October 15, 2008

Last night I got home (ie Zanzibar) from Pemba and am still amazed by what anamazing experience it was despite only being a few days long. Pemba is anamazing island with beautiful hilly/ tree covered landscapes and barely anytourism (I only saw one wazungu untill we got to the airport). The initialexpereince getting there was absolutely insane though. We took an overnightferry from Stone Town to Pemba on which we stayed in first class- which wasquite uncomfortable considering it had non reclining chairs and I can'tproperlty sleep while sitting up but I somehow managed by curling up in mychair. So honestly I was pretty cranky when we first arrived, but that quicklygot better as I saw how beautiful the island was. As we were meeting our host families in the afternoon and arrived in theisland before dawn, we had plenty of time to explore the island. We startedout in a small city where we got breakfast and wandered around - which wasamazing because everyone was super excited to see us which became even moresowhen we spoke swahili to them. Then we went to a local spice tour, duringwhich we saw and sampled all these different spices as they grew together in avery informal farm (ie cloves and cinnamon and vanilla and many others). I wasamazed by how important spices are to pemba, particularly cloves which canreally only be grown in pemba and zanizibar and which were drying in piles bythe road and all over the place. Then we made our way to Tumbe to meet ourfamilies. Tumbe is a cute little (though by Tumbe standards middle sized) island thatis based off of growing sweet potatoes and casava and fishing in the adjacentbay. When we first arrived in Tumbe, we came to a school where we were matchedwith our "natives". Mine was a 20 high school senior guy named Zahor who wasabsolutely adorable and so excited to have me there - he kept on saying howhappy was to have me stay with him and asked if I was happy which I was. He belonged to a rather rich family who had 3 stores in Tumbe, and had 16 or 18brothers and sisters of which I met about 8 as the others were living inZanzibar or Mombasa. While Zahor (my "native") spoke English surprisinglywell, his family didn't speak much English so I took advantage of my limitedSwahili and performed lots of miming when I was spending time with my hostsisters. Immediately after arriving to my home and placing my things in my ownprivate room, Zahor whisked me away from the home and took me on a Moped rideall around the Island... it was so muich fun!!!! It was great to seeeverything around, particularly the farms and forests. It was also, however,an interesting experience because I was wearing both kangas as skirts andheadcoverings - so I found myself sitting side saddle on the back of the mopedwith one arm clinging to Zahor and the other clamped on my kanga to keep itstuck to my head. Still, it was such a wonderful and amazing experience!!Afterwards wereturned for a meal of samaki (fish) and viazi (locally grownsweet potatoes. When they told me this I was super excited untill they placedit on the plate and I saw that the samaki was octapus tentacles - but despitemy initial gag reflex it was sooo good. After all this excitement I finallywent to bed for a wonderful nights sleep interupted only by the morning call toprayer and overly excited roosters.
The next day Zahor had his form 4 tests, so I spent the day wanderingaround with his sisters. In the morning we cooked, cleaned up the house a bitand then went for a walk on the beach. Before hand, however, the sistersdressed me up in a traditional light weight zanizibarian dress that reached theground and matching headscarf - which was bright pink but astonishingly cool. The beach was unbelievable and it was great to be able to see all the fishermenin dhaos and to meet all the people. Later in the day I helped cook a bit more,walked around the village some more, untill the evening when the sisters took meto a house where a lady was putting henna on all the girls in my trip. Apparently in pemba, henna is used for marriage so apparantly we were allgetting marriage henna patterns but it was quite an experience. We got therelate in the evening and the generator had gone out, so we were getting it doneby candle light. I found the experience rather uncomfortable because we had tohold our legs and hands off the ground, but it was definitely worth it becausenow I'm covered with black flower designs with the tip of my fingers, toes andbotttom of my feet being bright red. Now in Zanzibar we're getting lots oflooks but its definitely worth it. So that was that day. The next and final day, I walked around the town with Zahor where we visitedsome old historical monuments of mosques. Then it was time to leave thehomestay. It was so cute because my family kept giving me tons of gifts,including dates, mangoes, soda and a blue kanga with the picture of a ferriswheel. IT WAS SUCH AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE!!!!