Walking to school everyday is a seemingly usual thing, but it does show a lot of the life in Zanzibar I have been living with. The main roads are paved, but not the ones leading between houses, apartments, and around parks. These are dusty and full of garbarge. There is no well established waste management system to go door to door like in the states, so people just thrown their garabage out in piles on the ground. About once a week a pile is loaded into a metal box where it is then burned up. It's not the most ecofriendly way to do it, but it gets rid of the garbage for a day or two, before another pile begins. Along this walk, we also get shoots of "Harbari?" (How are you?) "Mzungu!" (Word used to identify white people) and "Hello!" from kids making their own way to school. Walking to school also involves walking over roads that do not have painted lines or traffic speed sign. People cross when they can and traffic continues to flow. Roundabouts are also a very big thing here, enabling traffic to keep moving in a systematic way without having to use stop lights. Walking is overall the easiest way to get where you want to get the fastest. There are a labyrinth of allies that lead to shops, coffeehouses, and the beach that are quicker than going around in a taxi that will charge you the Mzungu price instead of the local price.
Shopping is alot more fun here than in the states. You walk into a cut out of the wall place and barter to get the lowest deal. Because I am white, the price always starts out higher than normal, but a little Swahili can go a long way in making sure you get the best deal. There are lots of shops full of paintings, flipflops, and articles made out of kangas. The street markets where they sell fresh vegitables, fruits, and spices, are also fun to walk around. Some of the products I have seen before, but most I have not. THere is also a fish market where stalls are set up with people hacking or stacking fish. A chicken market is behind that where twenty or so chickens wait under a woven basket to be sold. People in the market are always very friendly and you need to be warry to make sure you keep you camera at a tight hold.
Fashion here is so wonderful here. Women wear black robes (buibui) and very colorful scrafs. Occaisionally the robes will have shimmering designs along the cuffs and on the back some. The headscarfs are tight to thier faces conceiling all their hair underneith. Men typically wear jeans and a shirt with a Muslim hat on top. There are also some men who wear more modern clothes like shorts, but that is usually just for swimming or playing football. You can pretty much assume that if I woman's head is uncovered and a man has shorts on they are tourist.
Entertainment is pretty similiar to the states. On the television there is a news station in Kiswahili that is kindof hard to understand and follow allong, but thankfully thier headlines are very informative and in English (kingeresa) so that helps. There is also a channel that only shows movies so I have watched a variety of movies in the evenings with the family. There is also Nat Geo Wild which is in English with Arabic subtitles that the kids and I watch often for the cool animals. Even though there are two young kids in the house, there are very little toys. This leads to playing with the same ones over and over again, or just playing games that don't involve objects like tickling or singing a song with motions called "Si Mamma, Kaa"(Stand Up, Sit Down) that exorts a lot of energy!
These are just some of the usually things that my life on Zanzibar consists of.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
There's Lots to Learn...And It Isn't Always Easy
Since I last posted, I've attended three four hour long Swahili classes, lecture at a different school, been partnered up with a conversation partner, and a day at a spice farm. All in all this leads to tons and tons of great learning opportunities both academically and personally. If learning was easy we would all do it, but this week it's been a mixed lot on how " easy" something is.
Swahili is a fascinating language. It mostly comes from Bantu tribes found in Tanzania, but also has an Arabic influence from traders coming down the shipping routes centuries ago. Just like with any other language one needs to be aware of tenses, vocal and tons of devices used to make a coherent sentence. This week we have learned the tense for when something is always done the same everyday, and how to make a clause ( when you go to store,....). Both of which are really important, but it is starting to get confusing on what to put where. Although I continue to love to learn, it is tricky to put parts in the right order. Overall though, my teacher (Mwalimu)is really good and helps sort out all the quirks one might have.
On Tuesday afternoon, we went to the Univeristy of Dar-es-Salaam Marine Biology school for a lecture on coral reefs. This was really interesting. Did you know that coral is actually an animal? Loss of coral reefs is a really big problem off these shores as individuals are using distractive fishing methods(dinamite for example) or putting pollutants in the water. There is also problems with water becoming to acid-y for the coral to be able to grow. It was really interesting and see how we are all connected and need to take care of the Earth we were put in charge of taking care of.
Also on Thuesday afternoon, we met up with conversation partners that SUZA assigns for us to practice talking for an hour. Besides being half sleep deprived from too hot temperatures and tired from walking all over, this was another challenging learning experience. Although I've been studying Swahili for awhile now new words are always brought up leading to halts in actual conversation and sometimes miss communication in language gaps. It isnfrustraing to be half confident going into the hour and coming out feeling that you actually don't know anything. But in that frustration is also the greatest challenge: Either you can give up and decide you weren't ever actually any good at it, or you can step up to the plate and continue to take the pitches. I can't give up. Not when I feel this is what God wants me to do with my life. So, even if I occasionally get hit by a pitch or strick out, I will continue to keep going to the plate and working hard.
Today we went to a spice farm. Here I learned that cloves(karafoo) will make your tongue/mouth numb if you eat even a little bit, there are four different types of pepper corn, There is this fruit called darran that smells like rotten eggs and tastes lice ice cream, nutmeg is fist a black seed that has red mace around it inside a tennis ball shape pod and it takes along time for a coco bean to become chocolate. Throughout it all, it was crazy to think how each one of these plants (besides coconut) were first imported into Zanzibar. It all goes to show that our influence may last around for a while.
This week has been hard. Tomorrow I go back to class to learn something more and will talk again with my conversation buddy. I still have homework to do that will take awhile and more vocabulary to learn. Learning is not always easy, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't do it. If I have learned anything about learning, it is that the hardest learning is often that which you remember you remember the longest because you had to struggle to get it.
Ps if you want to know about something specific I am learning or experiencing on this wild safari I am on, please let me know either in comments, Facebook or email.
Swahili is a fascinating language. It mostly comes from Bantu tribes found in Tanzania, but also has an Arabic influence from traders coming down the shipping routes centuries ago. Just like with any other language one needs to be aware of tenses, vocal and tons of devices used to make a coherent sentence. This week we have learned the tense for when something is always done the same everyday, and how to make a clause ( when you go to store,....). Both of which are really important, but it is starting to get confusing on what to put where. Although I continue to love to learn, it is tricky to put parts in the right order. Overall though, my teacher (Mwalimu)is really good and helps sort out all the quirks one might have.
On Tuesday afternoon, we went to the Univeristy of Dar-es-Salaam Marine Biology school for a lecture on coral reefs. This was really interesting. Did you know that coral is actually an animal? Loss of coral reefs is a really big problem off these shores as individuals are using distractive fishing methods(dinamite for example) or putting pollutants in the water. There is also problems with water becoming to acid-y for the coral to be able to grow. It was really interesting and see how we are all connected and need to take care of the Earth we were put in charge of taking care of.
Also on Thuesday afternoon, we met up with conversation partners that SUZA assigns for us to practice talking for an hour. Besides being half sleep deprived from too hot temperatures and tired from walking all over, this was another challenging learning experience. Although I've been studying Swahili for awhile now new words are always brought up leading to halts in actual conversation and sometimes miss communication in language gaps. It isnfrustraing to be half confident going into the hour and coming out feeling that you actually don't know anything. But in that frustration is also the greatest challenge: Either you can give up and decide you weren't ever actually any good at it, or you can step up to the plate and continue to take the pitches. I can't give up. Not when I feel this is what God wants me to do with my life. So, even if I occasionally get hit by a pitch or strick out, I will continue to keep going to the plate and working hard.
Today we went to a spice farm. Here I learned that cloves(karafoo) will make your tongue/mouth numb if you eat even a little bit, there are four different types of pepper corn, There is this fruit called darran that smells like rotten eggs and tastes lice ice cream, nutmeg is fist a black seed that has red mace around it inside a tennis ball shape pod and it takes along time for a coco bean to become chocolate. Throughout it all, it was crazy to think how each one of these plants (besides coconut) were first imported into Zanzibar. It all goes to show that our influence may last around for a while.
This week has been hard. Tomorrow I go back to class to learn something more and will talk again with my conversation buddy. I still have homework to do that will take awhile and more vocabulary to learn. Learning is not always easy, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't do it. If I have learned anything about learning, it is that the hardest learning is often that which you remember you remember the longest because you had to struggle to get it.
Ps if you want to know about something specific I am learning or experiencing on this wild safari I am on, please let me know either in comments, Facebook or email.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
25% Complete
Some things I've really learned in the past month...
1. Food isn't bad just because it is different
Over the past month, and really the past week, I have come to realize that good food depends on how it is prepared and accepted. Oh of the yummiest things I have had is a banana soup, that has bananas in it, but has the broth of something else. It may be hard to explain, but boy how good it is. However, I have reaffirmed my stance that I do not like salt in my fried eggs, but even that adds to the experience.So, although I do have cravings some time for a good ol' fashion American dish, I am excited and eager to eat all that this experiences offers. I mean, how hard is it to each fresh mangos every meal!?
2. Style isn't oppressive just because it is different
In Tanzania it is highly offensive for a woman to show her knees. This has open up a whole new adventure on the way of a kanga. A kanga is pretty much a piece of fabric with a saying on it (kitangas don't have saying) that you can tie around your waste and presto! Knees are covered! At first this was hard to get used to, but now I am realizing that it is the style that is apart of the culture here. It isn't wrong just a different way at looking at things.
3. Nature is pretty fantastic everywhere.
Today we walked over coral in a forest that had monkeys in it! There are plants there that are not for humans, but worked perfectly to sustain the animals living on the branches. There were vegetarian crabs feasting on lime green leaves, big fat juicy ants that are probably satisfying to the elephant shrews that suck them up their noses, and people from all over the world looking at them. How cool is that!?!
4. Assumptions are downfallers.
Right before I came here, I wrote down assumptions of Africa on a piece of paper, folded it up and stuck it in a box to be packed and forgotten for four month.Oh how thankful I am for doing so. I have been able to adjust and appreciate the culture far more than others on the group because I don't view it first through American glasses. The trickiest thing is still time, but I feel so comfortable working on African time that I am not sure how it is going to be to adjust back to fast paced American time. Some assumptions I have seen knocked down: everyone here has cell phones, there are red clay mud huts, but there are also six story apartment buildings, I have yet to see anyone eat insects, a high majority of the people speak English and there are not that many beggars on the streets.
5. Religion is a part of life.
99.8% of Zanzibar is Muslim. Seven times every day I hear prayers echoing off speakers. Next door to us is a place where children come and sing prayers. Men, women, girls and boys all dress the proper way. On Sunday was a parade for Phrophet Mohammad's birthday. Religion is what you make of it. On Sunday I went to a Swahili speaking Catholic church. The other night when Ashley was out, I had my own little Hosanna time with music, Bible, and prayer. Oh how great it is to be free to worship God anywhere. It may be dominately Muslim here, but that doesn't mean the people are bad. People here are so nice and have yet to ask what religion I am. It's interesting how religion is honored throughout different parts of the world.
6. It really isn't that big of world.
For most of my life I have been living 11 hours previous to where I currently am and thinking that is where it is at. How awesome it has been to realize that there are people all over the world still awake and working and at different parts of the day. I have also seen how America and other countries have influenced this small island. When that is realized it is easy to see that we really do live on a small world and we need to be aware of it. There is a lot more to just the here and now wherever you may be.
Well, that is just some of what I've learned. Here are some pictures of what I've experienced in the last week of so.
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| Crazy python picture! |
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| This is Ellie my elephant enjoying a day at the beach. This is typically where we go after class for a swim! |
Holding a little turtle! Also, this is a kanga around my waist!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Tropical Island
I lie on my back peaceful and calm as my body cools slightly to the water. My skin has been kissed by salt causing my skin to feel slightly tight. Avove the soft white sand and groves of banana trees there is a wonderful blue sky. Wood boats, mostly empty, idolly bob in the clear blue water around me. I swim on. Surprised that I am unsinkable in the dense salt water. Ah life on a tropical island.
But out of the water, life is a busy swarm of images. All of them vivid and alive and wanting your attention.
There is the House Of Wonders with it's massive white pillars three stories high. From the porch high above in the wind, I have seen across this bay and to the other side of Stonetown. Inside I have learned the history of the many roads that I have traveled so far.
Forodhani is currently just empty lawn where people mingle and meet in the shade looking out over the water, but come tonight it will be a bustle of comotion. Sailors come and prepare their fresh caught prizes and sell them to anyone needing some dinner. Under the glow of their tables' lantern crab, shark, lobster, and different kinds of fishes lay waiting to be eaten. The Zanzibar Mix soup is amazing. And whatever you do, do not forget the sugar cane juice that is squeezed right before your eyes. Oh how wonderfully sweet and tangy it is.
If you take a doladola (kindof like a hippy van that has been changed into local bus transportation) about ten minutes out of town there is a wonderful zoo. For 10,000 TZS ($1 = 1570 TZS) you can go in and pet/hold giant turtles, have a python wrap around your next to constrict with camera flash, scratch a hyenna behind the ear to make it laugh, feed monkeys, ride a tall camel and see zebras, waterbuffalo, horses, chickens, cows, foxes, vultures, spiders, aarvarks, porquipines, and oh so much more! Oh what a fun afternoon that was!
Ofcourse the mornings are devoted to learning more Kiswahili at the State University of Zanzibar. In a classroom with old wooden desks, a chalkboard, not fitted linoleum, and two fans, we learn from Mwalimu Omar. The language is amazing and starts to make sence. It is when we go out and start using the language that it really starts to come alive. From bardering in the market over prices of fruit, to just introducing self to someone else, it is amazing what doors language can open.
My host family this month is quite different than my last one. This family is Indian ethnically, but concider self to be African in nationality. They do not eat together, and love to show hospitality to all. There is a little boy named Mohammed that is three and so cute. He does occasionally mix kiSwahili, engligh, and Indian together in a sentence which is sortof hard to understand. Khiriat (pronounced: hi-rat) is six and so much fun to talk to in kiswahili with.
Sophie, our mom, is really nice, though is a little demanding and doesn't except "No thankyou" as an excuse for anything. Hamin, is a buisness man who isn't usually at home, but is fairly nice and easy to talk to.
Yes, it is very hot and humid here in Zanzibar. Yes, 99.8% of the island is Muslim. Yes, the food is overall pretty good. I can't wait to see what else this island has to offer as we have a very busy schedule planed ahead. But as for right now I am going to sign off and go jump in the Indian Ocean!
But out of the water, life is a busy swarm of images. All of them vivid and alive and wanting your attention.
There is the House Of Wonders with it's massive white pillars three stories high. From the porch high above in the wind, I have seen across this bay and to the other side of Stonetown. Inside I have learned the history of the many roads that I have traveled so far.
Forodhani is currently just empty lawn where people mingle and meet in the shade looking out over the water, but come tonight it will be a bustle of comotion. Sailors come and prepare their fresh caught prizes and sell them to anyone needing some dinner. Under the glow of their tables' lantern crab, shark, lobster, and different kinds of fishes lay waiting to be eaten. The Zanzibar Mix soup is amazing. And whatever you do, do not forget the sugar cane juice that is squeezed right before your eyes. Oh how wonderfully sweet and tangy it is.
If you take a doladola (kindof like a hippy van that has been changed into local bus transportation) about ten minutes out of town there is a wonderful zoo. For 10,000 TZS ($1 = 1570 TZS) you can go in and pet/hold giant turtles, have a python wrap around your next to constrict with camera flash, scratch a hyenna behind the ear to make it laugh, feed monkeys, ride a tall camel and see zebras, waterbuffalo, horses, chickens, cows, foxes, vultures, spiders, aarvarks, porquipines, and oh so much more! Oh what a fun afternoon that was!
Ofcourse the mornings are devoted to learning more Kiswahili at the State University of Zanzibar. In a classroom with old wooden desks, a chalkboard, not fitted linoleum, and two fans, we learn from Mwalimu Omar. The language is amazing and starts to make sence. It is when we go out and start using the language that it really starts to come alive. From bardering in the market over prices of fruit, to just introducing self to someone else, it is amazing what doors language can open.
My host family this month is quite different than my last one. This family is Indian ethnically, but concider self to be African in nationality. They do not eat together, and love to show hospitality to all. There is a little boy named Mohammed that is three and so cute. He does occasionally mix kiSwahili, engligh, and Indian together in a sentence which is sortof hard to understand. Khiriat (pronounced: hi-rat) is six and so much fun to talk to in kiswahili with.
Sophie, our mom, is really nice, though is a little demanding and doesn't except "No thankyou" as an excuse for anything. Hamin, is a buisness man who isn't usually at home, but is fairly nice and easy to talk to.
Yes, it is very hot and humid here in Zanzibar. Yes, 99.8% of the island is Muslim. Yes, the food is overall pretty good. I can't wait to see what else this island has to offer as we have a very busy schedule planed ahead. But as for right now I am going to sign off and go jump in the Indian Ocean!
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