Candlelight Christmas

The power outage continues here in Zanzibar, with no end in sight.  We’re trying to look on the bright side (ha), and Christmas with Kyle and Laura made that easier.

This being a Muslim culture, Christmas is definitely much more low-key than in the States, with the benefit of there being much less pressure to see the holiday as a shopping holiday and to be deliberate about what aspects of the holiday are worth celebrating.  Music was a big part of the holiday for us, both at Christmas and during Advent at the Anglican Cathedral.  The English services at the Cathedral have hymnals with lyrics but no music. As a lapsed musician who likes to keep in practice reading music by singing harmony, the no-music was tricky for me to get used to at first; I like being able to read what I’m supposed to sing.  No such clear path is marked out in the hymnals here, but the harmonies that emerge sometimes in the 3^rd or 4^th verse, when people are familiar enough with the tune to branch out and experiment, are sometimes amazingly rich.  We also had the unique pleasure of listening to the special Christmas concert put on by the Dhow Countries Music Society, which is a local music organization that offers a monthly concert by its students and faculty.  A small audience followed the path of lit candles going up the stairs to gather on the refreshingly breezy third floor of the old Dhow Countries building to hear music ranging from traditional Taarab music (more on this in February, when we go to Zanzibar’s music festival), to Taarab-y Christmas songs (Jingle Bells will always remind me of this surprisingly effective syncopated version played by a student band with a lead violinist who evidently didn’t know the song well enough to notice that he’d dropped a note every few measures), and a terrific and un-Christmas-inflected set by Swahili Vibe (a very danceable Afro-fusion band).  I love live music of almost any kind, and I’m really excited that we now know when and where these monthly concerts are—we’ll be back!

Santa managed to make it through to our apartment (magic needing no electricity).  Calvin and I made sure that we were prepared, hand sewing stockings for everyone (4 of which pictured here) from two different kanga fabrics. 

Christmas dinner was definitely non-traditional but no less festive.  We got “chipsi mayai” (a local treat of French fries cooked into a sort of irregularly shaped frittata with eggs and hot sauce—don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!) at our favorite street vendor.  For dessert, we went to Freddy Mercury’s Restaurant (named after Zanzibar’s own, of Queen fame) and although there was no ice cream or other desserts because of the blackout, there was cold soda, a refreshing treat.

We were so glad to be able to celebrate our holiday with Kyle and Laura, and we look forward 2010 here in Zanzibar, which will no doubt bring more surprises both pleasant and unpleasant, but also much learning together as a family.

A watch, a club, and lots of beads

A part of the trip that we hadn’t anticipated was visiting a Maasai boma, or village, in Ngorongoro Crater.  I think we were all somewhat ambivalent about visiting real people displaying themselves and their homes to (much wealthier) outsiders.  Having talked with some Maasai people in Stone Town, we also knew that Maasai are divided about inviting outsiders into villages because the performance of Maasai identity changes villagers’ relationship both with their heritage and with other people in their village.  But at the same time, when else would we get to see a Maasai village?

The experience was both hokey and moving. When our safari vehicle drove up (and after we paid), we were greeted by a Maasai men’s jumping competition, accompanied by women’s singing.  I was unable to learn what the words of the song were about (our guide told us it was “just a traditional song”), but I was happy to see one of the women goofing around after the official ceremony and showing off her jumping skills to the other women.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen a woman showing off her athleticism.

We then went with the chief into the home of one of the families, and we sat down and talked, as invited, on the feet of the two beds (one for kids, one for parents).  The homes are made of sticks and cow dung, and they are heated by the smoky cooking fire. The furnishings are very spare: just the beds, the fire, an empty margarine tub/chair, some mugs on a wall, and an area for small calves unable to survive potential lion attacks out in the plains.

After the home visit, we went out to purchase some of the beaded items for sale, made by the village women.  This was a huge treat for me as a beader.  While we saw many Maasai crafts for sale at shops in the Arusha area, the most finely crafted pieces were in the village. And seeing the beads as worn by the Maasai changed my view of their art form.  While visitors (including me) buy their work to hang on walls as mementos, the beads as worn by the Maasai are more moving pieces than art objects. During the singing, the stiff necklaces that I had always thought looked unwearable had a clear function: to bob and move to accentuate the singing and add a new level of movement to a dance.

The highlight of the trip, though, was very unexpected.  Brady was looking at a Maasai club, and asked how much it cost.  The chief answered, “I like your watch.”  I think both of them were surprised when Brady said, “Okay: Trade?” Then there was a whole complicated set of maneuvers that ended with Brady trading his newish watch and a bit of cash for a different and much fancier beaded club as a birthday present for Oscar.  It was oddly satisfying; Brady really did like his watch but enjoyed showing the chief its indiglo and other features, the chief really likes his new watch, and Oscar really does like his club.

Lions, and almost everything but tigers and bears!

The central piece of safari, though, is the animals. Our mission every day on our “game drives” was to go spot some particular kind of animal known to be in a general area at that time in the small rainy season.  Brady added over 250 birds to his lifetime bird list, and we all saw more animals than it is interesting to list.  We by no means were able to watch any animals long enough to really observe their behavioral patterns, but between glimpsing them for a while plus a lifetime of watching animal shows, visiting zoos, and reading, it was a pretty satisfying education.  Here are some of the greatest hits photos of animals from our safari.

What is Safari?

Safari on the mainland was amazing, so much so that I’m going to write a few posts about it, which I'm going to post now while my computer is charged up (more later on the continuing blackout in Zanzibar).

First, a few words about what safari is.  “Safari” just means “trip” or “journey” in Swahili, but to “watali” (tourists), safari means the specific trip of exploring a national park or parks and looking at animals, especially the Big 5 (elephant, cape buffalo, rhinoceros, leopard, lion). 

Tanzania has one of the highest proportions of protected land in the world: Around 39% of the land mass in the country is protected in some way, either as national park or wildlife reserve. Although the land and animals in these areas are protected pretty rigorously, poachers still kill animals—to sell parts such as tusks, or to sell as bush meat for hungry people or tourists in search of an exotic treat (for a more in-depth discussion see my biologist fellow Fulbrighter Cindy Groh’s posts on bush meat)—and they sometimes burn land in the process, to flush out the animals for an easy kill. 

One of the protections in the so-called “Northern Circuit” of the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, and Tarangire is that visitors need to remain within the well-conscribed area of a safari vehicle or the grounds of a lodge or official campground.  Although the parks felt in many ways similar to American national parks—with impressive opening gates, visitor centers, and informational signs—the restriction against walking around took some getting used to.

But you sure can see a lot if you’re driving around in a 4-wheel drive vehicle! We had 7 of us for most of the trip in a Land Cruiser with a pop-up top, and we traded turns sitting in the front, back and middle, each of which has different strengths and weaknesses. When we were on smooth ground, Oscar and Calvin were allowed to stand up and look around at animals (the thrill of relaxed safety regulations was as exciting for them as seeing the animals was). Our driver Emmanuel took us out for a good 5 or so hours a day, to areas known for their wildlife concentrations. 

On our first day, we started out from Arusha (which was heavenly after the heat of Zanzibar—so cool and lush), and went on our first day up into Ngorongoro Crater, where we drove down into the crater and saw a mind-boggling number of animals we’d only seen in zoos and later stayed at a lodge up on the crater rim.  On our second day (Oscar’s birthday), we drove to Lake Ndutu and stayed at the incomparable Ndutu Lodge, where they made birthday cake for Oscar (not on their usual menu, so the frosting was colored with whatever was around—namely coffee powder and turmeric). On the third day, we drove out of Ngorongoro and into the Serengeti, over an endless plain of wildebeest and zebras, and we stayed in tents for our third and fourth nights at Seronera Campground, in the Serengeti (the sound of hyenas outside our nylon tent was a little unnerving, but it was nice to be camping on a new continent). On our fifth day, we had a long drive back, stopping at Olduvai (or Oldupai in Maa, the Maasai language), then through Ngorongoro and down to Lake Manyara, where we camped again, this time at a KOA-style campground before we headed back to Arusha.

As much as seeing the animals, we enjoyed seeing the subtle changes in landscape, from the lush coffee farms around Arusha, to the wild brambles of Ngorongoro Rim, to the dry riverbed of Ndutu, to the grassy plains of Serengeti, to the awesome eroded rock walls of Oldupai. So many different kinds of places are Africa.

Jozani Forest

This coming week, we’re going on safari on mainland Tanzania, and we’re looking forward to it for many reasons. Aside from our excitement about seeing large African mammals in the wild, we’re also looking forward to meeting up with family who are coming to visit for the holidays and getting new supplies from America (never has Santa’s pack been met with such anticipation as we have for our suitcase of goodies from America).  We’re also excited about having electricity, reliable water, and cooler weather; Unguja (the island in the Zanzibar archipelago where we’re living) just began what is predicted to be a three or more week power outage because of either a transformer exploding or an undersea cable being damaged (accounts on the street differ, and it’s hard to get accurate news when the power is down). While my laptop battery is temporarily charged now, though (thank you Zanzibar Coffee House’s generator!), I’ll share some pictures from a trip we took a few weeks ago to see Jozani Forest and Zanzibar’s famed red colobus monkeys.

Like the Spice Tour, a trip to Jozani Forest Reserve to see the monkeys is de rigueur for visitors to Zanzibar, and we found it well worth our while.  We enjoyed getting out to see Zanzibar’s largest section of mature indigenous forest, and we especially enjoyed seeing the mangrove swamp.  There are lots of mangrove swamps at the coast, but we had never seen a mangrove stand in an inlet.  The ecosystem was pretty amazing.  There is a boardwalk that goes through the mangroves so that you can look down and see the water and the crabs and fish swimming around by the roots.  We were surprised to see trumpet fish, which we’ve seen much farther out in the ocean when we’ve gone snorkeling—it’s a surreal experience to see ocean fish swimming among tree roots.  Oscar and Calvin found other uses for the roots and branches, as you can see here.

We loved the mangroves, but the real showstopper at Jozani is the monkeys, which you can see up much closer than at many zoos and far closer than in most wild settings. These Kirk’s red colobus monkeys are endangered and are endemic to Zanzibar. Luckily for visitors, there are several large family groups that stay fairly predictably in several trees that are near to walking paths.  We walked right up near them and couldn’t help but gawk and act like total tourists, snapping pictures left and right.  The monkeys are by no means tame, but they seemed unfazed by our gawking and went right on grooming each other, eating, napping, and swinging about in the trees.

Like the Spice Tour, the Jozani Forest Reserve gives back to the local community.  When the reserve was created in the 1960s, the forest was starting to be logged and the monkeys were being killed for encroaching on farmland. Now, part of the proceeds from the reserve go back to the local community, so that protecting the ecosystem is in everyone’s best interests.  All in all, it was a great trip and much more fun to think about than my laptop’s dwindling power level!  More soon on our upcoming adventures, Insha’Allah.

Insha’Allah

Now that I’ve been teaching in Zanzibar for two months, I’ve settled into a good routine and am really enjoying getting to know my students.  The students are all computer science diploma students (the equivalent of an associate’s degree).  A lot of my communication skills syllabus is pre-determined by state mandate but, where possible, I’ve been trying to tailor it to computer science by assigning communication tasks that the students might need to do in their chosen profession.  I’ve learned a lot about Zanzibari culture through reading their work.  From the assignment to write an instruction manual for something they know how to do well, I learned how to weave baskets, how to make pilau (a Swahili rice dish), how to spear fish, and how to make katlesi (the ubiquitous fritters made from mashed potatoes plus something else like fish or meat). More recently, students wrote business letters, including a complaint letter: From that, I learned a lot about what is frustrating to my students—inconsistent electricity, unreliable water, erratic cable television, and inefficient civil servants.

I share their frustrations, but I’ve learned a coping mechanism from students, as well.  People in Zanzibar (and Muslims more generally) say “Insha’Allah” (or “God willing”) when making plans for the future. Before living here, I thought that it either reflected a fatalistic attitude or was like “knock on wood,” a perfunctory phrase that people say reflecting on (or knowing) the significance.

But it really does do here to make plans with the awareness that the plans may not work out as expected. Slowly, I am learning do that, myself.   When I am planning for class, I can’t count on doing anything at all at the last minute because there's invariably some crucial element that is not available.  In the past month, for instance, my stapler has gone missing from my desk, my computer has blown a fuse, my computer cable has malfunctioned, my computer date has reset to 1950, my printer has jammed and run out of toner, the internet has been down, the photocopy shop that makes my copies has had a giant paper jam in the one (barely) functional copier, the street I’ve needed to walk through has been flooded, there’s been no chalk in the classroom, and my class has been shifted to another time and room unbeknownst to me or my students. On a good day, only one little thing like that goes wrong, but there’s usually a couple. At home, I’d be frustrated by all of these small mishaps, but here I’m starting to accept the unpredictable and am finding that there are benefits to living in a place where I don't usually know what's going to happen. I make plans, I do my best work, and I know that things may not work out as I have planned--and I'm learning that that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

So, last week, when it was pouring so loudly that it was impossible to hear in my classroom, I was happy that I had a quiz planned and that I didn't need to do a big lecture day.  A few minutes into the class, the courtyard outside my classroom started filling rapidly with water, and a few minutes later, water crept up and over the foot-high concrete step outside the classroom and promised in short order to spread into our classroom itself. I interrupted my students, who were working diligently, and I asked them for help—what does one do in this kind of rain: Go up to the second floor? Hold one’s  feet up and wait it out with the expectation that the water will recede soon? Exit quickly to a nearby classroom on slightly higher ground?  My students considered the all of the options, but advised the last one. With the quiz-taking conditions decidedly disrupted, I decided just to count the quiz as a homework assignment. The students were happy not to have the quiz, and I was happy, while we were waiting for the storm to subside, to have a chance to talk with my students more informally than I usually can when we're in our regular classroom setting.  It’s not what I had planned to do that day, but it wasn’t necessarily a worse plan. 

World Cup Fever

This past week, we had a brief brush with glory when we stood within touching distance of the solid gold World Cup trophy (or, more accurately, within touching distance of the well-watched case holding the trophy).

As soccer fans know, the 2010 World Cup will be held in South Africa this coming June and July.

This is the first time the tournament has been held on this continent of soccer (or football) fans, and the excitement is almost palpable.

Even here on Zanzibar, far in so many ways from the upcoming event, people are excited. Qualifying games for the Cup have drawn huge audiences at TVs in Stone Town squares where fans watch games together, and everyone has their favorite teams. Sadly, Tanzania will not be among the teams playing in the Cup.

But Zanzibar had a taste of the World Cup fever when the actual trophy made a stop at Forodhani Gardens this past week, as part of the trophy’s 89-city, 86-country, 134,017 kilometer tour in preparation for the event. Curious about the posters and billboards that had sprung up virtually overnight here, we were among the many who showed up at the event.

Books!

Three months after arriving in Zanzibar with my family’s full allotment of airline baggage, I have a good sense of what I should have packed. I definitely should not have brought the cotton sweaters and multiple packages of office supplies (the former because I was wrong in thinking there would be some evening when I’d want a sweater, and the latter because office supplies are plentiful here even though most people can’t afford them). And I definitely should have packed the hundreds of pounds of books that we brought in our suitcases and mailed through the one-way shipment to the U.S. Embassy that my Fulbright grant includes. Every one of these books has found or will find a good home here.

This reassessment of our packing strategy is more of reaffirmation than anything, but it’s still surprising to me how much I have appreciated books here. When I left for Zanzibar, I knew intellectually that books would be scarce here. I had read in reports from Fulbrighters in Tanzania about how faculty had worked with the limited books available for teaching and research. For that reason, Fulbright grants in Africa include a $1000 stipend for books for the Fulbrighter to use and donate as seems appropriate, as well as free one-way shipment of up to 200 pounds of educational materials to the U.S. Embassy in the host country.

The educational books on my shelves have had some adventures. Before leaving, I did some thrifty shopping for gently used books, and I was thrilled when Bedford/St. Martin’s Press agreed to donate 40 new handbooks for me to give to students at the State University of Zanzibar. I lugged these 150 pounds of books to the central post office in Tacoma and sent the books on their merry way. Six weeks later, Brady and I picked up these books in Dar es Salaam, all intact in boxes that were definitely worse for wear. We then took the books on an uneventful taxi ride through Dar es Salaam (not a given, in a city with one of the world’s highest incidents of deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents). At the port where we took the return ferry to Zanzibar, things got really interesting; taxis can only go to a parking lot that is about 600 feet from the ferry. To get to the ferry, pedestrians must wade through a sea of passengers, porters, and pickpockets (not mutually exclusive identities) and then wait in line to walk a narrow gangplank to the ferry. Brady and I got about 150 feet with our heavy boxes before a team of porters decided that the books were too heavy for us. True enough, but, as soon became apparent, the porters’ service came at a steep price. By the time we got on the ferry, we had managed to ransom the books for about $40 and get them into the cabin with us, rather than on the deck with the shipment of fish and other more water-loving cargo. In Zanzibar, the port is much the same, but on the ferry, we brushed up on some useful phrases in Kiswahili: “Thank you, but we are not tourists; we live here.” “Thank you, but we have no money.” “I am a teacher, and these are textbooks.” We managed to navigate on foot the 800 or so feet from the ferry to our apartment, albeit with a few stops and friendly repetitions of our new phrases. I don’t know the details of the journey of the books in our suitcases on the airplane, but I imagine they had an equally arduous journey from Seattle to Amsterdam to Nairobi to Zanzibar.

But having the books here makes everything worth it. Here are a few moments that have made me appreciate these books:

• Trying to buy books online and seeing that it’s nearly impossible to have books shipped to Zanzibar—in part because of shipping costs and in part because companies fear of liability for lost shipments.
• Trying to design an appropriate research assignment for my students here, using the university library collection (pictured in its entirety here), which has neither a computerized card catalog nor journal databases.
• Reading syllabi here that cite texts (classic ones, but still) no more recent than the 1980s—before the students were born.
• Talking with colleagues working on theses, using bibliographies whose books they can’t locate.
• Browsing local used bookstores that include stained, torn, and dogeared novels in many languages at prices that would be steep in U.S. bookstores, as well as used magazines of all kinds that are sold for pleasure reading even when the content is long outdated.
• Trading pleasure reading with other ex-patriates and readers of English—the most desirable books are the longest ones because they will provide the most hours of pleasure reading (I’m ruing my last-minute decision to leave War and Peace in Tacoma when my suitcase was exactly its weight over the weight limit).

Where I’ve been happiest to have books has been in teaching. As I’d been told, there are almost no classrooms here in which each student has a book. Brady is teaching math in a program where he was given the dogeared 1980s textbook for the class, from which he can write the problems on the board as have his predecessors. In my class, students circulate and photocopy a photocopy of a reading, or they read from scanned documents that I copy from my computer onto a student’s flash drive, for students to share and read at home (if they have a computer, and some do, although no one has Internet at home) or on the university computers (when there is a convergence between lab hours, free time, and power availability). Teaching in these conditions requires multiple back-up plans. I often use PowerPoint presentations to summarize key points in class (reading and hearing simultaneously helps with the language barriers), but I always need to be prepared to write on the board or have students read from shared copies of handouts. Somehow, slowly, we make progress!

Never again will I take for granted the ease and speed of “smart” classrooms or students who have their own books and, boy, am I glad I didn’t talk myself into packing fewer books. If only I could trade these cotton sweaters for my copy of War and Peace!

Spice Tour

This weekend we got out of Stone Town for a few hours and went on a “Spice Tour,” one of the most common tourist excursions in Zanzibar (a.k.a. “The Spice Island”). Like tours of orchards or wineries in Washington, this particular agricultural tour involves sightseeing, a little science, and good food.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, not least because we Northwesterners have been missing trees in our lives as city dwellers. On the way to the spice farm, we drove through some parts of the island that we hadn’t seen before, including the largest hill in Zanzibar, known as “Kilimanjaro.” In Tacoma, we would scarcely have blinked at this hill, but it was a surprise after seeing so much flat ground for so many weeks. Near the top of the hill, there is a famously spiralled coconut tree.

At the farm, we saw one of the many 19^th-century ruins on the island (tropical humidity and storms take their toll on buildings in short order). Even more exciting, we saw a top-notch public elementary school; Brady and I envied the desks, as they’re far nicer than any of the desks at the schools where we teach.

On the agricultural part of the tour, we learned from our guide Salum about the botany of many of the spices we use here in Zanzibar and at home: cinnamon, cloves, cardamom (the “big three”), turmeric, ginger, vanilla, black pepper, lemon grass, curry, nutmeg, and mace, as well as one that was new to us and that is called lipstick plant. We also saw and tasted bananas, pineapple, jack fruit, star fruit, pomelo, green coconut, and oranges. Along the way, we watched someone climb up to get the green coconuts from the top of the tree and were given hats and other accessories woven out of palm leaves. The climax of the tour was eating a Zanzibar lunch of green bananas and kingfish in tomato sauce, fresh tuna and cooked cassava, potatoes in tomato and lipstick plant sauce, pilau (a rice dish), and a relish of raw red onions and tomatoes in vinegar. Yum!

For more pictures, follow this link.

Keeping Entertained in a Low-Tech Environment, Part III

One of the benefits of being in Zanzibar with few toys and little recreational space is that our family has experienced a literacy renaissance. Our kids have been avid readers for several years now, but they have both taken recently to writing for pleasure, especially poems and PowerPoint presentations on topics of interest (robots and Egyptian gods and goddesses have been especially popular). Here are a couple of poems Oscar wrote this afternoon before he started his homework. The illustrated poem is one that Calvin wrote at school (for which, a proud mama might note, he received the Most Creative award).

I Wondered. . .

In the middle of school

I thought it’d be cool

If they ran cars on molasses

That were immune to crashes.

Or fantastic false teeth

Sharp enough for the toughest beef.

Could these things be possible, I wondered. . .

“Wake up!” my teacher thundered.

Digging a Hole

Oh, the things you can find in a hole:

You could find a bent-up tool,

Or a million-year-old scroll.

You could find a dirty grub,

Or a pharoah’s old bathtub.

You could find a chest of gold,

Or some cheese covered in mold.

Oh, the things you can find in a hole!

(But don’t try living in one like a mole.)