Back to School
I decided while i was hangaing around Zanzibar waiting for the 4 day music festival to arrive, I would be productive and take Swahili lessons. I took private lessons at the Sate University of Zanzibar from mwalimu (teacher) Hassan 3-4 hours/day, US$6/hour. It was good to be learning again and so intensively. The language came thick and fast and expectedly, was quite overwhelming not being sure if last weeks lesson had sunk in before piling on another set of rules. Despite learning everyday. It took a good 2 weeks before I could really put together a sentence that resembled what I wanted to say. Now I feel my listening is much improved to understanding, which does wonders for conversation.
Family and Home
After Wiebke left I found a local couch surfer (an internet site connecting travellers with locals) who had a one room place. It seemed fine but before the day was out her bosses, who knew her place, offered me some student accomodation that had a kitchen, common room and a 3rd floor bedroom meant for 6 but all for me for US$6/night. It was all great with an ocaen view and enough room to swing a cat whilst doing yoga, until talking to Mwalimu who set me up with a host family so I could become saturated with Swahili. Even though it was a 15min walk to town rather than 5min, I began living with my Zanzibari family for US$15/night including 3 meals and no chores. I lived with my mama, her son and daughter and her 3 grandkids. More often than not there was also other men staying there who I often got confused about how fit in.
The food was good overall but as expected, dominated by carbohydrates. All sorts of breads for breakfast along with an egg and mango, rice and beans, potatoes and cassava (root veg) and a bit of meat for lunch, and more bread for tea. As exepected, regaular exercise is hard to maintain and the fitness and muscle definition achieved for mountain climbing has unfortunately subsided somewhat.
Being a Muslim
Zanzibar is a conservative Muslim place and all the women are always well covered, inlcuding many long layers and heads. Wanting to respect their culture as much as possible, I always wore at least t-shirts, long skirts or pants and sometimes even a head scarf, which often doubled nicely as sun protection. I couldn't decide if dressing with respect to the locals abated male attention or not but it definatley made me feel more comfortable looking the women in the eye and appreciation was evident. Days when I made particular effort reminded me of dress up days in primary school. For comfort as well as respectful muslim outfit choice, I bought a ndira, which is sort of like a mumu except their not meant for fat people, and a khanga, which is 2 lengths of patterned material, 1 worn like a sarrong and the other as a head covering. There are many nice ones to choose from and they a all have different sayings running along the bottom.
Men
I think a combintaion of the conservative muslim culture of Zanzibar plus the normal attraction to the different look and assumed opportunities of Western women, have Zanzibari men fairly desaparate. Besides the normal touts that engage you in converstation tyring to sell whatever, locals are quick to befriend you whether mutual or not.
Drinks and Food
