Octopus, and squid, and lobster, oh my!

The mosquitoes are vicious and when it’s not raining it’s hotter than Hades, but aside from these trivial discomforts, I’m already beginning to love Zanzibar. I unknowingly chose to come during the heaviest month of the rainy season, but on the upside it means there are very few tourists around taking over the beaches and Stone Town. They arrive in July. And when it isn’t raining, it’s truly beautiful here. Friday and Saturday were absolutely perfect, and I have a wicked sunburn to prove it!

My host mom, Mama Rahma, has been wonderful so far. She hosts foreign students all the time, so she understands our different customs and the schedule I follow at school. She speaks some English, which is helpful, but mostly we talk in Swahili, and she is very adamant about correcting my grammar and teaching me new words. I’m grateful each day for her help, and slowly I am beginning to converse with her about more than “What is this food?” and “How has your day been?” though the process is pretty exhausting and involves quite a bit of mime-ing. Her 3 year old daughter Amal, who I call Queen because she is so very spoiled but cute as anything, helps me out with Swahili words in the house, and I help her practice her english. One of these days I'm going to capture a video of her singing "Row Your Boat" because it is just precious. If it weren't for the tune, you'd have no clue what she was saying!

Mama Rahma and her husband are obviously well off because they actually have two houses. I stay in the one just 5 minutes walking from school, where she comes each day to work. She’s a chef/caterer. They sleep at their second house, which is a 10 minute dala-dala ride from town, which is very lavish compared to my dwellings. It's 3 stories tall, with A/C in every room, marble floors, gold trinkets from their annual trips to Dubai, and a full entertainment system with cable. Insane. Tamara, if you're reading this, the house reminds me a LOT of Kuwait. So you get the picture. This other house is where their other student tenant stays. He’s a government official from Zambia named George who is here for a language exchange program. I enjoy visiting it for a night of comfort in the A/C and to use the washing machine, but I'm glad I stay where I do. It's a very sweet house, I have my own bathroom, I like my bucket shower just fine, and with the fan on at night I'm very comfortable under my mosquito net.

I am the only student in my intermediate Swahili class, so I receive 4 hours of private tutoring every morning (though it’s more like 3 hours because our “tea break” usually goes from 10-11). My instructor is a very kind, smiling man named Mwalimu Ramadhan Kututwa. Funnily enough, he has actually been to both UW-Madison and Boston, and has taught in Washington DC and New York too. He’s an excellent teacher, and it’s helpful that he understands American culture because, in addition to just language acquisition, he teaches me the customs I need to know for life in Zanzibar that I would not otherwise understand. We’ve spent a good deal of time reviewing greetings because Kenya has made me lazy about using Swahili, and American customs for greeting people are downright rude here. I have to consider first who I’m talking to, is it an elder, a peer, a child, a friend, a family member, a man or a woman. Then I spend several minutes asking about their day, their family, their children, their work, the weather, among other things. It’s exhausting really, but after a week I’m getting used to it.

I’ve met some of the other students at SUZA by now. Of course there’s George from Zambia, and his 4 other colleagues here on the language exchange program. There’s my neighbor, Trisia, from LA who just finished Peace Corps in Rwanda. And there’s two Swiss guys who will be working in mainland Tanzania for a few months as part of their civil service requirement, though I see less of them. I am by far the youngest of the group, but we’re all here for the same purpose, and everyone likes to go out and have fun so we really have a good time together. Friday night we met up for drinks at Livingstone restaurant on the beach, then we went to Forodhani, which by day is a nice park near the ferry port and by night transforms into an open air dinner market where you can buy all manner of seafood, which they cook for you right there and you eat with toothpicks or your hands. For about 50¢ you can get a stick of lobster meat and one of prawns, or French fries with octopus, or squid and beef with salad, etc. It’s absolutely fantastic.

SUZA arranges trips for its students to Zanzibar tourist spots, so on Wednesday we went to a place called Kiembe Samaki (fish under the mango tree) where they make clay pots and incense burners by hand. We got a lesson in the process of making a pot, from mud to final product, all in Swahili of course. Saturday our teachers took us to a beach on the southeast coast called Paje where we learned about seaweed farming. After the lesson, we got to spend the rest of the day just swimming, playing volleyball, and enjoying the beautiful beach. Sunday I stayed home in the morning to help Mama Rahma in her kitchen. Apparently May is the busiest month for her work because it’s when most people have their weddings, so I assisted with making 450 mtabak (a sort of samosa/kebob combo), fried squid and chapatti.

So that’s the deal in Zanzibar so far. Last night I heard a rumor that the electric company will be cutting off all power to the island for week starting Thursday, so it may be a while before I am able to write again. Apparently last year there was no electricity in Zanzibar for THREE MONTHS, everyone had to pay huge sums to use generators instead. So a week is a major possibility. But I’m hoping it’s just a rumor!