Tanzania Part II: Beautiful beaches and an interesting boat ride

Hi everyone! Hope all is well! In Part I of the Tanzania story, I talked about the safari portion of our trip. In this portion, I'll talk about the beach part and then give a quick update on this week back in Rwanda.

After three wonderful days in Saadani, Melody and I got back on our tiny little plane and took off for Zanzibar beaches. We went to a part of Zanzibar called Nungwi, which is on the northern portion of the island and along the Indian Ocean. It's known for clear water and white sand beaches.

The pool reflecting the sky on Nungwi
Beach in Zanzibar

The first few days we just enjoyed the beach - this was definitely the summer vacation part of my summer! Our hotel, named simply "Z," had a nice pool that looked like it spilled over into the ocean (photo to the right). Nungwi is a very relaxing, beautiful place (kind of looks like paradise!) and, as we found out, it's also a very popular vacation destination for Europeans. Pretty much everyone we met and/or heard speaking was either British, Irish, French or Norwegian. The hotels are generally smaller, called "boutique" hotels, and conveniently, most of the restaurants are on the beach. So, we pretty much stayed in the same area most of the time. While we were there, we tried to pick-up a few phrases in the official language, Swahili. Asante Sana (thank you very much) and Karibu Sana (you're welcome), both pronounced exactly as they are written. From what we read, some Swahili is closely related to Arabic due to the Arab influence on the island for many centuries. 

Maasai traditional dress - photo from
Google images

On our last evening in Zanzibar, Melody and I went to "Swahili Night," which featured Swahili food and dancing. The food was great and not too different from what I've been eating in Rwanda:  samosas (fried pastry stuffed with meat - everywhere in Zanzibar), several types of salads, lots of fruit, grilled skewers of meat and seafood, and of course potatoes. The dancing at Swahili night seemed to be geared towards showing traditional Maasai dances. You can wikipedia for more information on Maasai people, but they have a distinctive dress and culture and are primarily located in Kenya and Tanzania. We were told that they are still fairly nomadic and their villages are centered around agriculture and farming. In Zanzibar we actually saw a fair amount of people wearing traditional Maasai clothing. I copied a picture from Google images here to give you an idea.







Before I leave the story of Zanzibar, I can't leave out the story that Melody and I titled, "Hussein and his boat from h*ll."


The story of Hussein's boat
Since the water is beautifully clear and there are several coral reefs, everyone told us that snorkeling was a necessity in Zanzibar. We aren't ones to miss out, so one evening we signed-up with a few guys on the beach that called their boats, "Captain Hussein." They said to meet at 9:00am the next day, and that we wouldn't return until 3:00pm. Anyone else may have wondered, "Hmm - I wonder why we are scheduled be out snorkeling for 6 hours...seems like a long time to be face down looking at fish." After all, we'd seen people snorkeling not far from the beach right in from of our hotel, so we figured the boat wouldn't take us far out. But Melody and I didn't question it. They told us they'd give us a discount if we joined a bigger group of Irish people and we were in!

The next morning we boarded a handmade wooden sailboat with about 15 other people. It was really cool looking - all of the wood had scraps of bark on them and the mast looked like a long, single tree branch, so it literally seemed like it was carved by hand. Not everyone could fit well on the benches that lined the interior of the boat, so some people climbed up on top of a canopy that covered half the boat. And then it began; the moment when every person on that boat realized they didn't have sea legs. The water in this picture looks nice and calm, which is what we were all expecting when we set out. But no - the clouds rolled-in and for an hour and a half, every single passenger was completely silent as our little boat rocked side-to-side heading out into the Indian Ocean over huge waves (i.e. we couldn't see land on any sides!)  I wish I'd gotten a picture of our little boat down in between huge rollers, but at that point I was concentrating on not moving. As we all turned green, I'm pretty sure everyone was thinking the same thing: "I really hope those people up top don't get sick first." As we later found out, we were headed to a very small island about an hour and half from Zanzibar. Despite the somewhat painful journey to get there, the snorkeling was amazing. The water was so clear that I was actually able to get a few photos of fish from inside the boat!!

Snorkeling!

 

Melody checking out the fish

Water is so clear you can see these
striped fish from above the water!

Pretending to be in an even smaller boat on the island
after lunch

After snorkeling, everyone climbed back on-board, still a little shaky for the ride over and we braced ourselves for the long stomach exercise back. Luckily for us, instead of heading back we just sailed about 10 minutes over to a place on the island for lunch. When we'd first boarded the boat, I'd seen one of the crew members carrying a very large fish by the tail. He'd slung it somewhere under the steering wheel and I hadn't thought about it again until an eerily similar looking fish appeared at lunch (cooked of course). While we were snorkeling, they had cooked an entire lunch on cast iron pans and a fire on the beach! It was pretty neat. Of course, after lunch we eventually headed back to Nungwi, but the tide had changed and the rocking wasn't nearly as bad (or maybe everyone's motion sickness pills had time to kick in....) :) So we can't complain, the scenery was incredible!

Back to Rwanda
I arrived back in Kigali on Sunday evening, and this week has mostly been about work at the Foundation and getting my projects going in full force. My first project is to develop training materials to teach financial planning and budgeting. I'm creating exercises, guides, and a skills assessment test.

It's been fun getting to know more people in the office, and I think I'm up to about 10 words in Kinyarwanda now. The people at the guest house where I'm staying have taken a strong interest in teaching me Kinyarwanda. At breakfast, Angelique repeats everything I say in Kinyarwanda and then makes me recite it back to her, and Raymond at the reception desk writes down my daily Kinyarwanda words for the day. Adding a bit more complication to it, normally they translate from French to Kinyarwanda, which is definitely good practice and makes my head spin a little!

Yesterday I decided that I was getting a little tired of peanut butter and crackers (which is all I've had in my room), so I decided to go to Nakumatt, which is like an African version of Wal-Mart. Nakumatt has everything from washing machines to food and is definitely the largest shopping market I've seen here. It's about a 20 minute walk from my house. Since I don't have a refrigerator, I'm still a little limited on what I can buy, but I at least stepped it up and got some Jelly and bread so I can make PBJ. :)

Looking forward
This weekend Elizabeth and Colleen, friends from Kellogg, are coming to Kigali! We're going to Uganda to track mountain gorillas (yes - the ones that are over six feet tall!) More about that later...

I'm also meeting with a local Episcopal minister who I've been talking to about potentially volunteering at one of their schools here in Kigali. Otherwise, I'm hoping to help-out at a orphanage called Mother Theresa. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of orphans in Rwanda in particular due to war and HIV, so lots of ways to help. I just need to find opportunities that are not during working hours.


Hope everyone is having a great week and summer! Love and miss you!

Always,
Meredith

P.S. Aunt Mary and Aunt Clara, this picture is for you...it's Coke Zero made in Egypt - all of the cans here have pull tabs instead of push....I embarrassed myself learning that on the plane last week. I was seriously trying to push the tab in until the guy next to me reached over and pulled it back :)