning.
Things I miss the most, in no particular order:
- Honey Nut Cheerios
- The Office, Entourage and Flight of the Conchords
- Sushi
- More than one towel
- New tunes
- Rock Band
- The unwavering confidence that eating my next meal won’t put me on the toilet for 24 straight hours
- Oland’s
- Jeopardy
- Downtown Halifax
- Dressed like a Mac
- High-speed Internet
- Sour Patch Kids
- Jubilee Junction (ice cream sandwiches and "heaps" of popcorn)
- NBA basketball
On the internet note, I'm not liking my chances of posting any more pictures on Flickr the way I did in my first post. The upload speeds are poison. Instead, I'm just going to start posting weekly albums on Facebook until I find a more efficient solution.
Also, I've decided to conclude posts each week with a one Swahili translation you might get a kick out of. This week's word is:
"NAZI" - Coconut
Peace.
The Holy Month of Ramadhan, the Muslim fasting season, ended Wednesday. This is a big deal, because I love food. And because it's constantly scorching hot in the middle of the day, and now it's okay to drink water to stay hydrated instead of sneaking sips under my office desk.
My body was dropping health hints to me all week, including a terrifying weekend bout with a stomach bug. I spent all day Friday and most of Sunday making bathroom trips in 30-minute intervals. I figure it happens to everyone once and I'm lucky to get it over with now. I also figure my mind is justifying the awful things my body was doing to me.
Sunday, after getting blackout drunk on Saturday night (which, to be fair, was pretty sober, but Stone Town was suffering from a city-wide blackout), we hit the sandbank again for some swimming and snorkeling. This time, though, we were there for the tides to rise and the island to disappear entirely. It was extremely cool to walk up past the tides as they swallowed the island; the currents came from both sides, and the water pressure cascaded into huge splashes of water that could knock you off your feet. Extremely weird looking back on the boat ride home: the island was gone.
So Wednesday was the beginning of Eid - the celebration that marks the end of Ramadhan. Basically, it's a time to feast and lavish children with toys and money. For the daytime festivities, my friend Giddy invites me to his uncle Juma's small stone hut, hidden in the dusty side streets just out of town. Inside, the one bulb that used to flicker with sporadic light has burnt out, leaving small windows as our only light source. Breakfast is more of an early dessert: we eat six or seven different types of cakes and play with the kids, after which we go our separate ways before a massive lunch feast.
Shortly after 1pm, Juma’s house is packed with relatives and their friends: more than 20 people cram into the room. The heat and sugar attract flies that triple us in numbers. In waves, we sit circles of five or six on a straw carpet and feast on chicken, rice and vegetables. Gidibo’s cousin gives a couple thousand shillings to one of the youngins, and a few minutes later we’re drinking ice cold Cokes and feasting on a rare dessert – chocolate-covered ice cream bars.
Juma privately takes me aside and tells me he's actually impressed with my brutal Swahili and says I'm welcome to practice the language at his home any time. All I have to do, apparently, is knock on the door during the day time and tell them what I'd like cooked for dinner, then just show up at night. What service! His hospitality comes with a warning: that it's easy to watch six months in Zanzibar fly by and learn almost nothing.
“As a matter of fact,” he says (and this is how he starts nearly every sentence) “It is you yourself who will decide how much you learn while you are here… Language is only part of it. Swahili is a rich culture.”
At night, the children gather for a massive festival of food, toys and carnival games (roulette, ring toss, and so on). More than a hundred tents crowd a huge field and kids come to spend their Eid cash on toy guns, dolls, balloon animals. Most of this money has been collected by going door-to-door with a tupperware container in classic "trick or treat" fashion. As the sun sets on the carnival, a bass-pumping children's disco opens up and the kids let loose with some serious dance moves. The party rocks until midnight.
It's a pretty jubilant time to be in Zanzibar. Tourists have been flooding the streets on the "now's the time to come" advice of Lonely Planet & Co., but none of the locals seem to care. Families are content to spoil their kids a little with gifts and fresh new clothes to celebrate a month of religious sacrifice. Women parade the streets in far greater numbers than I've seen since I've been here (sadly, they're usually inside cooking the gigantic evening meal) and their kangas are every colour of the rainbow.
All in all, it's just nice to see everyone smiling. And to be able to eat meat on a stick for lunch.
Seeing people so happy makes me think of home and the things I miss. Other than the obvious ones (my family, Steph, my friends, my dog) there are a few luxuries I feel are worth mentioning.
Things I miss the most, in no particular order:
- Honey Nut Cheerios
- The Office, Entourage and Flight of the Conchords
- Sushi
- More than one towel
- New tunes
- Rock Band
- The unwavering confidence that eating my next meal won’t put me on the toilet for 24 straight hours
- Oland’s
- Jeopardy
- Downtown Halifax
- Dressed like a Mac
- High-speed Internet
- Sour Patch Kids
- Jubilee Junction (ice cream sandwiches and "heaps" of popcorn)
- NBA basketball
On the internet note, I'm not liking my chances of posting any more pictures on Flickr the way I did in my first post. The upload speeds are poison. Instead, I'm just going to start posting weekly albums on Facebook until I find a more efficient solution.
Also, I've decided to conclude posts each week with a one Swahili translation you might get a kick out of. This week's word is:
"NAZI" - Coconut
Peace.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Times have changed in Zanzibar
A quick two weeks have flown by in Stone Town and I'm finally starting to catch my bearings.
I started Swahili classes with one Mr. Faruk, who boasts that teaching Swahili is "as easy as eating papaya." The first couple of classes were slow and frustrating, but the pace is picking up a bit and I'm starting to understand how nouns and verbs work enough to throw broken sentences together. It's a pretty beautiful language to listen to.
You actually probably know more Swahili than you think: here's a list of words you might recognize, particularly if you've watched the Lion King recently.
Rafiki - Friend
Simba - Lion
Asante sana (think "squash banana") - Thank you very much
Hakuna matata - No problem
Safari - Travels / journey
Jenga - Build
Kweli (as in our dear friend, Talib) - True
Kwanza - First
Basketball continues to be a grind - they've ditched our rest day on Sunday - but the coach tells me that the intense training is only going to last for the next two or three weeks of preseason. Basically, they're looking to work the boys into game shape, then lighten the practice load a bit to keep everyone fresh. We'll see how slack those runs actually are.
Saturday, we each paid five bucks to rent a boat out to a sandbank off the coast that disappears during high tide. During low tide, it's a killer snorkeling spot, and we lucked out to see a few lion fish, a ton of clownfish and one hilarious octopus that turned changed colours to try to avoid us. The burns on my legs and back are still healing.
The other day, one of my teammates (Gidibo, or "Giddy") invited me to his family's place to break fast. Just before sunset, I hopped on the back of his Vespa and we darted through a few alleys to find a small concrete building. The only light flickered on and off in bursts, so we mostly sat in darkness in a circle on the dusty floor. The food was incredible, and despite my poor Swahili I was treated like a total king.
I spend most of the time feeling like a five-year-old, wandering aimlessly around town and staring at people and things a bit longer than I should out of sheer curiousity. I met with one very elegant, very politically oriented lady named Salma Maoulidi helped school me in the ways that Zanzibar has changed over the years.
For a number of reasons, she says the island has regressed. In the late 19th century, she said, women were revered as leaders: everyone in the family respected them for what they did in the household, and as such they were allowed to work, play sports, etc... Now, obedience and conformity are the expected norm, and the society seems to scorn "variations" rather than celebrating unique and powerful women.
Drugs are another huge problem. I'm told that 8% of young Zanzibaris are full-blown heroin addicts; the product of an island that serves as the midway point for Afghanistan and Pakistan's in-transit dope. Middlemen can take some of the pure, cut it into trash with a ton of flour and sell it on the streets for cheap. In a place where more than half the people live on less than a dollar a day, this habit costs people about eight bucks every day because the high is so superficial. Anyway, rumour has it some of the resorts were put up as fronts to launder the drug money, so I'll definitely be trying to find ways to look deeper into that.
The final issue with Zanzibar, which I'm certain ties into the other two, is the thriving tourism industry. Tourism in Zanzibar grows about 25% per year, which is incredible considering fuel prices. That said, Salma tells me that the living conditions for the average Zanzibari haven't increased in the slightest: in fact, most of the tourism positions at hotels and restaurants aren't even filled by locals because they lack working knowledge of English. Wondering why the government hasn't put vocational training in place? Or why taxes on the profits of a US$700 per night resort aren't somehow filtered back into the social system? Or what those taxes actually are?
"The one thing you need to know about Zanzibar," Salma tells me, "is that nothing is as it seems on the surface. To truly understand this place you need to look beyond the surface."
Guess I've got my work cut out for me.
I started Swahili classes with one Mr. Faruk, who boasts that teaching Swahili is "as easy as eating papaya." The first couple of classes were slow and frustrating, but the pace is picking up a bit and I'm starting to understand how nouns and verbs work enough to throw broken sentences together. It's a pretty beautiful language to listen to.
You actually probably know more Swahili than you think: here's a list of words you might recognize, particularly if you've watched the Lion King recently.
Rafiki - Friend
Simba - Lion
Asante sana (think "squash banana") - Thank you very much
Hakuna matata - No problem
Safari - Travels / journey
Jenga - Build
Kweli (as in our dear friend, Talib) - True
Kwanza - First
Basketball continues to be a grind - they've ditched our rest day on Sunday - but the coach tells me that the intense training is only going to last for the next two or three weeks of preseason. Basically, they're looking to work the boys into game shape, then lighten the practice load a bit to keep everyone fresh. We'll see how slack those runs actually are.
Saturday, we each paid five bucks to rent a boat out to a sandbank off the coast that disappears during high tide. During low tide, it's a killer snorkeling spot, and we lucked out to see a few lion fish, a ton of clownfish and one hilarious octopus that turned changed colours to try to avoid us. The burns on my legs and back are still healing.
The other day, one of my teammates (Gidibo, or "Giddy") invited me to his family's place to break fast. Just before sunset, I hopped on the back of his Vespa and we darted through a few alleys to find a small concrete building. The only light flickered on and off in bursts, so we mostly sat in darkness in a circle on the dusty floor. The food was incredible, and despite my poor Swahili I was treated like a total king.
I spend most of the time feeling like a five-year-old, wandering aimlessly around town and staring at people and things a bit longer than I should out of sheer curiousity. I met with one very elegant, very politically oriented lady named Salma Maoulidi helped school me in the ways that Zanzibar has changed over the years.
For a number of reasons, she says the island has regressed. In the late 19th century, she said, women were revered as leaders: everyone in the family respected them for what they did in the household, and as such they were allowed to work, play sports, etc... Now, obedience and conformity are the expected norm, and the society seems to scorn "variations" rather than celebrating unique and powerful women.
Drugs are another huge problem. I'm told that 8% of young Zanzibaris are full-blown heroin addicts; the product of an island that serves as the midway point for Afghanistan and Pakistan's in-transit dope. Middlemen can take some of the pure, cut it into trash with a ton of flour and sell it on the streets for cheap. In a place where more than half the people live on less than a dollar a day, this habit costs people about eight bucks every day because the high is so superficial. Anyway, rumour has it some of the resorts were put up as fronts to launder the drug money, so I'll definitely be trying to find ways to look deeper into that.
The final issue with Zanzibar, which I'm certain ties into the other two, is the thriving tourism industry. Tourism in Zanzibar grows about 25% per year, which is incredible considering fuel prices. That said, Salma tells me that the living conditions for the average Zanzibari haven't increased in the slightest: in fact, most of the tourism positions at hotels and restaurants aren't even filled by locals because they lack working knowledge of English. Wondering why the government hasn't put vocational training in place? Or why taxes on the profits of a US$700 per night resort aren't somehow filtered back into the social system? Or what those taxes actually are?
"The one thing you need to know about Zanzibar," Salma tells me, "is that nothing is as it seems on the surface. To truly understand this place you need to look beyond the surface."
Guess I've got my work cut out for me.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
A week in the labyrinth of Stone Town
Mambo vipi! Can't say that I love blogs, but I since loathe mass e-mails it makes more sense to let you tune into my stories on your own time. I'm your host, Graham North, and for the next six months I'll be regaling you with tales from the tiny spice island of Zanzibar.
For the most part, my weekly updates will be topical in nature - or tropical, if you will. Each week, I'll be trying to look at one main issue from as many different sides as possible to give you an idea of what life is like here. Sadly, I've only been able to see the island through one lens (a pasty, white tourist lens) so the first post is going to be a naive overview of me getting acquainted.
First off, I'm here to work with the Zanzibar Madrasa Resource Centre, which is the administrative headquarters for a network of 84 community preschools designed to help young Muslims prepare for primary school. For the most part, these kids are usually taught the Qur'an (and not much else), so it helps teach them basic skills such as counting, reading and exploring their environment.
Of course, I won't be too busy for the first month since ZMRC's office is closed for Ramadan, the Holy Month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. Fasting implies no food, no water, no sex. Understandably, energy levels aren't exactly peaking, so the whole place is pretty quiet during the day. Luckily, it's good timing for me to get acquainted with the island and learn Swahili: my organization wants me fluent in three weeks... How do you say "not a chance" in Swahili? I don't know yet.
Stone Town itself is one of the strangest sights I've seen. It's a giant, twisting concrete labyrinth with narrow alleyways that turn every five or ten metres, giving you plenty of opportunities to get lost. Your best bet is to know the direction you go in and try to stick to it - surprisingly harder than it sounds. The whole area is pretty fun to look at from a bird eye's view:
View Larger Map
Luckily, my place is right in the heart of Stone Town, and it's near everything I need: work, the market, the gym, the daladalas (public transport mini-buses) and even the basketball court.
In an attempt to avoid living the expat life, I joined the local basketball team; the Stone Town Yankees. We practice six days a week from 9pm to 11pm (although it usually stretches to midnight). I don't think I know what I've gotten myself into - these guys are doing sprints and pushups and sit-ups for every mistake you make in a drill, and the heat is plain devastating to play in.
When the weekend hits, there's always plenty to do. Sunday we hopped on a daladala to Kendwa beach in the North. It costs five bucks for a round-trip bus ticket to go to this unbelievable beach and hang out all day drinking bottles of Coke and swimming in the Indian Ocean. Locals didn't mind us swimming out to their anchored boats and diving off the top... If you don't feel like making the day trip up North, there's a pretty nice beach called Mtone Marine just outside of Stone Town, and it features some killer sunsets.
That said, Zanzibar is a place that gets an unnecessarily paradise-like reputation because of its beaches and resorts, when in fact the people of the island are seriously struggling. More than half the people here live on less than a dollar a day - that statistic is almost cliche now in developing areas, but think about it: that's one meal a day if you're lucky. Resorts on the East coast are raking in US$500 a night from European tourists and the locals don't see a penny. I'm here to find out more about this and hopefully shed a little light on what can be done.
In the meantime, I'll be fumbling around town with broken Kiswahili trying to make myself stick out less. The Internet is too slow here to upload pictures onto the blog, but I'll put some up on Flickr and keep a link. I'll try to update with some good pictures whenever possible, but there is a cultural belief that having your picture taken steals a piece of your soul, and I hardly think that's the best way to make friends!
Graham
For the most part, my weekly updates will be topical in nature - or tropical, if you will. Each week, I'll be trying to look at one main issue from as many different sides as possible to give you an idea of what life is like here. Sadly, I've only been able to see the island through one lens (a pasty, white tourist lens) so the first post is going to be a naive overview of me getting acquainted.
First off, I'm here to work with the Zanzibar Madrasa Resource Centre, which is the administrative headquarters for a network of 84 community preschools designed to help young Muslims prepare for primary school. For the most part, these kids are usually taught the Qur'an (and not much else), so it helps teach them basic skills such as counting, reading and exploring their environment.
Of course, I won't be too busy for the first month since ZMRC's office is closed for Ramadan, the Holy Month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. Fasting implies no food, no water, no sex. Understandably, energy levels aren't exactly peaking, so the whole place is pretty quiet during the day. Luckily, it's good timing for me to get acquainted with the island and learn Swahili: my organization wants me fluent in three weeks... How do you say "not a chance" in Swahili? I don't know yet.
Stone Town itself is one of the strangest sights I've seen. It's a giant, twisting concrete labyrinth with narrow alleyways that turn every five or ten metres, giving you plenty of opportunities to get lost. Your best bet is to know the direction you go in and try to stick to it - surprisingly harder than it sounds. The whole area is pretty fun to look at from a bird eye's view:
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Luckily, my place is right in the heart of Stone Town, and it's near everything I need: work, the market, the gym, the daladalas (public transport mini-buses) and even the basketball court.
In an attempt to avoid living the expat life, I joined the local basketball team; the Stone Town Yankees. We practice six days a week from 9pm to 11pm (although it usually stretches to midnight). I don't think I know what I've gotten myself into - these guys are doing sprints and pushups and sit-ups for every mistake you make in a drill, and the heat is plain devastating to play in.
When the weekend hits, there's always plenty to do. Sunday we hopped on a daladala to Kendwa beach in the North. It costs five bucks for a round-trip bus ticket to go to this unbelievable beach and hang out all day drinking bottles of Coke and swimming in the Indian Ocean. Locals didn't mind us swimming out to their anchored boats and diving off the top... If you don't feel like making the day trip up North, there's a pretty nice beach called Mtone Marine just outside of Stone Town, and it features some killer sunsets.
That said, Zanzibar is a place that gets an unnecessarily paradise-like reputation because of its beaches and resorts, when in fact the people of the island are seriously struggling. More than half the people here live on less than a dollar a day - that statistic is almost cliche now in developing areas, but think about it: that's one meal a day if you're lucky. Resorts on the East coast are raking in US$500 a night from European tourists and the locals don't see a penny. I'm here to find out more about this and hopefully shed a little light on what can be done.
In the meantime, I'll be fumbling around town with broken Kiswahili trying to make myself stick out less. The Internet is too slow here to upload pictures onto the blog, but I'll put some up on Flickr and keep a link. I'll try to update with some good pictures whenever possible, but there is a cultural belief that having your picture taken steals a piece of your soul, and I hardly think that's the best way to make friends!
Graham
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