I'm back in Stone Town after 10 days in Pemba. I was sad to leave Pembd, I really loved my homestay family and it’s a really beautiful place, but it doesn't excite me the same way Zanzibar City does. Pemba hasn't developed equally to Unguja. Which is both good and bad. On one hand, Ungujga still lacks basic infrastructure, loses electricity frequently, and does not have the basic capital required for development. I've heard they also get screwed over by the Tanzanian government. Someone there put it: Zanzibar's taxes go to the mainland Tzn and Pemba's taxes go to Zanzibar but [View Full Entry]

---

---

I really enjoy my time here, mostly because I see new shit everyday that I'll never see again. Like today, as we walked through the open air market in Stone Town, I just saw a guy beating the crap out of a dead octopus with a big wooden stick. Don't ask why, I don't have a clue. It's probably normal for people here to pummel octopus, maybe it makes them taste better, enriches their flavor. But for me it was hilarious and horrifying and another one of those things that I'm glad I've experienced. Ok, due to popular demand, a quick [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well I arrived safe and sound! The plane rides were not as bad as I thought. I had one to the states first that was 2 and a half hours, the second one was to Amsterdam which was about 8 hours and the last one down to Dar es salaam was about another 8 hours. I was able to obtain my visa no problem when I got here. I ran into a couple from the States in line for the Visa who happened to by on my tour. So we grouped together to figure things out. It is great to be [View Full Entry]

---

---

Tonight I had some time to myself before dinner, did some thinking, and thought back to the summertime: before I got on the plane, before I applied to study abroad, before I even decided I wanted to study abroad in Africa. In July, I remember going through a binder of evaluation sheets of former F&M students that studied abroad. They wrote things like "amazing" and "an incredible experience" or "best decision of my life." And it wasn't just on one or two of them, just about all of them had something identical or similar to that. I know I've only been [View Full Entry]

---

---

We were on our Tanzanian safari when we celebrated our one-year anniversary of being on the African continent. We can hardly believe that we have been travelling for this long and that a year has passed already! However, the state of our clothes attests to our length of travel as they are certainly worse for wear, our packs are filthy, and our shoes starting to fall apart - I guess it is time to wrap up this travel adventure before we have no clothes or shoes left! The Zanzibar ferry terminal in Dar es Salaam is nothing like a BC Ferries [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sorry for not posting in a while, a quick recap: the last couple of days have been wonderful. Sauti za Busara is a four day music festival that features a diverse lineup of African artists that is held in Zanzibar City's old fort. The best part is its only a five minute walk from my homestay house and only 3,000 schillings (less than 3 dollars) for an entire night of music. Some great music, some good beats, some incredible dancing. Before Sauti za Busara (Swahili for "sounds of wisdom) started, I didn't think that I would go all four nights (mostly [View Full Entry]

---

---

As it was the first time in Stonetown for all of us and the festival doesn’t kick off until the late afternoon, we took the opportunity to expore the city, starting off with the market. Once we found it (got lost so many times until finally a nice Zanzibari woman guided us out of the little side streets), we were quite disappointed. The smell from fish and meat was revolting. I also had pictured spice stalls like on Middle Eastern markets. Zanzibar is called the ‘Spice Island’ and it produces large amounts of clove, lemongrass and so on. But that was [View Full Entry]

---

---

It started to get a little embarrassing, I’ve been in Tanzania for 4½ months and I hadn’t been to Zanzibar yet - at least it felt like it, as whenever it came up in conversation, I had to say no. It is not like that it is difficult or expensive (at least as a Tanzanian resident) to get there and I hadn’t just been anywhere in Tanzania, but on the gateway to the island. Dar is connected with several ferries and flights a day, but somehow there just hadn’t been time yet. Now there was no excuse, as the ‘Sauti za [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 275 (11/1/09) We gladly left Tembo and arrived at Darel Salam a couple hours later. It too, was hot dusty and distinctly dodgy. Wallets firmly in hands we cashed up, picked up some supplies for Zanzibar and treated ourselves to a pizza for lunch. Jez led the boys astray, not able to leave the complex without a quick visit to the Casino, and quick it was! Jez coming up empty handed but Owen doubling his 10,000 Tanzanian shilling (approx $15). Back in the truck we arrived to a huge queue at the ferry. Entertained by the deaf boy directing traffic, [View Full Entry]

---

---

Our apologies for not getting a post up sooner. We spent the last week on the island of Zanzibar and then safari'ing through the Maasai Mara. In this post I've included pictures from our island vacation. We rented a bungalow on a pristine sandy beach for about $35 US dollars a night, and spent our days snorkeling, getting sun burned, and being lazy. [View Full Entry]

---

---