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

Stonetown, Unguja – Immigration Faff and Tourist Attractions

Jambo Mr Bean - boats in Stonetown harbour

A visit to the immigration office in Chake Chake and a long discussion between all the staff members (who were distracted somewhat by a diversion into my marriage status, or lack of) uncovered that they do not deal with foreigners. Quite who the immigration office in Chake Chake does deal with I’m not too sure, and there are very few foreigners anyway… but this meant I had to travel to Unguja this week to apply for our permits.

On Tuesday morning I waved goodbye to Beth and Romina and started off on my journey. All was going well, squished on a dala-dala with a small boy on my knee, until the dala-dala began some tractor/motorbike sound and spluttered to a stop. This meant everyone had to get off the dala-dala ans walk up the hill, while a group of men poked around in the engine. This was repeated on every hill (Pemba is quite hilly!), until finally we reached Mkoani, the port in the south of the island, just in time for the ferry.

The ferry journey was another experience entirely. We were all solemnly handed sick bags, and I was soon to find out why. The channel between the south of Pemba and northern Unguja is very rough, and soon there were people being seasick all around me. Perhaps the extra $60 for the plane is worth it…

There was good and bad news when I reached immigration in Zanzibar Town. Firstly the bad news – a volunteering resident permit had increased from $120 to $550 in July. Good news – as volunteers under a government ministry we could apply for a different permit, which was free. However this permit needed another letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a whole load of forms to be filled in, and more passport photos. This meant a wild goose chase around a number of different offices to get the required paper work, charming officials in broken Swahili and standing in crowds of people waving bits of paper in the air, all held up by a number of power outs. However, after three trips to the office, I have been assured they will be ready next week – hooray!

For the rest of my time in Stonetown was time for me to be a tourist. It was actually quite a culture shock to see so many wazungu tourists wandering round the narrow streets in huge tour groups in short shorts – nothing like Pemba! It’s clear to see why Stonetown is so popular though – a wonderful mix of Swahili, Arabic, Indian and European culture and peoples, shops full of spices, bright kitangas and jewellery, markets full of strange looking fish, groups of men drinking coffee and playing dominos on the street corners, spicy Indian foods and cocktail bars overlooking the harbour. Zanzibar’s famous doors are everywhere, even simple and crumbling buildings have an impressive decorated door.

Zanzibari doors and winding streets

Stonetown market - fish and spices

Visiting the old Slave Market

Iced coffee and a newspaper, possibly the highlight of the whole trip

On Friday I took a small boat out to Prison Island, a small island just a few kilometres away which was originally used as a prison and then a quarantine zone during the British Empire. Now it has a hotel and a turtle sanctuary. I think this was my first turtle encounter - they were as big as me (if I was turtle shaped), have heads like snakes and even make a hissing sound. They didn’t eat me alive, so I think we’re friends…

Arriving at Prison Island

Making friends with the turtles

Snorkelling off Prison Island

Then it was up early on Saturday morning, another stomach churning trip back across to Pemba, two squished dala-dala trips later and I was back home, with a huge pile of laundry to do in the muddy lake.

Watching sunset from Africa House, the old English Club

Workshops, Washing and our Project Coordinator Dilemmas

Since moving to the Shamba last weekend things in Pemba have really started to talk shape – we now feel like part of the local community. However the children still seem to regard us as a novelty, shouting ‘bye bye muzungu’ everywhere we go, clapping and singing whenever we collect water and sitting outside our house staring at us when we come home.

Tenteleni volunteers surrounded by crowds of small children

On Monday school was closed because of the boat accident, so we decided to explore the local area, after an impromptu English-Swahili lesson with some of the children of the family we are staying with. We walked to Vitongoji, the village just a few minutes away, but within a couple of minutes we had seen pretty much everything, and been seen by pretty much everyone. So we decided to walk in the other direction towards the beach, which were told by our new family members, kaka (brother) Fundi and kaka Ahmed was only 1km away. So we set off behind them in high spirits. After over an hour of walking along a dusty road we finally made it to a deserted lodge overlooking the beach. The tide was out and there were lots of fishermen collecting things from rock pools, but not an ideal swimming location. We did manage to find the gardener and get a luke warm soda to help us on the way back though.

Vitongoji village

Beth, Fundi, Ahmed and me at Vitongoji beach after a long walk

The most exciting event of Monday was getting our bicycles – second-hand sit-up-and-beg bikes with a basket, just like being back in London. It’s pretty hard work getting up some of the hills, but it is great to have so much freedom to explore and at least do a little bit of exercise. Wazungu (white people) are rare in Pemba, and we have been told it is considered a ‘taboo’ for Muslim women to cycle (it’s probably too hot with their long dresses and headscarf anyway), so a female cycling muzungu is an odd sight to most Pembans.

However on my first day of cycling around Chake Chake district I was ‘detained’ by an army officer for talking on my phone near the army camp. Although the signs only say no photography, apparently I look suspicious and could have been a spy, so was dragged to the army office for questioning. The whole incident was actually quite amusing – I think they just wanted to find out what I was doing and made up a good excuse to do so.

On Tuesday morning I was woken up early (5.30am) by one of the volunteers for some Project Coordinator duties – two major disasters had struck our home. Number one – there was a frog in our bathing bucket. Number two the toilet (a kind of squat/long-drop affair) was blocked. Amazingly I was very grown up and dealt with both dilemmas successfully, maybe I am becoming accustomed to African life after all. However the frog has become a daily occurrence in the bathroom, but at least now I have someone to sing to in the shower.

The rest of the week was hectic, organizing and running workshops in the four schools we are working in, Shamiani, Fidel Castro, Wawi and Connecting Continents [www.connectingcontinents.de]. All of the workshops seemed to go really well, and the local Sheikhan even turned up to two of them, which was a great privilege. At most of the meetings when it came to the opportunity for any questions the most common, and usually the first, question was ‘how old are you and are you married?’ I had thought we wouldn’t get so many proposals here due to the religion, but due to the high demand for wives (Muslim men can marry up to four wives), many of the younger male teachers seem keen to try! Explaining that you’re not willing to become a Muslim and can’t cook usually puts them off though.

Working Together Workshop at Connecting Continents Secondary School

Spending so much time in the schools gave me a good opportunity to chat with some of the teachers, most of whom are really curious to know more about the UK. At Fidel Castro I had a really interesting conversation with a group of male teachers about religion and terrorism. They were really interested to know what people in the UK thought of Muslims. It was difficult to answer truthfully and not be offensive though, however people here are the kindest and most welcoming people I have ever met. Everybody offers to help you in some way, showing you the way, inviting you for a meal and even offering to lend you their Vespa.

Romina and me at Fidel Castro Secondary School

After such a hectic week it was finally the weekend. My trainers had their first outing in Pemban dirt as I went for a run, shouting ‘Salama’ at surprised locals and almost making one man fall off his bike in shock. However an hour was enough, even at 7am it was very hot and I collapsed in a sweaty heap on the porch. After recovering from my run it was time to join the local women at the lake to do our clothes washing. The water is very brown and I have no idea how they manage to get their whites done, but we did our best. There were about 25 women and children also at the lake, washing clothes, themselves and babies. It is the only place I have seen women not so covered up – obviously it is the area where headscarves and long dresses can be abandoned. However Beth took it a step to far – an old woman came up to us, gesturing wildly and pointing to Beth and my kitanga. First we though she wanted her to cover up her cleavage, but then we heard the word ‘knickers’ and figured out everyone had been able to see Beth’s pants as we were washing. When we finally figured out what was going on this brought hilarity to the group of women and children.

The daily chore of collecting water

There are certain parts of Pemban life that I don’t think I’ll ever manage to get used to though. Firstly is the amount of fish in the diet, everything tastes of fish, even the rice and vegetables. The markets are fully of baskets of smelly fish covered in flies, so when I come home I too smell of fish, only to be greeted by a fish dinner most nights. The other difficult thing is the lack of embarrassment over belching and burping – it seems to almost be expected, not just at meal times, but any time of day. One of the guys who lives with us managed to burp his way through an entire movie (Mama Mia – we thought they would have loved it, but by halfway we were the only ones left watching – maybe my singing scared them away). Lastly I am also confused that the majority of people greet you with either ‘good morning’ or ‘bye bye’, regardless of the time of day. Even in Swahili it’s wrong, but when I correct people they look at me like I’m crazy. I think I’ll stick to greetings in Swahili, much less complicated.

On Sunday we decided to take a trip out of the Shamba to the beach on the other side of Chake Chake, Wesha. It wasn’t a great day for swimming as it was really windy, but we made the most of the sofas overlooking the sea, some good Western food (pizza!) and a beer. It was lovely to spend a day away from the hectic-ness of the village and to be able to read a book in peace without being stared at.

Relaxing with a beer in Wesha - perfect end to the week

The port at Wesha

This week holds another adventure – I am off to Unguja, the main Zanzibar Island, to deal with immigration and work permit documents. However I hope there will be time for some sight-seeing while I’m hanging around, and maybe even a trip to the beach!

Tutaonana badye (see you later)