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