The Everyday Usual

  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.