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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