holiday in zanzibar

this year i took a holiday and traded easter to celebrate mohammed’s birthday. i have spent the last 9 days on the island of zanzibar, off the east coast of tanzania-an island that is 95% muslim. so while i was sweating more than i ever have in my life, beautifully made up women wore makeup and henna on their hands, feet and face, without it running all over the place while the rest of their bodies were completely covered. i on the other hand, was wearing a lot of sunscreen and attempting to remain covered up and decent.

the holiday began in stone town, the main city in zanzibar. the buildings are beautiful and old. even in our budget hotel we had a bathroom sink carved out of one huge piece of stone. we were staying in what used to be a house for some important man’s harem. there was a beautiful rooftop restaurant where we ate breakfast everyday looking out onto the indian ocean. needless to say, i ate seafood for 9 straight days! a lot of squid, octopus, prawns, mussels, kingfish… anything i could get my hands on that wasn’t chicken. i ate from food markets as well as nice restaurants. i also took advantage of the daily happy hours by ordering amazing cocktails where the mix would include fresh fruit juice. i have also never ate/drank so many mangoes…. basically, the food was amazing. and when food, drink and sunsets are involved you can be certain that jules and i had a very romantic vacation.

in stone town we did a lot of shopping (surprising). we also went on a spice tour where we tried to identify all the spices from the plants, let me tell you, it was difficult. everything smells so much better before it is dried. we walked around in the sweltering heat crushing up leaves and smelling them. we ate a very fragrant lunch of curry with cloves and fish. we than headed to jozani forest, which is a huge forest that is home to the red colobus monkey, a very cheeky animal that is native to that specific forest. jules, myself and our guide walked around looking for the monkeys in the trees. we are trying to be quiet, not wanting to scare the monkeys, when one tries to leap over our heads and misjudges the distance, falling onto the shoulder of our tour guide and nearly taking us all out. thankfully, we didn’t scream to scare him away. so he just looked at us from the ground, shook himself, recovered and climbed onto the tree he had missed on the first attempt.

jules and i also went swimming with dolphins on the south end of the island. this involved putting on all of your snorkel gear and sitting at the very edge of a small motorboat poised to throw yourself overboard as soon as the boat caught up to the dolphins. this was a very exhausting but rewarding process that produced lots of bruises. the dolphins were beautiful underwater and dove very deep. obviously they have mastered swimming a bit better than me so it was difficult to keep up with them… hence getting in and out of the boat multiple times to catch up with them. we followed two around for about an hour before we went snorkeling.

after the south jules and i went up north to a small town called nungwi. we spent five relaxing days there, swimming, lying in the sand, snorkeling, scuba diving and reading in hammocks. really the opposite of landlocked zambia. more seafood and cocktails, including a full moon party that we had to take a midnight sailboat in order to dance the night away (see, every entry has at least one dancing story).

we met lots of really great people on our trip. two south africans (living in dubai) who basically had the same travel itinerary as us mocked jules and i saying that perhaps we should lighten up on the political debates during dinner, after all, we were on vacation. (obviously safe injection sites and legalized prostitution is perfectly acceptable dinner conversation… honestly). we also met a wonderful german girl studying medicine who will hopefully visit us in lusaka. two zanzibari boys were kind enough to show us around and make sure we didn’t get too lost in all the narrow streets of stone town.

so, basically, everyone should go to zanzibar. great food, small cute streets, lots of motorcycles and bikes, seriously blue water, sunsets, full moon parties, random people coming together… perfect beach holiday. and as long as you are travelling with jules and i, we will be sure to bring in the importance of social support and the problems with the world bank. obvs.

livingston-the falls and dance drama

i just got back from livingston, home of victoria falls. i went with the AB (as in abstinence, be faithful) group at UNZA who were going to do some workshops in various schools. (let’s not get me started on the lack of C-condoms-which is a constant battle). we left on sunday and after an eight hour bus ride we arrived in livingston. the bus ride included such informative statements from the students as:  -it is very difficult to get married as a women after you have a degree, it is important to have a very serious boyfriend by the time you are in third year so that at least you are more likely to get married -women with certificates are more attractive than women with degrees  - when i mentioned that i would very shortly have two degrees, the bus was particularly torn. the girls were happy, especially when i said that my idea of marriage includes sharing housework, childcare and bills. but the men were not as sold on my plan, and pointed out that i was in fact unmarried, therefore confirming their theory. ouch.  upon arriving in livingston we went to see the falls. this is apparently one of the fullest falls in awhile, given the intense rainy season. we were given raincoats that i might as well not have taken. the ‘rain’ came from all directions. i couldn’t even call it mist. the water was so intense that i had to keep my eyes closed at times and swallow a significant amount of it that somehow happened to find it’s way into my mouth. we crossed a bridge that must have had a foot of water running across it. it was beautiful if not a little overwhelming. and clearly not many photos were taken as most people feared for the safety of their cameras and other electronics.  the visits to the schools went well. the students are very creative in their approach to HIV prevention and education. their was a dance drama, where one girl danced to a drum while three different suitors approached her, gesturing their various gifts and/or attractive attributes. unfortunately, the girl goes for the sugar daddy (cars, cash, cell phones) and comes back on stage at the end with an std. this got a good laugh from the audience, but i think most people enjoyed it as an introduction.  as usual sexual health myths prevailed. particularly interesting was a completely new myth to me. one young man claimed that hiv positive people should not keep farm animals, as these animals will scratch the hiv positive individual, and than when people go to eat this animal they may contract hiv. my head was spinning after that one. i am pretty sure i failed to keep my ‘neutral’ face while this young man went on and on.  we also had a very nice braii the last night i was in livingston. three kinds of meat, very zambian. the last morning i gave a swimming lesson in the small hostel pool that provided a lot of laughs. all in all it was a great time, although i did get sick, probably from a combination of getting soaking wet at the falls, sleeplessness and too many hours on a bus.    

international women’s day

somehow i have given up my weekend and my ability to sleep in to help organize a sports event for international women’s day. tomorrow two ngo’s in lusaka are hosting a sporting event for women and myself and in’utu are involved. we will start out the day by marching, will hear an address by president mwanawasa, and will continue on to the national sports complex where many different sports and rec activities will be happening. i am looking forward to it, as usually i don’t do much in toronto to celebrate, and apparently the march is a really big deal with lots of women every year.

on the planning committee along with in’utu and i is this major who has provided a lot of amusement. he takes his military position to every facet of work and has both saluted and ‘roger’ed me, very funny and i am never quite sure how to respond. maybe if the event is successful he will give me honorary military status…

i am also going to hear winnie mandela (nelson mandela’s ex-wife) speak tonight. she is a bit of a controversial figure, so i am interested to see how people respond to her. i’m not entirely sure what she is speaking on, but it is somehow related to international women’s day as well i think…

zambian wedding

as i mentioned, i went to a zambian wedding on friday. it actually started on thursday, when, after a not-so-great day, i went out for a beer with two friends, kabanda and kabuswe. now, it being the day before the wedding, there was lots of work to be done and kabuswe (who’s cousin was getting married) asked me if i wanted to tag along to go check out the hall for the wedding. we arrived in a large sports complex, which had been rented for the reception. it was in the process of being decorated in a lot of orange (one of my favorite colours for formal-wear). the best part was that the wedding party was practicing a choreographed dance that would be performed during the reception. i was so excited, one because i love dancing and two because it was choreographed both with adults and children. i watched them practice and couldn’t wait for friday.friday came around and zoe, julianna and i got ready for the wedding at our house. unfortunately, i couldn’t make it to the actual wedding that day as it was during work, but the reception was going to be all evening, followed by dancing out somewhere (and by somewhere, i mean my new home away from home away from home, alpha bar). we arrived at the reception slightly late, as it was pouring and i had to hail a bus we convinced to take us straight to the wedding as-if-a-taxi, as really, we were the only crazy people on the road trying to catch anything in this downpour. needless to say, my hair was less than perfect upon arrival.as far as differences from canadian receptions there weren’t too many. it was really sweet of kabuswe to invite us, and in fact, he had about 6 guests. for a sit down dinner, this would clearly send most brides into a fit in canada. but we ate and listened to a very chatty mc and had a great time. some highlights include when the mc declared the ‘dance floor is open’ and everyone got up to dance, early in the evening, with a lot of lights. i danced with lots of people, including a cute little boy that was in the ‘line up’ aka the choreographed dance that i had chatted with the day before.the wedding ended at around midnight and about 10 or 15 of us headed to alpha in our formal wear to dance into the night. i must have danced from about 10pm to almost 3am in new shoes, shockingly not cutting my feet. (this has to be a record, especially for me).i would post pictures if my internet was not so slow. but for those of you on facebook i think some will be able to make it up soon, probably tagged from others.