Zanzibar

As our final adventure in Tanzania, we decided to visit the island of Zanzibar. For whatever reason, Zanzibar struck both Adam and me as this fantastically exotic locale. Why it would seem more exotic than Tanzania, generally, I don’t know.

The transition from our home in Rau to Zanzibar was both easy and hard. It was easy in that Zanzibar is a lovely resort island where we largely relaxed and swam. Our hotel consisted of a series of beach bungalows that have wonderful views of the Indian Ocean. We had two bungalows, so Adam and I even got a bit of privacy, which after 4 weeks in bunk beds was a welcome change of pace. The woman who runs the place is an interesting old bird—a white Kenyan who decided to stay after Independence and make a life, when most the Brits were running for the hills.

One of the most amazing things about the place was that the tides were dramatic. Neither Adam nor I had seen anything quite like it. Note the boat below.

The challenge was the abrupt transition to tourist. One of the benefits of volunteering is that, in a small way, we felt like members of our community, even if we did stick out like sore thumbs. No hope for that in Zanzibar. Like many tropical Islands, their livelihood is derived from tourism, so the locals focus almost completely on catering to the hordes. Even when we tried to use our pigeon Swahili, the locals always answered in English, with a slightly bored tone. In some ways, if you were magically dropped into this island it might take you a while to figure out that you’re in Africa. It really seems like any resort island in the Caribbean or South Pacific. The biggest difference between Zanzibar and another island resort, and even mainland Tanzania, in the strong Arab influence. It’s 90% Muslim so everyone in town is covered from head to toe, while the tourists are sunning themselves in postage size bikinis. The architecture, design and art also seem much more Middle Eastern than African. It’s really quite beautiful, but in a completely different way than the mainland.

We spent the first morning in Stone Town, the center of town, consisting of narrow maze-like roads, with stores, open markets, hotels, and apartments, interspersed throughout. It reminded me a bit of the Arab quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem. It was teeming with life and a bit perilous as cars that really should not fit down most of the roads, bikes and motorized scooters, etc. fly down them at break neck paces. You had to flatten yourself against the wall to avoid being road kill. Our most frequent comment during our self-guided tour of Stone Town was, at the top of our lungs: “Emma, watch out!” I like to joke that our main goal of the trip is to return with the same number of kids as we left with. We survived Stone Town with both of the kids that we came with, a sure sign of a good day.

The next day we went on this highly touristy, but very fun, aquatic safari. There were about 150 of us wazungu (white folks) put on about a dozen traditional Zanzibar boats called Dhows. The first stop was a deserted island reminiscent of the island from the movie Castaway, with lovely white sand. We went snorkeling in the crystal clear water and were able to observe thousands of beautiful fish and other sea creatures. The water was bizarrely warm—almost too warm, but exquisitely beautiful. When we returned to the island, we ate fresh coconut and drank coconut milk, and tried desperately to avoid burning to a crisp. The served us a delicious lunch on another uninhabited island, the highlight of which was an in-depth explanation and tasting of all the island fruit. My favorite was the red banana, which they call the “mzungu banana” since the white people turn red after a few days on Zanzibar. So true! I am as white as ever as I cower from the sun per normal, but the kids are actually starting to look African despite the gallons of sunblock we go through on a weekly basis. We did a few other touristy things—like a highly forgettable spice tour, but mostly we relaxed, swam, ate and read in preparation for the next leg of the journey.