Hi everyone, hope all is well. Sorry I haven’t written in a while, it’s been
a busy few weeks! Was in the village of
Nungwi in Zanzibar for two weeks until September 12th and spent one
last night in Stone Town before flying out.
Bought my return ticket to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania from an agent in
Stone Town and got a nice “resident’s rate” since I am currently a Tanzanian
resident for another month or so per my volunteer visa. Only $35 USD, nice! After my first week of yoga at Flame Tree
Cottages I moved down the beach a bit to Casa Umoja, a guest house in a nice
garden about 100 meters off the beach.
Clean and cheap! The second week
in Zanzibar was just as great as the first for the most part. Three other women joined in yoga, 2 were from
Denmark and one from Sweden. My friend
Carolina from Sweden is actually living in Afghanistan and working for an NGO doing
anti corruption work, she’s one of the smartest people I’ve met and had so much
fun hanging out with her that week. They
were all staying at Flame Tree so I continued to spend a decent amount of time
there and miss chatting with Elizabeth and Seth, the owners, who were so nice
to me! Even when I wasn’t staying at
their hotel because the second week would have been way out of my budget, they let me use their nice private beach area and on my last day in
Zanzibar they invited Marisa (my yoga teacher) and I to lunch at their house
and said I felt like part of the family after being around everyday for two
weeks. Elizabeth also graciously did all
of my laundry in her washing machine which was so nice of her and saved me a
few bucks.
The last few days of my time
in Zanzibar were a bit interesting...that Thursday, Carolina, Catherine (one of
Marisa’s friends visiting from South Africa) and I walked up the beach after
our morning yoga session to take pictures and do some shopping. Carolina and I stopped for lunch and had been
sitting on the beach for a while when we started seeing smoke, seemed pretty
close so we kept watching thinking the fire was at one of the larger hotels
close to where we were eating. We walked
down from the restaurant to the beach and it was further off. Kept walking towards our hotels and started
to see people unloading their homes, furniture all over the beach, hotel staff
running bags out to the beach, tables and chairs, etc. Everyone was frantic yelling and running
around. The smoke was getting thicker
and blacker and we walked closer and saw burned down homes, a dive center gone
and one of our favorite fish restaurants, Union (no menu, just the days catch
sitting on ice blocks on the beach, you’d pick your choice and they would cut
off a piece and grill for you, freshest fish I’ve ever had, yum!) was burned
down. We were super nervous at this
point, there was one firetruck on the beach however the firemen couldn’t get
water to pump through the hose from the ocean and everyone was crowded around
the truck screaming and yelling and not letting the firemen do their jobs. Unfortunately there were also looters running around stealing and running off with peoples possessions they were trying to save from being burned. We ran to my guest house which was super
close and I quickly packed a few essentials in a little bag, leaving all of my
clothes and everything I’ve been carrying around the past few months and went
back to Flame Tree with Carolina. Walked
into the Flame Tree grounds and everyone came running up to me saying they were
so worried. Lisa and Tina (Danish
women from yoga) had run to Casa Umoja when they saw the smoke and were banging on my
door trying to make sure I wasn’t napping in my room. Elizabeth ran over to try to get into my room
to pack my bag and get my stuff out but they wouldn’t let her in. Even some of the staff at Flame Tree came
over trying to find me. I was honestly
shocked so many people had thought of me and were worried, people I’d known about
a week and a half maximum. Spent the
rest of the day at Flame Tree and went back to Casa at night. Fortunately there was no damage however due
to the fires we had no power for my last days there because they didn’t have a
generator, which lead to extra hot nights with no fan and lots of stumbling
around in the dark with my flashlight.
Flashlights are seriously in the top 3 items I’m so glad I brought. Power goes out at least every other day at
Mama Z’s in Arusha, power was out in Zanzibar and the 1st night I
was in Istanbul the place I stayed at ended up having no power (more on
Istanbul later). Back to the fire, it’s
really hard here when fires start because most of the houses and smaller guest
houses/ hotels have roofs made of dried straw so fire spreads so fast. No one has fire alarms and fire trucks/ men
are few and far between. The bigger
hotels have their own hoses and water supplies but that’s about it.
The other cause of much excitement the day after the fire
was that at 12 AM on Friday, Ramadan was over.
Got about 1 hour of sleep that night due to being anxious about the fire
and because the partying started right away (Zanzibar is at least 90% Muslim). It’s like Christmas times 10 because after 30
days of fasting from sun up to sun down they are allowed to eat. On Friday, two members of Flame Tree staff
took Carolina and I around their village, it was a great tour, we got to meet
their families and see their homes, very similar to homes in Arusha, few rooms,
concrete floors, mud/ brick walls, etc.
Everyone was eating all day long, ate a few bowls of rice I didn’t
really want to eat, etc. but it was really great to see and be invited to experience the “non-tourist”
Zanzibar.
On the 13th I flew from Stone Town, Zanzibar to
Dar Es Salaam, had a 7 hour layover in DAR which was hot, sweaty and
boring. Got on a 7:45 PM flight from DAR
to Istanbul stopping in Entebbe (Uganda) for an hour and arrived in Istanbul at
5:30 AM. Spent a wonderful 25 hours in
the airport at Istanbul drinking $5 cups of Starbucks coffee, reading US Weekly
and other gossip magazines until the shop owners started giving me dirty looks,
looking homeless while napping on metal benches clutching my purse and using my backpack for a pillow, reading, listening to my ipod
and walking about 100 laps around the airport at various times during the day/
night when I would start to feel my legs go numb from sitting too long. There was nothing cheap about that airport
and I think I spent about $50 eating junk and drinking Starbucks just to
entertain myself. Finally got on my next
flight from Istanbul to Rome, spent 4 hours in the airport in Rome drinking coffee and freshened up spritzing myself with perfume in the duty free shop and then flew to
Malta to meet up with one of my best friends Jessica and her husband Bryan for
5 nights! Spent 5 nights with them in
Malta and then 4 nights by myself in Istanbul which was amazing. Loved it and wish I could have stayed longer
but Europe’s a bit more expensive than Africa and it was time to go.
Will write more about Malta/ Istanbul soon and I am
currently back in Arusha for another month of volunteering at Glorious Orphanage. Kind of showed up here without warning...I didn’t
have any plans after Istanbul...decided on the plane ride back from Istanbul to
DAR that I wanted to go to Zanzibar for a week before Arusha, unfortunately the
ATM wouldn’t accept my “international” debit card and I only had enough cash in
my pocket for a one way plane ticket back to Arusha so that’s where I’m at. Happy I am here back at Mama Z’s, will just
have to pay a few bucks and hit up the pools at the hotels on the nice side of
town on the weekend and pretend I’m in Zanzibar. :)
Hope everyone is well!
Miss you! Will post on Malta/ Istanbul sooner than later! Cath
