Crabs of Zanzibar

(This post was dictated by Calvin.)

I am writing a post about a couple of the eight kinds of crabs we've seen in Zanzibar.

There are a lot of hermit crabs, like the one I'm holding in this picture (or, really, he's holding on to me). Hermit crabs are crabs that live in shells that have been discarded by other animals. I found one land hermit crab that was in a clam shell. This was unusual because usually they live in conch or snail shells. Clam shells are flat and are softer than conch or snail shells; that's because conches and snails have softer bodies than clams do. I think the harder shell is better for hermit crabs, and it's easier for them to cling onto and hide in the twisted shells. But the clam shell makes it easier for the hermit crab to move, and hermit crabs also can protect themselves with their exoskeletons, so maybe that hermit crab had a good idea, after all.

Not many of the hermit crabs are big. Most of them are perhaps an inch long, although you may find rare bundles of .1 centimeter crabs, which look like baby shrimp. I found one of them that was moving out of its shell. When you pick up a hermit crab, some cling onto you for shelter against what they think are waves but is really the wind. Most hermit crabs live in the water, although some live on land and eat leaves. The vary in color from red and white striped to green and white. Land crabs are usually white.

There are also some crabs called camouflage crabs, because they look like the sand. Their pinchers are like wings, so they don't look like pinchers. They hide their leges underneath themselves. I'm very lucky I saw this one that Daddy's holding in the picture. They usually dig under the sand to disguise themselves even more.

Trip to Paje

After more than two weeks of living out of suitcases, we decided to get out of town and go on a mini-vacation (suitcases are more fun on vacation).

We went to Paje, a beach town on the east coast of Zanzibar. We wanted to explore someplace where the boys could swim in the ocean (the water in Stone Town is polluted) and where we could try out our new snorkel equipment. Paje was perfect. We stayed at a lovely bungalow, which was simple, elegant, and graced by an unparalleled view. Plus, the wind kept the air relatively cool and mosquito-free, a nice change from the humidity of the city.

We knew even before we left the U.S. that we'd want to go to Paje, which is right next to Bwejuu, the town featured in an episode of the excellent PBS documentary series on Africa (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/africa/about/episode7.html). We lucked into finding a snorkeling guide who was from Bwejuu, and he took us through his hometown on the way home from snorkeling. Tourism is increasingly a big industry in the area, but residents of Bwejuu and Paje have traditionally made a living largely from the sea--either through fishing, as in this picture, or through harvesting seaweed. The ocean at this beach area is very shallow, and so when the tide goes out, it goes out for about a half mile or more, to the coral reef that's at the end of the shallow sandy plateau. People who harvest seaweed simply walk out at low tide and collect it, and fishermen use the traditional dhow boats, which are wooden canoes with outriggers and a large sail. We went out in a dhow at high tide to snorkel in the lagoon between shore and the coral reef. We saw all kinds of fish, including trumpet fish and (Oscar claims) a baby swordfish. It was gorgeous and relaxing and well worth the sunburns we all managed to get in the odd spot where we misapplied the sunblock.

The Night Market

One of our favorite things in Stone Town thus far has been the Night Market at Forodhani Gardens. During the day, the gardens are beautiful but relatively unpopulated. At night, hundreds of people come to see people, sample food from vendors, and enjoy the night air. Now that Ramadan has begun and most of the town is ending the fast after dusk, the market is busier than ever.

All of the vendors are dressed up in cook's whites, and although there are lots of different vendors, each one sells one of a few things: fish kebabs (fresh fish cubes separated by carrot slices and seasoned with a special salt), grilled octopus, chapati and other breads, sugar cane juice (juice squeezed from sugar cane, seasoned with lime and ginger), and--our favorite--Zanzabari pizza (chapati dough filled with chopped onions, peppers, egg, mayonnaise, and soft cheese). For dessert, if the sugar cane juice isn't enough, there's banana chocolate Zabzibari pizza. Yum!

Sodas of Stone Town

(This post was dictated by Calvin.)

I’m doing a post about foods in Stone Town. Today I went around town and bought sodas so that we could take a picture and show you all the kinds of Fanta they have in Africa. We couldn’t find all of them because each shop has different ones. What we found were black currant, mango, and orange (in a small bottle). We’ve also seen pineapple, coconut, and watermelon. They have some Coke, but not very much Sprite or Pepsi, and no diet anything. They also do not have any root beer or Dr. Pepper products.

A big bottle costs about 600 shillings ($.45) if you buy it in the bottle, or 400 ($.30) shillings if you drink it and return the bottle right away. A small bottle costs 300 shillings, with the bottle. These prices vary somewhat from shop to shop.

I don’t know my favorite flavor yet because I haven’t sampled black currant, mango, coconut, or watermelon yet. I think I’ll probably like black currant best.

I’m going to write more once I go to the night market at dinnertime.

Keeping entertained in a low-tech environment

(This entry was dictated by Oscar to Julie. Editorial note: The activities described are performed kabuki-style and are not as dangerous as they sound! But they are loud. This version is abridged, but you can contact us if you want more details on the different characters available in the last game.)

To keep me and Calvin busy, we’ve been using empty water bottles as props for games. We’ve come up with a lot of games. The first one is drumming. We use two big bottles as drumsticks, take some small bottles of the same shape as the big ones and use them as drumsticks, too. Then we take two large bottles that were indented in the middle, tie them together with some cloth, and take it up and use it as two drums.

Our second game is similar to pickle. We take the two bottles we tied together as drums, stand them up and take one big drumstick. A person called the defender uses it to guard the drums. Another person (the pitcher) throws bottles at the two bottles tied together. The pitcher gets two separate drums and three small drumsticks to throw. Once the pitcher throws all their small drumsticks, they cannot use them again. When the pitcher throws all three drumsticks, the defender can pick them up and roll them at the pitcher’s feet. Once the small drumsticks are rolled, the pitcher can use them again. If the drumsticks reaches the pitcher’s feet, the pitcher loses a life (there are three lives). When the pitcher loses all three lives, then they lose. If the pitcher hits the drums, the defender loses. The pitcher can throw his two drums as many times as he wants, however, the defender can pick the drums up and throw them.

We came up with a one-person game, too. You take a big drumstick and a little drumstick, and you throw the little drumstick up into the air. Then you try to hit it with your big drumstick and keep it off the ground (kind of like a hackey sack). I managed to hit it 6 times before it hit the ground.

My favorite game is called Ultimate Free-Style Boxing. It is a game in which you can unlock characters, like in a videogame. You start out with two characters. The characters you start out with are called Chain Mace and Ug-Ug. Chain Mace has two things to hit you with: a big drumstick and our two drums. We managed to find a way so that we had enough extra string so that it could be the chain on the mace. He could hit you with the mace or with the drumstick. If you knock the drumstick out of his hand, he can pick up a smaller drumstick. All the characters have special attacks. His is that he can take his drumstick and hit the mace with the drumstick and knock it toward the opponent, or he can just take the mace and throw it hard over his head. If you hit him enough times, he gets Rage. Everybody has Rage, but only a few characters have Super Rage. Chain Mace’s Rage is where he takes his mace in two hands and swings it around as fast as he wants (normally, you’re only allowed to go at a certain speed with your attacks). You can also do tricks with it like swinging it up and letting it go and catching it and then swinging it over your head and hitting it on the ground. His Rage is mainly just a lot of fun; it’s not a very good attack. Ug-Ug has a big drumstick and a small drumstick. He can the small drumstick and use it as either a club or a small fist. His special attack is where he can take his small drumstick in the air and hit it with the big drumstick. His Rage is where he can go into Gorilla Mode and hit as hard as he wants with his drumsticks.

The next character we unlocked is called Grapple. After that came BullMan. He has a stronger version called Minotaur. Minotaur is an evolution with Super Attacks who is always in Rage (Super Attack Plus characters are always in Rage, but they don’t have a Rage attack). Then you unlock JetPack, who has two big drumsticks. After you do that, you can unlock Ag-Ag (Ug-Ug’s brother) by having your opponent play as Ag-Ag without unlocking him. The last character is King Arthur’s Knight.

As you can see, we’ve been keeping busy playing these games for two days, but they’re too loud for our parents, so the games may end soon.

Stone Town Streets

Zanzibar is every bit as lovely as we’d hoped, both from the air and on land (the water actually is as blue as it appears in postcards). We will certainly explore the island in the coming months, but mostly, we’ve just been getting to know Stone Town. As any Zanzibar guidebook says, Stone Town is best explored on foot. Personally, I’d be happy if it were only explored on foot. The streets vary from full-size two lane streets (of which there are four in the town proper) to narrow streets of about five feet. Cars go on the full-size streets, as well as on some of the wider one-lane streets. Bikes, scooters, and cars announce their approach to pedestrians with honking and bell-ringing. Almost none of the streets are at right angles, so it behooves the pedestrian to assume that any approaching unseen vehicle is on the same street; better safe than sorry. We’ve gotten pretty quick at ducking to the left and, if possible, stepping up to a curb. Traveling on the big roads has the benefit of being quick and easy to discern on a map, but traveling on the small streets is safer, if almost certain to include some moments of being completely lost.

Everywhere we go, there are storeowners promoting their wares (“Jambo, mama, please look at my nice . . . .). We have yet to see a chain store of any kind, and in our exploring, we’ve seen been trying to create a mental map of the different districts. We live (for the moment) on the edge of the kanga (large printed cloth) and earring district, which is near the shoe district (featuring shoe resale and cobbling), the clothing district (featuring resale and imported clothing mostly), and the school district (school is in session for some students now, and today we walked through a whole several-block section that seemed to be mostly schools). We’ve also spent some time in the electronics district.

Food, especially oranges and limes, can be purchased at several corners around town, but the market is the best place. Shops that sell packaged goods have fixed prices in stickers on each item, but the markets are based on barter. Going to the market is going to be a daily thing, as almost everything is fresh and has a limited shelf life. The ndizi (bananas) we purchased on Tuesday, for instance, had that tannic, underripe taste and texture yesterday, are ripe today, and will be getting mushy tomorrow.

Getting here

We’ve arrived in Zanzibar and are getting our bearings. The 10-hour time difference was easier to overcome than we might have predicted, as we had a 16-hour overnight layover on our new time zone in Nairobi, during which time we checked in to the Sleep-n-Shower, a bare-bones room with a bed, space for our carry-ons, and not much more. It was perfect.

The plane food reminded me of when airlines in America served real meals, only the menu these days is more cosmopolitan. The boys loved flying, as they could eat what they wanted and had our undivided attention, plus there was a selection of movies and videogames on the flight to Amsterdam. Amazingly, our luggage made it through our 40+ hour itinerary from SeaTac to Zanzibar, with only three pieces delayed and nothing lost. I’m pretty amazed, and happy.

Getting Ready

Zanzibar is an island in the Indian Ocean, about 30 miles from the coast of East Africa, just south of the equator. It has been part of the country of Tanzania since 1964, when Zanzibar and Tanganyika joined to form one country. Zanzibar has a long history as a trading post between Africa and the Arab world, and it is now a place of great contrast, between the lush beauty of its beaches and tourist hotels, and the poverty of many of its citizens.

Even though Zanzibar is very different from our home state of Washington, our family will in some ways be doing what we normally do. Julie, usually a professor at the University of Puget Sound, will be on a Fulbright, teaching at the State University of Zanzibar and doing research into non-formal adult literacy programs. Brady, usually an elementary teacher, will be volunteering through International CATALYST Fund at a tutoring center in Zanzibar. Oscar and C-bart, usually elementary students, will be attending school with kids from Zanzibar and from all over the world. We’re all excited about seeing how our usual roles will evolve (and not) in our new setting.

But before that happens, there’s a lot to be done here in the U.S. We’re nearing the end of our to-do lists, but we’ve needed to pack up our house in Washington to be rented by another family, to get shots and start taking malaria prophylaxis, to get visas (and passports, as Julie’s and Brady’s expired in the last millennium, and Oscar and C-bart have never been abroad), to ship books for Julie’s teaching, and to use our move as a chance to weed out unneeded household goods and to update all kinds of paperwork.

We’ve also been thinking a lot about what we want to pack into our few precious bags for our nearly two-day flight from Washington to Zanzibar. Some of our choices have been fairly predictable (cool, loose-fitting clothes for the tropical weather). Others have been less predictable (the next size of shoes for the boys, and solar panels for charging batteries). Others have been a tad on the esoteric side (Julie’s pile of distinctive local beads, which she’s hoping to trade with other beaders in Tanzania).

When we get to Zanzibar, we’ll be speaking English in each of our respective educational settings, but we’ll all need Swahili for many of our everyday transactions in the market and in our neighborhood. A running challenge going in our family has been to see who can complete the Rosetta Stone Swahili Level I first. Oscar is in the lead at this point, but he’s got some stiff competition!

Being in Africa will also mean jumping into the 21st century. In the States, our family tends to use technology until it wears out, and we choose to adopt new technology when it seems worth the cost and hassle of shifting over to a new system. We’re behind the times in a lot of ways, in the States. We don’t have a cell phone and we still don’t have wireless access on our computer; we’ve preferred to stick with a landline and a cable modem. In Zanzibar, though, we’ll need to buy a cell phone that’s compatible with the system there, and we’ll rely on it entirely for local calls and for Internet access. Wireless technology has transformed much of Africa; while land lines were never very practical outside of large cities in Africa (both because of economics and terrain), cell phones have rapidly been adopted on a wide basis and are becoming even more common now that a new undersea cable has been laid.

So that’s where we’re at for now. We plan to post often, and we welcome hearing from you and sharing our pictures and adventures.

Asante sana!