Zanzibar: Marine mammal harassment and a good ending

Me, at the beginning of the trip, thinking this was going to be fun.

One of the popular tourist attractions in Zanzibar is doing a dolphin tour. I am generally not a dolphin tour kind of person. They seem clichéd and involve the public wearing of bathing suits, deep ocean waters, and harassing wildlife… all things I generally try to avoid. However, I succumbed to curiosity and to the lure of the Indian ocean… 

Our boat "Jumbo" and our captain.

After handing over my $15 US (including lunch) I was picked up and, driven the hour and a half to the beach and taken out in a boat. Now, I don’t know what I expected… I must have thought that friendly sea creatures and I would frolic in the warm waves together-  that the dolphins would be delighted to have such curious and fun-loving human companions sharing their water space and that we would spend an idyllic morning full of giggling and inter-species bonding. Silly me.

This is about all we ever saw of the dolphins

The chase is on!

In fact, there were ELEVEN boats on the water, each filled to capacity with Mzungus (white tourists). The captain, upon seeing a dolphin break the surface of the water, would gun the boat engine and race to the spot where he thought the pod might next appear. Not wanting to miss out on the action, and possibly the tips, the other boats would follow closely behind. This created a sort of marine-based fox-hunt. The steps of which go something like this:

Mzungus on a boat

• Dolphin sighting
• Frentic yelling
• Engine gunning
• Boat racing
• Crew yelling at mzungus, “JUMP! JUMP NOW! GO! GO! GO!”
• Pale bodies in flippers and snorkelling masks hurling themselves overboard
• Big splashes
• Lots of looking under, over and around saying, “Where? Did you seem them? I think I saw them… wait, is that a jelly fish”
• Swimming back to the boat and flopping back into it.
• Start the cycle over.

At one point, for about 30 seconds, I did manage to see 6 dolphins swimming 20 feet underneath me. It was very cool sight. They are amazing animals.

That being said, I wish I had gone with my initial gut instinct and not done the tour. I’m certain that if these dolphins had a voice, they would request an immediate end to all dolphin tours. Far from playing peacefully with them-- holding hands to flippers and singing, “Under the Sea”—these dolphins just looked harassed. It cannot be nice to start each day being chased by loud boats and screaming tourists.

____________________________________________________________________________

There was a second half of the tour. We stopped on the way back and snorkelled. Wow.

I am officially in love with snorkelling. What a sight! I don’t think I can really describe what I saw or how it felt, but I can show you this photo, taken just as I came back into the boat. I think that the expression of glee on my face says it all.

An attempt at taking an artistic photo of this fishing boat.

Yet another attempt at being "artsy" this was at the beach again.

Zanzibar: Stone Town

The beach outside of Stone Town

I just had my first R&R in Zanzibar, Tanzania.  Zanzibar is an archipelago off of the coast of East Africa.  In the 1960’s, it combined with Tanganyika to form the current country of Tanzania.  Quite honestly, I chose to go to Zanzibar because of how fun it was to say the name… 

“ZANZIBAR!”

…  It just made me think of sultans and spices, decoration and decadence, intrigue and imagination.

So, how was my trip?  It was mysterious, exotic, beautiful, relaxing and decadent. In a word: it was perfect.

Why was it mysterious?

Confession time: Hiding somewhere deep underneath my cool expat-aid-worker-façade-- somewhere underneath the foodie and just in front of the Buffy fan is a very dorky history nerd.  So, to spend time in a place that witnessed Omani, Portuguese and English colonialism, was home to the last open slave market in the world, and was the birthplace of an Arabian Princess who scandalized her family by converting and marrying a German merchant was so freakin’ cool.

Stone town is a curving hodgepodge of narrow streets, funny shops, intricately carved doors, mosques, churches, temples, palaces, crumbling tenements, sweet smelling spice shops, foul smelling fish markets, cloth merchants, hostels, 5-star hotels, tourist traps and undiscovered corners of Zanzibar culture.  Every turning of a corner in Stone Town (a UNESCO World Heritage site and where I stayed while in Zanzibar) brought with it a new mystery.  What is that smell?  Who is behind that veil?  What is that woman selling?  Who lives behind that beautiful door?  Why was this mansion allowed to fall into such disrepair?  I spent my time in Stone town getting lost again and again in the tangle of streets, just wandering up and down alleyways.  My sense of direction isn’t much to brag about… the confusion of Stone town was totally disorientating.  However, there are scores of young men, willing to escort you wherever you need to go for about 1000 Tanzanian schillings (about 75 cents).

OK…  I have just revisited that last sentence and the phrases “scores of young men” and “willing to escort” might imply something completely different than the reality.  Think of these people as operating a kind of pedestrian taxi service, helping lost tourists find a restaurant, souvenir shop or their hotel.

Anyway, indulging the history nerd inside of me, I took a historical and architectural tour of the town. Zanzibar is famous for its intricately carved doors, and I couldn’t resist taking about a million photos of them.

These, of course contribute to the "mystery" of Zanzibar. What's behind them?

They also make Zanzibar all the more exotic.
Which brings me to my second point.
Zanzibar is exotic.
Check out these photos for an idea of what I mean.

View of the rooftops of Stone town from the roof of my hotel. Every morning they served breakfast here that included freshly roasted and ground Zanzibari coffee, homemade mango preserves and papayas. YUM! (by the way, the Zanzibar Coffee House Hotel is high on my list of reccommended places to stay)

One of the food stalls at the Forodhami Gardens on the waterfront in Zanzibar, I ate here almost every night. 

These are 2 examples of cane presses. Sugar canes are squeexed through here and the juice is collected in glasses to drink Pretty delicious and very neat.

As for my last 3 points; that Zanzibar is beautiful, relaxing and decedent, read on to the next few posts to see what I mean. 

UN flights

If you were to look at a map of Southern Sudan, I live in the western-most corner, somewhere in between nowhere and nothing. Roads are scarce, distances are large and there is a lot of jungle between me and the nearest... well the nearest anything really.

One of our cars, pulling another car out of the bush after an accident. 
Road accidents are really frequent here.

If I want to get to South Sudan's capitol, Juba, by road it takes 8 bumpy hours in an occasionally smelly Land Cruiser.

Luckily, there is an alternative.

The UN operates a humanitarian air service. This means that they have regularly scheduled flights in and out of the places where they and other NGO's work. (Generally places that no commerical carrier with a shred of sanity would fly) Three days a week, I can get on a UN plane and in a short 1.5 hours I can be in Juba (barring flat tires on the runway).

The UN plane on our "runway" in Yambio.

Beyond the saved time, the novelty and the improved smell, there are some seriously cute pilots on these flights.

If by some chance, someone reading this knows the pilot on the right with the adorable accent who laughs at my jokes...  you let him know that I'd like to share a cold Coca-Cola on a hot runway some time...

Anyway, last time I flew, I was one of 2 people on the flight. Check in works like this:

• Plane lands on dirt runway
• Pilot opens windshield and climbs out of plane
• Pilot walks across runway, dodging chickens and children who have gathered there
• Pilot takes a folded, wrinkled piece of paper out of his pocket and asks you for your name.
• You respond (hopefully with a name that corresponds to the list)
• You walk back across the airstrip

The "aiport" in Yambio. To my left, just out of the frame is a small building with a desk and some chairs. Call it airport security, the departure lounge, the ticket counter... really whatever you want. 

Yambio from above

yuck.

termites.
swarming.
everywhere.
hiding under mosquito net in dark.
can hear the lizards on my wall and ceiling feasting on the termites. they make reptilian crunch noises...
yuck.

stuff expat aid workers like...

This
is
genius...

http://stuffexpataidworkerslike.com/

I have to admit that I can identify with almost every post on this website. At one time or another, I've been guilty of #'s: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17 and 19... In fact, I think I've even committed some of these gaffes today.

Been laughing at myself all day.

Particulary relevant and amusing is: " #7 Describing themselves as “Nomads”... Those who blog typically make “nomad”, “wanderer” or “global” part of the title."

Guilty. Very guilty.

FP magazine photo essay

Have a look at this great photo essay in Foreign Policy magazine's October issue, some of the photos are really powerful.
*note: this photo is not mine, it comes from the article. I just thought it was a great piece.

99.57% vote for independance and life in Juba

WOW! Check out this article about the historic vote. Results were announced on the 31st.

Also, here's a pretty good article about life in the boom-town of Juba.

Sorry for not writing any original works here. I will try to get some new stories posted soon. Hugs from Juba. Jen