Holiday In Zanzibar

Zanzibar was amazing! Extremely hot, but amazing! For those who don't know, Zanzibar is an island that is part of Tanzania. I went with one of the other girls in the program and then met up with a small group of more students in the MSID program later. We rode a bus from Nairobi to Mombasa and then flew from there to Zanzibar. As we landed, I could see tons of palm trees and beaches with clear aqua water, I knew it was going to be a great vacation! The first day, Emily and I walked around Stone Town, which has many old buildings. The architecture was really interesting-it's a mixture of African and Arab influences. That night, we stayed at St, Monica's hostel which was the site of a slave market. In the basement of the building we were in, were chambers that slaves were kept in, and a cathedral near that building stands where the slave market used to be. We got to take a tour for free since we stayed there. The chambers were very small with only one very small window-not much ventilation at all-it reminded me of what a cellar looks like and 75 men were crammed into one of the chambers while 50 women and children were in the other-they stayed there for 3 days without food or water. It was really hard to actually believe that people could be treated so horribly, even as we were standing in the chamber. The cathedral was beautiful! Hopefully, I'll get some pictures up soon of it! The next day Emily got on a dala dala, which is essentially a pickup truck with an extended truck bed with a bench on each side for people-the record was 28 adults and 1 baby! We were quite squished! We rode that for 2 hours to Kendwa, which is at the Northern end of the island where there are a lot of beach resorts. We spent the next 2 days relaxing at the beach, exploring the area and going into the village to see the great difference between the lives of those living in the village and those just vacationing there at the resorts, and snorkeling. One night, we even cooked on a small charcoal cooker at one of the residents homes so we wouldn't have to buy dinner at the resort restaurant. After 2 days, Emily and I went back to Stone Town for 2 days to check out a few museums, shop, and take a spice tour. The spice tour was great! We got to see how various spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and vanilla are grown and also got to taste a lot of the fruit that is grown in Zanzibar-pineapple, mango, bananas, oranges, marmalade oranges, starfruit, jack fruit, and some others that I can't remember the names of. Our tour guide also took us to see an old Turkish bathing house used by one of the Sultan's of Zanzibar wife and a cave where slaves were hidden before being shipped out after Britain abolished slavery. Now I'm in Mombasa for about 6 hours and then our bus will leave in the evening back to Nairobi. I feel very relaxed after the last few days in Zanzibar and am so excited to be going back to Minnesota to the cold! The heat is quite intense-You pretty much just sweat 24 hours per day and in Zanzibar there was barely ever electricity so the ceiling fans in our rooms didn't work and cold water was very hard to come by! Nairobi is much cooler, though, so I'll be feeling much more human and clean by tomorrow morning!! :)

I'll be home for Christmas...

Surprise! My plane leaves Nairobi on Dec 16th! I was really feeling like my time here was over as the semester was coming to an end and felt completely satisfied with the experience. After my host mom in Meru kind of went a bit crazy one night after seeing our househelp with her arms around my host dad, I figured that was my cue to leave. It was a very uncomfortable situation and I wouldn't be able to go back living with them next semester and I couldn't really go back to my internship because relatives of my host family work there and it would be really awkward, so I am going to be going back to the U Spring Semester! Im very excited to get home! I'm leaving for Zanzibar tonight for about 5 days to relax after completing the MSID program!! :)