Zanzibar!

While in the midst of Malaria mayhem, I had to decide whether or not to go ahead with plans to take a three day trip to the island of Zanzibar. I decided to go for it about two hours before boarding the plane and it turns out that the Indian Ocean is the perfect cure for whatever malaria-like malady I had.

I left at about 5:30am on Friday morning with 4 other girls (Brittany, Holly, Katie and Meghan). We flew for about an hour before touching down on the island of Zanzibar, right off the coast of Tanzania. It was until recently its own nation but is now a part of Tanzania. The first day, we wandered around Stone Town which is the old part of the big city on the island. Zanzibar is about 95% Muslim and is quite different from the mainland. The Arabic heritage is quite noticeable in the people, in how the act, dress, and look. We toured a Church that was built by Livingstone on the spot where the whipping post used to be in the old slave market. Slaves were taken from Zanzibar mostly by Arabic traders who sold all over the world. We got a tour from a man who looked identical to Morgan Freeman. He took us down into the holding cells for the slaves, where 50-75 people were crammed into an unbelievably small space. It was all I could do to keep from passing out, a combination of the circumstance and not feeling so hot. It was really an interesting tour and grounding to remember the slave trade, something tourists often forget about in these regions. I spent the remainder of the afternoon restaurant hopping, not feeling up to wandering the streets. At 3 our hotel came to pick us up and we traveled for about an hour to the other side of the island to where all the famous beaches are.

Friday and Saturday were spent lying in the sun- varying only my reading material and what I was sitting upon (beach, hammock, or chair). The water was absolutely incredible, so warm and clear and green and blue. On Sunday, we went for a day long snorkeling adventure. We were in this small wooden boat with two guys who run these sorts of trips for the hotel we were staying at. The water was pretty rough and the trip was about an hour and a half but we made it to a coral reef. This reef is a UNESCO protected site and was really beautiful, although there were a lot of tourists. We snorkeled for a couple hours. I wore a life vest because I was feeling pretty tired and it was just so great, and also a bit bizarre, to be floating over so much life. We saw schools of all sorts of fish of every different color, sea urchins, and sea stars. We didn't get to see dolphins or turtles, which I was bummed about, but it was still really cool. When we asked what was for lunch, one of the guys reached into the bucket he was sitting on and pulled out a half scaled bloody fish. For lunch the guys made us the tuna fish on board and a great salad and fresh fruit. It was really really really really tasty. Although cooking by fire on a wooden boat made us all kinda iffy. We swam and played in the sun until it was time to come back to Moshi town. It was a bit of a shock coming back to the reality here after being a tourist for the weekend. The people in Zanzibar weren't as friendly as those here and I wonder if that is because they resent the tourists who come in and parade around in their swimsuits (something very much against custom) and flaunt their money at high end estates. I am really happy that while I got the opportunity to play that for the weekend, I am also able to live here in this community as a volunteer and not a tourist.