Can it be less than 24 hours til take off? Still trying to figure out how many suitcases. I want to divide up the sewing kits (see Drummer Bill's blog) and books, etc. in case one of the suitcases disappears. So, that decision in the morning. Decided that I had better "feed" my sourdough starter and freeze some of it because I just don't know if it wants to be untended for 31 days. So, the house smells great with English muffins. How did this all happen?? Last August, our good friend, Dr. Ilaben Pathak visited our home in Woodbourne on her way home after being elected one of the four international vice presidents of the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF). I explained that we live in the country, and she explained that ... read more

Spice Farm The Zanzibar Government owns about 60 percent of the land, so this was a government farm, although it appeared that many small, village-like communities existed. Spices are fascinating, and our guide could tell us where each originated, and showed us each spice and explained its season, harvest and any required processing. Here is a photo of us at lunch. Fish in coconut sauce, green vegetable, chappati, banana, etc. Nutmeg, Mace You peel off the outer part of the nutmeg, leaving a beautiful, bright red lacy substance around the nutmeg nut itself. The red lacy substance is mace with a similar, but unique fragrance and taste from nutmeg, around which is grows. Cinnamon Only the bark of the tree is used, and you chunk off a piece, and the bark regenerates in about six weeks. ... read more

We only meet travelers by the way that we travel. We are in the cheaper hotels, the cheaper eating places, and the cheapest Internet places. By and large, we are in the cheaper shopping districts, since I guess that most tourists stick pretty close to pre-marked prices in the hotels or in the special shops to which they are directed. Not us! As a result, when we meet fellow travelers, our conversations usually center on where they have been, where they are going, what they recommend, and what they don’t recommend. Sometimes we see the same people from time to time. For example, the guide books and several groups had recommended Jambo Hotel on Zanzibar Island, and when several agree, we tend to their advice. However, when I called ahead to make a reservation, the answering ... read more

The Germans had been giving us very good money-saving advice, but this last advice wasn’t so good. We had planned on leaving at 6 a.m. or so and taking the TSC 6000 (Tanzanian shillings, about $6) bus from Lushoto to Dar es Salaam. However, they seemed to think that this would take 9 excruciating hours, stopping every village or so, so they had heard that it would be better to take a dalla-dallas(Toyota minivan) down the mountain to Mambo, and then get a luxury, express bus that would take only 4 hours, non-stop. So, we got to the bus area about 8:15, and it took about an hour to find enough people to fill up the dalla-dallas…I even got out and became a hawker, trying to talk people into coming with us. Everyone laughed! It took ... read more

I am reading from Granta, an English publication of new writers, of ideas. By coincidence, the last issue focuses on Africa. I want to write from the back cover of this journal: Africa is too large and diverse fore generalizations. It has fifty-four nations, five time zones, at least seven climates, more than 800 million people and, according to the latest diligent research, maybe 14 million proverbs. South Africa and Burkino Faso have as much in common as Spain and Uzbekistan. And yet people do generalize; Africa has become the continent of moral concern. So, I have read about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, those who will not hear will have their ears chopped off. This is not imaginary, but part of many people’s lives. I read a bit about a man whose mother ... read more