In Pemba, Everything Goes

The past couple of weeks have been a bit crazy in Pemba, where every day is completely different. From discussing the importance of education with the Immam, to teaching the alphabet to a 25 year old recovering drug addict, to storytelling to over 100 primary school children in the library and finally taking a bike ride out to the beach for some much needed R&R time…

The beach on my morning run

This week I had a really interesting meeting with the Immam, who preaches at the central mosque in Chake Chake and runs an NGO, Zanzbar Children’s Fund. Over cardamom coffee and dates (a really great combo) we discussed the importance of education for personal and community development. I gave him a quote I have recently come across:

‘Education is the greatest engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation’ Nelson Mandela

He was pretty chuffed – as with everywhere else in Africa, Mandela is a huge hero. And I was equally chuffed when he told me at our next meeting that he had preached on the importance of education at the mosque and used the Mandela quote!

Our work at Sober House, the rehabilitation centre for drug users, has been going really well. It is challenging as the range of abilities is so varied, from those who are pretty competent in English to those who cannot read or write, but they are all enthusiastic and willing to learn. This week we were also invited to go with them to Wete, in the northern province, for a celebration for those who have reached milestones in their recovery – they are given different coloured key rings for reaching 3, 6, 9 and 12 months drug-free. It was a nice ceremony, but it was all in Swahili and pretty soon I was lost. However I was sat on the stage at the front, next to the guest of honour, so had to look interested!

Sober House celebration in Wete

We have also started helping with the various groups that week in the library – two English classes for primary and secondary pupils, and then a storytelling group for younger children. The library has a somewhat egotistically named ‘American Corner’, a room with PCs and books donated by the American Embassy. It is a great resource, it’s just a shame that membership is limited to a few children, whereas many people could benefit. I’ve somehow been put in charge of helping with the storytelling, each week over 100 children from toddlers to teenagers turn up, and we have to entertain them for 90 minutes with a story and playing games. Unfortunately most of the books are also American and kind of difficult for children from Pemba to understand. This week the story was about an unidentifiable cuddly animal brother and sister who went hiking, playing American football and ice skating… but they seemed to enjoy it and made a lot of noise dancing around, singing and playing games afterwards. By the time the session was up I was ready to collapse on the floor, but they still seemed to be full of beans!

Storytelling at the library

Mama Africa shaking it down with the kids

Recently we also held our Mid-Project Review workshop – a day to reflect on the project so far and plan for the future. It’s quite a shock to think I am now over half way through the project, only four weeks until I will be waving the volunteers goodbye. We spent the day at the beach, unfortunately it was rainy and windy most of the day, however we still had fun with our local volunteer counterparts, even though there was no sunbathing. In the evening one of the local volunteers, Mohammed, organized a Tenteleni-EdLITE disco for us in one of the schools, so we spent the evening learning some traditional dances to tarab music, as well as throwing in some salsa and hip hop from Romina and Beth. I think a dance off in the school yard has to go down as one of the most random events so far, but it kept the neighbourhood children entertained all night!

Learning some traditional dancing

Another highlight of this week was visiting the house of one of the local volunteers, Haji, to try dafu – young coconuts. He expertly stripped the coconut of the brown outer layer and chopped off the top so we could drink the milk, and then cut it in half so we could scoop out the ‘meat’ which was really soft and almost jelly-like. We were then sent on our way with four more coconuts to take home, however we soon found out that we are not so adept at dismembering coconuts as Haji and managed to squirt coconut juice everywhere.

Beth and me eating coconuts at Haji’s house

We have also continued our cooking lessons at home – this week we have learnt how to make chapatti ya maji (chapattis made with water – basically pancakes!) and to grate coconut with some strange stool-with-a-grater-between-the-legs contraption!

Grating coconut

Making chai outside

We have also been well and truly made part of the Kitwana family – Salama, who is 10 years old, has taken to drawing pictures of her new ‘sisters’ most days, while 6 year old Sada seems to follow me around everywhere, while baby Sale has uttered his first English word – bye bye!

Salama’s artistic impression of us!

Little Sada

Mama Kitwana, Rehema, and Salama

This weekend we took a tour out of Chake Chake to see the famous Pemba flying foxes and visit a spice farm in the north of the island. The Pemba flying fox, a type of fruit bat which are only found on the island, were in danger of extinction in the 1990s. However since then a community conservation project has been successfully implemented to protect the bats and their habitat, and now there are over 4,000 bats in the protected area. Even though I have a fear of bats, stemming from being forced onto ghost trains by my little sister when I was younger and crying all the way through, the sight of so many bats all roosting together was incredible.

Pemba Flying Foxes

Dora the Explorer

I’m not entirely sure what this sign was meant to say, but this is an interesting alternative…

From there we went on to a spice farm in northern Pemba in a small village called Bwagamo, and were shown around all the different plants cultivated here and their traditional uses, including cinnamon, cardamom, peppercorns, vanilla, lemon grass, henna, iodine, and of course cloves, Pemba’s main export. The cinnamon tree was amazing - you can cut off a piece of the bark and chew it like a cinnamon flavoured sweet, while the roots smell just like vix vapour rub. The iodine tree was also impressive – just slit into any part of the tree and iodine runs out – pretty handy for any bush accidents! It was fun traipsing through the bush, hearing all the traditional uses for the herbs, including cures for malaria, polio, skin diseases, special concoctions for after birth and others that were considered contraceptives, and finishing off the trip munching on small bananas under the canopy.

Cloves drying in the village

It was great to have a day out of Chake Chake and away from all our project work, however the next few weeks are set out to be pretty busy, with the end of exams, some school events, visits to another school, as well as all our usually activities, however I’m sure whatever crazy activities Pemba throws at us it will be fun!

Beth, me, Romina, Fiona (adopted Canadian Tenteleni groupie) and Nassor our tour guide

Settling into Pemban Life

A fishing dhow in the port at Chake Chake

I feel like I don’t have much news to report from the last week or so, life in Pemba has settled down and what seemed to be wacky and bizarre has now become part of the normal every day.

Loving life on my new ride!

The highlight of the past couple of weeks has been exploring the area around our house. My triathlon friends would be impressed – I set myself an impromptu backwards triathlon in the area around my house. First thing in the morning a run to the beach and back (even by 7am when I returned it was getting hot), then a bike ride into town and back, and finally a swim in the sea from Vitongoji beach. Perhaps nowhere near as strenuous as my Thursday night training sessions of old, but it felt good to be doing something. Vitongoji beach was lovely – we were the only people there and the tide was high, we jumped straight into the Indian Ocean.

Vitongoji Beach

Last week I spent a day with Nassor, my counterpart coordinator, meeting other NGOs in Chake Chake, as well as having a guided taste tour of the town. I met with a number of interesting organizations and people, including an English club at the local library, the Shikh who runs an orphanage and Sober House, a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts. The library was pretty cool (what a book geek), with even a whole shelf dedicated to Harry Potter. It was a shame to see that most of the books are untouched though. I guess most people don’t have the time or inclination to borrow books, but everywhere we go people are asking us for books, when they have a fantastic library on their doorstep…

Chake Chake

On our way around the different offices I was introduced to the male world of street-side coffee, served in small espresso size cups and twice as strong. Coffee drinking (especially on the street) seems to be a favourite past time of men of all ages and a time to put the world to rights. However they seemed to be happy to have a muzungu girl join with them to test out Swahili. In Stonetown I was even invited to join their dominos game, which gets pretty competitive and heated, with lots of banging the table. My competitive spirit soon kicked in too, aided by a large amount of caffeine, much to the amusement of the group of men, the Mama serving chai and passing tourists.

Coffee seller in Stonetown

I have also been introduced to a range of delicious fruits, which are helping to supplement my rice and bread diet. First there is a fruit called Balungi, which is kind of a cross between an orange and a grapefruit, but even bigger. Another exciting fruit is Fenesi (my dictionary translates this into Jackfruit, and my American friend calls it Breadfruit, but I’m not familiar with either of these in English), which is humongous and tastes like bubble gum. A firm new favourite, but it seems to be pretty rare as people will only cut one open if they are sure they can sell the whole fruit within the day, and as they are so big this seems not to happen very often. Perhaps they are not aware there is a fruit starved muzungu girl in town who would be willing to spend the day at the market munching her way through the whole fruit.

Fenesi in the market at Machomani

Our work in schools has continued, with the volunteers teaching English, Maths and Physics to both primary and secondary classes. Last week I went to visit two of the schools and sat in a number of lessons. I was pretty surprised when I found myself helping some form I secondary pupils with their physics exercises – I’d forgotten the old saying ‘Physics is Fun!’ In one school, Shamiani, we were invited to judge a debate between Form V and VI on the motion ‘There is no point in learning English in Zanzibar’. They were actually really good at English and managed to bring up some interesting points, from the benefits of English in a ‘global village’ to the effect of English on their culture. However the funniest point was raised by the teacher, a female all dressed up in her veil, who announced it was important to understand English so that if someone said ‘Fuck You’, you would know they were bad mouthing you. I had kind of been dosing off at the front, but a Muslim female teacher suddenly swearing in front of the class soon jolted me back to earth. Just another totally random happening on project.

Beth teaching a physics class in Shamiani secondary school

By Thursday it was time to wave goodbye to Pemba again and head back to Unguja in the hope of finally getting our permits. This time there was success – but only after the lady at Immigration confused me for a male American (too much time without a decent shower and a mirror perhaps) and took a whole day to put a stamp in three passports. However it was all worth it in the end, I am now totally legal in Tanzania until Christmas.

On Saturday I made a trip to Nungwi in the north of Zanzibar with some new found Zanzibar friends, Fiona from Canada and Patrick from the US. After an hour or so on a bus next to a guy who persistently asked if we could get married and he could come and study in the UK, to the amusement of my friends who just laughed at me, we finally arrived in a small village. The village seemed just like any other, until you got to the beach front, which was wall-to-wall posh hotels and restaurants. The beach was beautiful, and not overly crowded with naked Italian tourists as I had been warned. When we arrived the tide was out, with lots of women out collecting seaweed, wrapped in brightly coloured kangas (cloth). Nungwi is traditionally the dhow building centre of Zanzibar, and there were plenty of dhows on the beach and dotting the horizon as the afternoon came and fishing time began. Swimming actually involved quite a lot of dhow-dodging, but it was lovely to be out of town and on the beach.

A dhow on Nungwi beach

Monday came around again and I made my way back to Pemba on the ferry. I returned home to find a new family has moved into our house with us as their house is being rebuilt. This means there is furniture, kitchen equipment, beds and children everywhere, but actually it is a nice change. The husband of the family is a headmaster of one of the schools, so we know him quite well, the wife is an amazing cook and is very patient both with my limited Swahili and limited cooking abilities, and all of the children are so cute, especially Sali who is just one year old. The rest of Monday was spent washing a huge pile of laundry, which is still apparently hilarious to the local women, collecting water and playing with the children. Rahema, the mother, has even taught me to cook chipatis on the fire, which were surprisingly like making pancakes on the Aga at home, to the excitement of the children who all proclaimed they wanted to eat a muzungu-chipati. Today she taught me to make madazi – bread dough with cardamom which is then fried, an unhealthy snack but it tastes good! I think I’m much better at cooking if it’s outside and fire is involved. A village woman has also said she will teach me to weave a basket, so that might be my next skill!

Our home in Vitongoji, Pemba

Making madazi outside the house

This week Form IV have started their national exams, which means some of the smaller schools close as they do not have enough classrooms for lessons and exams, so we are unable to teach at two of our schools. Instead we have started an English course at Sober House to try and give the recovering addicts a useful skill, or at least give them something to do. They seem really eager to learn and are very friendly, so for the next few weeks we will be going every morning to teach basic English. It is a bit difficult as they have a huge range of abilities, some are almost fluent while others know no English, but they are patient with us and those who are struggling. This morning I was working with a guy who can speak a bit of English, but he can’t read or write, so following the lessons is really difficult, but he is really keen to start reading. At the end of the lesson they even invited us to eat lunch with them, papaya, banana, rice and beans, and even gave us a papaya to take home – yum!

So I thought I didn’t have much to say, but I seem to have rambled for quite a long time now, so for now that really is all the news from Pemba.

With Mr Rooney, the kitten at our favourite shop