Winding It Up

Sorry for the lack of postings over the last month of so - things have been very busy. But busy is good and I am now winding up my travels here in Tanzania. And I will definitely write a more comprehensive summary when I find a better internet connection and a keyboard where every other key doesn't stick...

However, a few things:

I've finished teaching in Jambiani and my math curriculum is done (yay!) - it was really hard to leave the school but I was kind of lucky in that I left right after their first ever graduation ceremony and it was nice to leave on a high note. But teaching was definitely a highlight of this trip and something I will remember forever I think.

My family made it to Zanzibar (looking rather worse for wear). They occupied themselves with day trips out of Jambiani while I finished teaching and then we spent a few days in Stone Town (I think they were a little bit overwhelmed) and now we are on the mainland in Tanzania having just finished a 6 day safari in the south - it was amazing!!! Lions eating dead buffalo, lions eating baby elephant, giraffes fighting, wild dogs sleeping, warthogs running around with their tails in the air, monkeys trying to break into our tent, an elephant brandishing a stick (why it decided that it needed a stick I have no idea) thinking about charging our car (I was terrified and have come to the conclusion that I think elephants are some of the scariest animals out there).

And now we have a day in Dar and then we are heading to London to spend a few days there before heading home.

I don't think I'm anywhere near read to start summing up this trip though (I'm not even really sure that I want to come home to be honest) - but I'm starting to put ideas together and will write when they are more complete (subject to internet conditions, etc.)

Home in just over a week!

Oh Zanzibar Part 2: The Face in the Looking Glass

One of my favorite people in Zanzibar, just about the happiest person I've ever met in my life, is going through a hard time right now. And in some ways it's really illustrating the differences between us.

He believes that his baby is sick - and since he's lost 3 children in the past this is a really serious issue with a lot of history for him.

But not just any sick - he thinks that a wizard has put a curse on his house and this is what is making the baby sick. He saw a black dog outside of his house the night his last baby died - he told me it was a shape shifter that had come to the house with bad intentions.

So he called his brothers to ask for their help and they immediately told him that he needs to get his family out of the house or the baby will die. And so they've gone to town and the last we heard was that they were staying in a small hut full of mud preparing for a 17 day treatment with the witch doctor (and how knows how much such a treatment will cost).

What's heartbreaking is that my Director was over at the house a few nights ago and could see absolutely nothing wrong with the baby. She said that he looked perfectly healthy and that she couldn't see any of the symptoms that they were describing.

And now they're living in a hut in the mud where the baby could very well get sick.

And when we asked why they don't take him to the hospital if they think that he is sick? Because the witch doctor opened his looking glass and showed them the face of the wizard who is doing this to their family.

So what can a hospital do if it's black magic that they're dealing with? What can anyone do really but trust in the systems that you've been brought up to believe in and hope for the best?

Oh Zanzibar...

Interesting Story from about a week ago:

The Minister of Land and Agriculture went on the radio just over a week ago to announce that the people of Muyuni (village in Zanzibar - close to Jambiani) have absolutely no objections to the Government of Zanzibar appropriating a significant amount of land in the village.

This is a country where up until a year or so ago any discussions that were even remotely political were carried out behind closed doors and there was very little freedom of press. The is also the place where the Zanzibari board members of the NGO I'm working for were individually to meet with the village development committee (supporters of the Party in power) asked to account for their actions and literally branded as "enemies". If you had something to say you said it quietly and you looked over your shoulder frequently. The Lonely Planet and Rough Guide books warn travelers against initiating any type of political discussions when visiting Zanzibar.

Things have changed somewhat in the last year as election time approaches (October 2010) and you see more overt signs of support for the opposition party all over the island. But still, there is only one newspaper produced on the island (that had a very health and diverse selection of newspapers prior to the revolution of 1964) and it is government controlled. All of the other newspapers are brought in from the mainland...of course they are all read first and if there is anything that the Government of Zanzibar doesn't like than that paper is simply "not available" that day.

But Zanzibar, being Zanzibar, is a place of contradictions. Censorship is strong, freedom of expression is fairly restricted, but because of the legacy of Socialism on the island this is a place where any citizen can go to the President's Office and demand an audience with the President - and he has to meet with them.

And that's what happened with the case of Muyuni. People from Muyuni went to the President's Office where he did in fact see them. They spoke to him "very strongly about the subject" and in the end the Government had to give the land back to the village.

The people of Muyuni returned to the village where they suggested to the Minister for Land and Agriculture that he don't visit the village for a while...in fact, he shouldn't even use their road anymore as he is no longer welcome in the area. And so now he has to drive the long way around when trying to get to town.

And that's that I guess.

All the people you meet

One thing that I've just recently realized is that I have met some very cool people during my time in Zanzibar. People's whose stories make me laugh...make me stare and sometimes just leave me completely speechless.

I've probably mentioned this before, but while on safari over Christmas who should be run into but the President of Tanzania! Good 'ol Kikwete. Not that it was much of a meeting - we were basically told to stay seated while he was passing through the lobby of our hotel and to avoid making any sudden movements. And while we had to use the picture over the fireplace as a reference to figure out which one from the group was the President, he did say "Hi, how are you?" as he passed. To which we answered: "Hello, we're fine thank you".

Then I have this other friend, he's a volunteer teacher trainer in town. He's from Scotland and essentially, when he was 16 he dropped out of school and joined a gypsy caravan in Ireland. I had no idea there were still gypsy caravans. From there he's traveled, often teaching English as a second language in various countries around the world and now he's here.

The village of Jambiani is also full of interesting people. There's this couple down the beach. They're in their mid-60s I would guess and have just done the most amazing things. The wife is a potter and she's been working with the local women to start a women's pottery cooperative here in Jambiani - giving them support and training. She's also an avid collector of just about anything - shells, hubcaps (which she then decided to make into art by hanging on the cliffs on the side of the highway), and last week when I went by to visit she had a table covered in pumice stones that she had found on a nearby beach. But on top of all that they are currently learning to kite surf (their kite keeps crashing down over our fence), they snowboard, they biked from Cape Town to Cairo (or maybe it was Cairo to Cape Town but either way), they biked the Silk Route from Istanbul to Beijing, and they're leaving Zanzibar in a couple of weeks to stop by home, repack and then bike the entire length of South America (I don't remember which direction they're going in). I can only hope that I will have as many stories to tell someday as they do!

And has anyone ever heard of the Kilimanjaro Marathon? It's basically this crazy international triathlon thing where you have to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro in 6 days, then compete in a 2 day bike race around Kilimanjaro and then finish the Kilimanjaro marathon (42.2km)...well last year's winner happens to be my neighbour! Like out of almost 100 competitors from around the world he won. He's from the village, has no corporate sponsorship, until just recently was riding an old Chinese model bike that had no gears and weighed like 85 pounds or something like that and his current goal is to start a small company where he takes tourists on bike tours around the area - he's an incredible athlete, he won this huge international race, and no one knows who he is. It's kind of unbelievable.

So there they are: a small sampling of the people I've met throughout my time here. Hopefully there are many more to come!

It's not all Margueritas and Mai Tais...

This week I really had my students working hard – in barista class I tried their cappuccinos (which I must say have improved) and I also sat in on their bartending class and tested the marguerites and mai tais that the students are learning to make (best cocktails I’ve had in Zanzibar so far). But then I learned that trying to do up an answer key to a math assignment after testing the products of said bartending class can be difficult. And I learned that watching movies in class with my students is a great way to improve their English comprehension (we watch travel videos so they can work on their tour guide vocabulary). All in all, not a bad week.

But beyond the marguerites and mai tais, I did actually do some academic stuff. We did a lot of math – because I just know that my students just love it so much. But as frustrating as math class can be here, it really drove home a couple of points about education on this island. First, it’s not a priority – some of my students (and mainly in their 20s and 30s) only have the equivalent of around a grade 3 or 4 education level. But many of them have worked in hotels before, some are even managers. They left school early to work and have worked their way up. They’re smart, but in many cases their formal training is minimal. So this means that although they know processes and what needs to get done, many of them cannot multiply fractions…even adding fractions can be a challenge. We’re working with recipes (doubling, tripling, etc) and it can be slow going. None of my students know how to calculate a percentage – which means discounts and taxes are a bit beyond them right now (we’re going to address that next month because it’s kind of important if you’re going to work at the front desk of a hotel).

Now don’t get me wrong. In no way am I belittling my students and their accomplishments in any way. They are the products of a particular educational system and of a society that not even 50 years ago experienced a violent revolution. Some of them literally live in huts in the village – many have no electricity (which can make giving them homework a bit tricky), many have families to support and many have barely been out of their village.

In terms of education here, it’s just a fact that overall, the system does a poor job of preparing students for future careers (partly because they do not have the resources, partly because the teachers themselves have low education levels and are poorly trained and supported, partly because they are using methods and curriculums that were used in England in the 60s – or maybe earlier). First, it does not give them the skills and training they need (the saying around here is “chalk and talk”, aka the teachers write it on the boards and the students copy, memorize and regurgitate). Second, the schools here don’t encourage critical analysis and thought (for those of you with me in some of my classes at university we might be entirely tired of being asked to critically analyze everything but just think where we’d be without it). For example, we were doing decimal multiplication in class this week and I put a problem on the board: 4.1*1.3. My students did the multiplication right, arriving at 533 but were confused about where to put the decimal point. They kept wanting to make it 53.3…So first I’m like: no that’s not right…and they respond with: well that’s the rule we were taught. And I’m like: well think about it you guys…what if I asked you to estimate the answer. Does 53.3 seem like a reasonable answer to the question? My response was blank stares…like: well we did the math and applied the rules we were taught so why wouldn’t that be a reasonable answer? It was amazing. I’ve never encountered anything quite like that before.

But I had a super proud moment when I gave them a math review assignment to do in class on Thursday and, for the most part, sometimes after a bit of prodding, they could do the fraction and decimal multiplications. Some of them can even simplify the fractions (tear) and they now know (and this seriously took two weeks to drill into some of them) that 3/3 is equal to 1. The feelings of accomplishment were almost overwhelming.

And because, after all, this is Africa: we just finished a semester and I now (after 2 weeks of work) have a week’s holiday. Lots of time for marguerites and mai tais on the beach.

Teacher! Teacher!

So as most of you probably know I've finished my contract with the Aga Khan Foundation in Stone Town and after a week off where I learned to scuba dive (very fun!) I have moved to the village of Jambiani on the east coast of Zanzibar to teach for a few months at the Jambiani Tourism Training Institute (JTTI). The Institute is a project of the Hands Across Borders Society which also runs a small clinic on the property.

Now I have never taught before. I have no experience whatsoever in this area. But the timing worked out and I felt that this was an opportunity that I could gain a lot from and so I decided to try it out.

Jambiani is a growing tourist destination and the idea behind the school is that if local residents are given the right skills and training they will be able to take advantage of the jobs that are becoming available. In fact, Jambiani already has a bit of a reputation as a village success story in Zanzibar - one of the few places where the village is actually benefiting from tourism in the area. Some reasons for this include the fact that infrastructure was late to arrive so there are very few big hotel chains and most of the hotels here are locally owned.

So JTTI provides a two-year diploma course in tourism training and students tend to come from the village of Jambiani itself or from nearby villages. Initially, I was going to teach short courses - designed around the core courses to give current and prospective students to opportunity to improve the skills they'll need (mainly English and computers) to complete the diploma course. This being Africa though, of course nothing can go as planned. So upon my arrival I found out that two of the teachers had had to leave unexpectedly and instead of short teachers it would be really great if I could teach the classroom component of the diploma course (there's the classroom component: English, math, computers, Front Desk Agent and Local Tour Guide and the practical component where they do work experience learning service and cooking in the Institute's training kitchen).

Stressful as this was, it was also a really interesting challenge for me. I had never taught a class before and I have to admit that this was something that I was really nervous about. But my first day actually went quite smoothly...I liked teaching and helping students. Of course it helps that none of my classes are that advanced. We're learning (for some) and reviewing (for others) fractions in Math class and we learned to use MS Word in computers last week but in fact the hardest part is keeping up with the lesson planning and making sure that I'm ready for class every day.

The students are engaged though (at least as long as they get to learn on the computers). The first day of the MS Word tutorial it was: Teacher! Teacher! (I think that this is a habit they pick up in school here) every 10 seconds. By the end of the week when I stopped to ask a student how they were doing with their tables and charts I was usually answered with a distracted: yes yes we're fine...we don't need help with anything.

My first day of Math I was asked by a student what 0.75 meant - he understood 0.25 as a quarter and 0.5 as a half but didn't know where 0.75 came from. We're currently re-learning fractions and decimals in that class but it's amazing to see how they pick it up as soon as I make it practical (triple this recipe, here's your shopping list, etc). I think some of them are actually looking forward to learning to calculate percentages because it will help them to calculate taxes and discounts.

In Front Desk Agent (learning important skills for working in hotels and working with guests - kind of like a customer service class) we reviewed the important attributes of a Front Desk Agent. One student told me very seriously that it is important for them to practice their ear contact. I almost asked him to demonstrate but then thought that would be mean.

And so we are learning together. It's really fun to watch them learn new things and then to use them. Sometimes it's a bit sad when you realize that all of the students are in their 20s and 30s and don't know what a fraction is. Sometimes overcoming cultural obstacles is the focus of ongoing work and you're never really sure you'll get there. One student in class has a really hard time looking at me (never mind making eye contact) when he's talking or answering a question because he has been culturally conditioned to never look a woman in the eye when he is talking to her.

I feel that I have as much to learn from all of them as they do from me and this program and after just a week I can already feel the determination building to work with them as much as I have to to make sure they have the skills they'll need when they leave the school to find jobs and I can already feel some the anxiety building that I won't be good enough and that I'll let them down (I'm reading math books in my spare time to learn how to teach fractions - how sad is that?).

When I told people here that I would be moving to Jambiani, the two main comments were: what will you do in the shamba (rural area) and lucky you you're moving to the beach. And yes, I live right on the beach, at high tide the ocean comes right up to the gate. But somehow I don't think this experience is going to be as relaxing as some people (including myself) had thought it would be!

P.S. The picture is the view from my balcony - it's low tide so the water is way out there and you can see people in the tidal zone seaweed fishing.

Changing Seasons

Well, the seasons they are changing here in Zanzibar - we are getting some crazy humidity spikes accompanied by some very promising sounding thunder that really get my hopes up...rain usually brings cooler temperatures. So far though, there's been thunder but very little rain but all of that is about to change. We are entering in Masika, or the rainy season, here in Zanzibar and hopefully this will bring at least some relief from the crazy temperatures we've been experiencing the last couple of months.

And with the changing seasons I changed jobs here in Zanzibar. I've finished my contract with the Aga Khan Foundation and the NGO Resource Centre and I've moved out to the village of Jambiani on the east coast of Zanzibar to teach for a few months at the Jambiani Tourism Training Institute before meeting up with my parents for a bit of safari and then going home.

Almost finished my first week of teaching and so far it's been quite a surprising experience. It's been crazy busy though, learning to teach and getting to know the students, the school and my new environment.

But, for those of you who are interested (and my Mom does tell me that it's more than just her and Dad who read this...) I will continue blogging from the village and give you my impressions of a more rural perspective as well as all the details from this new job. It's barely been a week and I already have stories so that's promising in terms of blogging material. I'll need a couple more days though to get everything sorted and to organize some of my first impressions before writing and solid post but it is coming. (I can just hear you all holding your breaths!)

Expectations

One of the best lessons I ever got on the job (or at least one of the best lessons that was summed up for me into 3 words) was "always manage expectations". This applies not only to the expectations of others (making sure that they are realistic and that you are not just telling them what they want to hear only to have to disappoint them later) but also to your own expectations. Because let's face it, we all expect certain things from certain people in certain situations.

When you travel you tend to focus on your own expectations: What do I want to get out of this trip? What do I think I am going to learn? What do I want to achieve?

But here, on this trip, I'm learning a lot about what others expect from me as a tourist, an expat, a volunteer, and a friend.

A lot of these expectations you can manage - for example we have had no running water at home for the past month and a half. This could have been really frustrating except that this is Africa and you don't really come expecting to have consistent running water. Many shop owners in town expect me to be a tourist and so try to charge me crazily inflated prices. I've found that by throwing in some Kiswahili the moment I walk into a shop, I let them know that I have been around for a while and am not a tourist - this can help to manage their expectations of me. At work my coworkers expect me to have significant levels of computer knowledge - this kind of scared me at first because I wasn't entirely sure what they were expecting me to do. I recently taught a co-worker to use Window's Task Manager - he was suitably impressed with my knowledge and I was secretly relieved that it wasn't anything super complicated.

But what do you do when you can't manage expectations? Because sometimes, people come before you, or things happen before you come, that shape people's expectations of you before they even meet you. The reason so many people think I'm a rich tourist here is because 1. I'm a foreigner, and 2. There are so many rich (at least relatively speaking) tourists in town. I can't change either of these, all I can do is try to manage people's expectations of me by being as up front and honest with them as possible.

Recently, I was visiting villages in Zanzibar to put together community profiles for work. In general these visits involve a lengthy interview with village leaders and members of the local development committees to build a general profile of the village - demographics, water services, electricity, challenges, activities and projects, etc. and then short visits to some of the projects to see how they are progressing and to evaluate what further work needs to be done - so far I've looked at the construction of schools, the laying of pipes and the building of holding tanks for water projects (it was just a hole in the ground?), chicken rearing projects (I almost got stampeded by baby chickens), an animal husbandry project (the cows were super unimpressed by me) and electricity projects (I never thought I'd be so impressed by the construction of poles for electricity).

In one village, we had completed the interview and were visiting some of the projects. I was taking some pictures for the profile documents when in the distance we saw a group of women and children walking towards us. I asked my colleague what was going on and his answer was: "maybe they heard that there was a mzungu* in the village and they want to look at you - maybe they want you to take their picture" (this is quite common - when you go to villages that don't get a lot of foreign visitors you get a lot of people who just want to look at you - this kind of scrutiny is usually exhausting). So we waited for them to approach, which they did - coming to stand directly in front of me. I nervously greeted the older of the women and asked her if there was anything I could do for them. When she didn't reply I motioned to my camera and asked her if they wanted their picture taken. At that, she looked a bit confused and turned to speak to my colleague. Following a brief conversation between the two of them, my colleague motioned to me to come over and told me that they had heard that there was an mzungu in town and had assumed that I was a doctor. And that was why they had brought all of these kids to see me.

I have to admit that this was one of the more intense situations I'd found myself in since coming to Zanzibar. Based on limited information about and experience with foreigners these people had not only assumed that I was a doctor but had brought children with them that they expected me to look at. Not only had I in no way actively encouraged these expectations but now I was put in a position where I had to disappoint them. I was actually pretty upset, thinking that they had brought these sick children for me to look at and I couldn't help them at all. A friend later told me (and it's possible that he was just trying to make me feel better) that because a lot of villages in the area don't get visits from doctors very often, when the community hears that there is a doctor in the village they will bring children to see them for a check up - so it could be that the children weren't sick. But still.

Expectations can be hard - your own and those of other people. You try not to have unrealistic expectations and you try to make sure that you are honest about what people can expect from you...but sometimes you just can't. Sometimes you’re not given the opportunity to manage expectations and then, inevitably, someone is disappointed – most often yourself.

*Mzungu: foreigner, usually of general European descent.

It's the Little Things

One thing about being away from home for an extended period of time is that that you really begin to notice how much the little things matter.

Whether it's an email from the family - just a small message to stay in touch or a letter from a friend that arrives in the mail, these things can really make a huge difference. Especially on days where you were bothered on your way to work...it's been pouring rain and you're soaked...they've decided to cut off electricity to the entire island for a weekend to conserve power...or you've had no running water in the house for 2 weeks...these small gestures can really turn a whole day around.

And I'm finding that it also works the other way. Letters written home to friends and family get way more of a reaction than they would if I was still there...a phone call to my grandma can make her whole day.

I'm getting into the last month of my contract here in Stone Town, and while I won't be coming home for a while yet I figure it's as good a time as any for a little reflection. Next month I'll be moving to the east coast of Zanzibar to the village of Jambiani where I will be teaching at a Tourism Training Institute for a few months (I'll be teaching customer service for those of you who read my last post!). And then likely I'll be heading home in June.

So I'd just like to say Thank You to all of you who've written to me, sent letters, made phone calls, commented on pictures...it's really meant the world to me and in many ways made this trip possible (because I really don't know if I would have lasted this long without your support!).

Customer Service

Understandably (I guess) customer service standards vary from place to place. Here in Zanzibar we've noticed one consistent trend...it's SLOW! Which I have to admit, sometimes works in your favour. For example: Livingstone's has free wireless but if you're going to go in a use it you usually feel obliged to buy at least a soda or something like that. Now Livingstone's isn't cheap. While it's still only around $1 for a soda, tea will run you $3 and everything else is that or more. So it's always nice when you go in, set up your computer and work for an hour or sometimes more...and they never get around to coming over to see if you want anything. Can't really complain about that! Unless of course you were wanting to splurge on their pumpkin soup (which is not bad I must say although not as good as my Dad's).

Another great time was Migombani...where to be fair we had a large party so I guess the order might have been a bit confusing. But Migombani is a local place so it's not like we were ordering anything more complicated than chicken and chips. Anyway, after waiting 2 hours for our food (half expecting someone to come in with a bag of potatoes to make into chips - or a live chicken from the farm for the main course) the food finally arrives but is all mixed up. And they had an extra order of unidentified meat with chips. Now usually you just say "I'm sorry but we didn't order this" and they take it away...but not here. At first our waiter refused to take it back, insisting that someone take it and pay for it. When no one wanted the extra food he then stood by for a full 15 minutes just holding it waiting for someone to volunteer. Now I understand that this isn't really his fault, I'm guessing that he would have been in trouble with the establishment or having an extra plate cooked. But it does go to show the difference in business styles.

Another story was at a very nice restaurant (that out of courtesy shall remained un-named). Basically a cockroach came out of the mustard while someone was trying to put condiments on their burger. We called the waiter over and his response was: "we're very sorry and we'll try not to let it happen again". To which we replied: "I think you're going to have to do better than that". Now again, if it had been a local place than we might have let it go...but that burger cost around $12 so I have to admit that we expected a bit more. We did finally talk them into giving us a discount on the burger but it took some argument.

And finally, a friend was shopping in the market...at our local favorite veggie stall and the vendor asked her if she wanted some more okra. She said no as she'd already bought a pile but he insisted saying that they were no charge. So she said okay why not and he gave her a few pieces of complimentary okra. Why were they free? Well they were curly.

I guess in a town where you can try to talk your way out of mustard with a cockroach in it...you just can't talk people into buying curly okra.

Coming down from the holidays

Well first off (and sorry that this is so late), I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and I wish you and your families all the best for 2009.
My own holidays were a lot of fun, if somewhat unconventional – at least based on my own past experiences. Usually Christmas involves waking up early, opening presents by the tree with my family, watching my Dad cook dinner, maybe some napping, playing board games with my sister and cousins, and then perhaps a walk before dinner. After dinner we’re usually all almost comatose from too much turkey and trifle and so we sit by the fire and make small talk or just enjoy a companiable silence.
This Christmas, well to start, it definitely didn’t feel much like Christmas at all. Maybe due to the crazy beautiful beaches we spent it on, maybe due to the 30+ degrees weather…Who really knows but I have to say that since this was my first Christmas away from my family and friends I think the fact that it didn’t feel like Christmas made it a lot easier. But anyhow, I went up to Mombasa, Kenya to visit friends for Christmas and we spent a lovely Christmas day eating an amazing brunch and then lounging by some pools (the hotel we were hanging out at had 4 pools to choose from – one with a waterslide!). After swimming, while we were regrouping in the lobby we were serenaded by a local choir who sang Christmas carols which was really nice.
After Christmas, myself and 3 friends headed to Arusha in Northern Tanzania to start our safari (my Christmas present to myself). The bus company assured us that it was a 7 hour ride, so we budgeted for around 8…and we still ended up getting in Arusha super late (9 hours or so later). Our safari guide was almost frantic because we were staying in the park area and they close their gates at 6pm and it’s a 3 hour drive from Arusha to the park…they ended up calling me to ask what bus we were on and then driving around Arusha to find our bus and pull it over to get us off and into the safari vehicle. Definitely a good way to start the trip. But we made it through the park gates in time (with 5 minutes to spare).
There was a bit more drama when we arrived at our hotel. We had just finished our debrief with our guide to go over the plan for the next day’s game drive and were getting up to go to our rooms to clean up for dinner when the hotel staff came up to us and asked us not to move. When we asked why they told us that the President of Tanzania was coming in and they didn’t want people wandering around the hotel while he was in transit. We asked if we should stand up or anything when he entered the room and were basically told to keep as still as possible and to avoid making any sudden movements – but no pressure or anything. Anyway, so the President walks in with an entourage of like 20 people (we’re frantically looking between his group and his picture above the fireplace trying to figure out which one is him) and he says Hello to us and asks us how we are…we responded with Hello, yes we’re very well thanks (great conversation!). And then he was gone – no one would tell us what part of the hotel he was staying in or anything like that.
Dinner that night was fabulous (they had Camembert cheese! -definitely a highlight of the holidays) and then it was a pretty early night. The next day’s game drive was spectacular – we saw lions, one cheetah, foxes, one jackal, hyenas, flamingos, zebras, buffalo, wildebeest, one elephant, warthogs, the national bird of Uganda (can’t remember what it’s called) and hippos. The Ngorongoro Crater is spectacular though – the colours in that place are absolutely amazing.
The next day we went to the Arusha Reptile House where we got to look at snakes and crocodiles and tortoises. And then it was off to the airport and back to Zanzibar. New Years in Zanzibar was fun – everyone (minus Nadim) who had been in Mombasa came down to celebrate. We partied on the beach to ring in 2009. Celebrations included some hilarious attempts with some seriously flawed hot air balloons.
And now it’s back to work, but to the old routine…I think that’s why it took me so long to update the old blog. Coming down from the holidays is always tough. But (strangely enough) it’s nice to have things back to normal and the New Year always gives you a bit of a new perspective. I guess it’s time to start looking into what I want to do next – because at some point this year (I think) I do have to come home and find something else to do…