Zanzibar, the Spice Island

When you hear the word Zanzibar, what comes to mind?  Exotic spices, slave ships, Arab nights and African music?  The romance of the past no longer present, there is still something very appealing about Zanzibar in a rather tarnished and worn out kind of way.  Having spent the past month on this island (looking for a place to ply my volunteer skills), I have come to feel somewhat kindly towards this island off the coast of Dar es Saalam.  Perhaps like one does towards an elder person with rheumy eyes and dried egg on their chin, or an old dog with a smelly coat.  The streets of Stone Town, the port and capital, are a maze lined with ancient buildings of Arabic architecture and elaborate wooden doors.   It reminds me of Morocco more than anywhere I’ve been.  

 

A colleague of mine met a young Brit who had come to the island to write the story of his cycling journey from Morocco to the Cape.  She said to me, “this place seems to attract writers and artists”.  Mmmm.  Perhaps that is true but it also attracts tourists from Europe by the planeload, NGO’s, and kind hearted people wanting to improve the quality of life for the resident islanders (while improving their own with sun and sea). The beaches here are all white sand and stretch out for miles uninterupted.  The water is soupy warm and the snorkelling and diving fantastic.  Who wouldn't want to visit?

 

As is often the case, there is a juxtaposition between the tourism and all it brings, plus the lives of the locals.  I was saddened and not surprised to learn that the majority of the crafts and all of the commercial foods are imported to the island.   From the beaded Maasai sandals, to the baskets woven in Iringa, to the Khangas (brightly coloured and patterned cloth) from Morogoro, you will be hard-pressed to find Zanzibari crafts.   There are however, a few grass-roots enterprises working on changing this. 

At least two women’s collectives with storefronts are selling handmade clothing from the Khangas and Katangas (bigger pieces of cloth often batikked or tie-dyed).  In the back rooms of these shops I found women working on several sewing machines, or sitting on the ground, hand sewing, amidst the dancing colours, chatter and giggles. What I also discovered is that the products (clothing and pillow covers) were triple the price of the Indian and Thai imports in the other shops.  In the winding alleys and streets, there are countless vendors selling shawls (mostly identical stock) again imported from India and Thailand, competing with the sellers of the Khangas and Katangas (at least they are Tanzanian). 

On a bigger scale of support, there is the project ZEST which stands for Zanzibar Enterprise and Sustainable Tourism.  For the past 5 years, funded and resourced by VSO, CIDA, USAID, UKaid,  CORDAID, and others, ZEST has aimed at decreasing  the percentage of people living beneath the basic needs poverty line (currently 55%).  The program has been aimed at 3 sectors to try and link local people to the tourism trade: market linkage of farmers (who are mostly women) and fishers; marketing for local crafters (who are also women, children and handicapped); and tourism training (youth).  As with any initiative of such a size and duration, there are only some sustainable and lasting changes as the funding comes to an end.  Ideally, initiatives like this need to focus on capacity building and self-sustainability.

 The Jambiani Tourism Training Institute (JTTI) is incidentally one such enterprise www.handsacrossborderssociety.com.  Run by expats (from Victoria Canada), and coupled with a Chiropractic Health Clinic, the centre offers free training for anyone in Tanzania, if they pass the admissions criteria.  Besides offering a 2 Year Diploma in Tourism Training including culinary arts, front service, and bar tending, and marketing, they also offer short term courses on language training (English, German, Italian, and soon to be Russian), HIV and sexual health, IT, to name but a few.  Those latter courses are all open, gratis to the local villagers.  They are also piloting a Train the Trainer program (for capacity building). One of the next steps for this ever-growing endeavour is the need for direct linkage with job opportunities in the various communities (not just Zanzibar). 

Unfortunately, the funding for ZEST as a combined project has finished.  Hopefully there will still be skilled people (e.g. Agronomist) to help the farmer’s challenges with lack of water and storage for produce, or Life Skills Trainers and career counsellors to facilitate mentoring and linking the youth with jobs.

The education system on Zanzibar is extremely poor.  Some of my volunteer colleagues tell me the following situations are typical:

-           Class sizes of 60,70,80 or even 90 children!!  Two shifts, 0730-1pm and 130-6 alternating wkly

-          No desks or chairs, no books, no chalk (there are often chalk boards)...

-          No teacher in sight is common, one time he was asleep on the floor in the classroom, another one was drunk

-          No or outdated resources for the teachers

-          At the secondary school level, all classes are taught in English...the teacher’s themselves have a very poor grasp of the language and pass along their ignorance to the students

-          3% of the total population pass the National Form 4 exams (Grade 10)

-          Girls rarely graduate past Standard 6 or 7, being pulled out for marriage or home tasks.

I discovered that there are at least 10 International or Private Schools on the island, making this the norm for expats and wealthy families.  The best school I have seen is at SOS (an internationally run orphanage).   Here is a picture of some public school teachers at workshop hosted by the VSO volunteers to help them build their teaching skills. 

 More to come about SOS, the medical system and mental health on this island.  Also more to come about the music and arts, such as the traditional Tarab music (as I poli poli discover them).

 

A Christmas Vacation

 

Let me just say, that for those of you enjoy the pics in the blog, my computer has crashed and I no longer have access to the files (here’s hoping to some file recovery when I get to an IT expert).  I will also ask my friends to share their pictures.  Meanwhile....
Edit:  Feb 9, 2013...I got the pics of this holiday from my friends Lois and Derrick, plus Christmas on Zanzibar from Evelyn.  Thanks all. 

My Christmas holidays started with a celebration on the Island of Zanibar.  Together with the other VSO volunteers, we had a wonderful party with an ungift game plus other games and of course wonderful food as usual.  It was a veritable United Nations gatherings with representatives from:  Canada (8), USA (a Canuk who works in Alaska), UK, Canadian-Pakistani, Canadian-Chineese, Chineese from China, Philopino, Belgium, and Canadian-Columbian.  The last picture here is of Lois, Derrick and Evelyn who kindly offered me a place to stay while I looked for a new placement.  I felt safe and cared about, it was great.  The sad part is that Derrick got ill (not African related) on our holiday and he and Lois have had to return to Canada.  With luck they`ll be back in no time.

 

So it seems that there are holidays during Dec 25, 26, and Jan 1 even in Tanzania (62% Christian pop...35%Arab pop...3% other pop.).  My VSO friends Michelle (from TO), Lois and Derrick (from Comox, BC) took advantage of the national holidays and went on a well deserved vacation.  Reversing our snow-birds instincts, we looked for cooler climes.  Instead of heading north, however, we headed to higher elevation, which took up south.

The journey began with a train ride from Dar es Salaam to Mpika, Zambia.  We were warned ahead of time that the train often ran late, as much as 6 hours at times.  We didn’t think we’d mind that as we were slated to arrive in Mpika at midnight.  Little did we know what running late could mean?    The train finally left the station in Dar after a 5 hour delay , a number of different garbled reasons given over the loudspeaker, including going to get gas (for that final delay, someone deserves a promotion!). 

The train and line are over 60 years old, built by the Chinese to transport Copper (which has yet to happen).  What we soon realized is that it had never been updated so you can imagine 60 years of grime, filthy washroom with no water, dirty smelly bedding etc..  However, we made the best of it telling ourselves ‘it’s an adventure’ and spending the 48 hours:  watching the hills and vales of the scenery glide by when on welded rails or jerk by, more often, when not ; interacting with the vendors at the too-man-to-count stops; trying to figure out why we in fact did stop again in the middle of no-where or what the plumes of thick rubber-smelling smoke coming from under our carriage were all about (and just what the belt was for when it was eventually removed because it  wouldn’t stop catching fire);  trying to decided who was entertaining whom as the 4 y.o.  Zambian-German boy from next door visited (or was dropped off to provide respite to his parents and 4 mos brother); and debating what to eat at lunch and dinner (always the same offering of tough thin chicken and rice, dried out fish and rice, or jaw-breaking meat and rice...breakfast offering us a break from choosing as there was only one offering, a one egg omelette, dried bread, tea or coffee).   At least there was food, because as it turned out we arrived 15 hours late and our stash of snacks and fruit were long gone.  It did give us plenty of time to play cards and scrabble, to my delight.

After a night in Mpika (right out of the ghost towns of the US Midwest), we got a ride to paradise.  Kapishya Hot Springs Lodge is an off-shoot of Africa House (a stately manor house with horses, animal husbandry, and a working farm).  I was very happy that the House was closed for Xmas (booked up with visiting family) therefore we had to stay at the Lodge which was built beside the mineral hot springs some 10 Km away.  We had 5 days of luxurious R & R, being treated to gourmet meals, hikes (where we saw the likes of Zebra, antelope, petroglpyhs and a newly built hydro-electric dam and power station).  Otherwise we could be found rafting on the river with its resident crocodiles, reading by or swimming in the river-side pool, having a massage (again waterside) if we weren’t soaking in the hot springs multiple times a day.  The main lodge, a rustic 2 story wooden structure offered couches to read and play games, a dining room and huge windows to watch the lightening shows; while our A frame abodes sported wood-fired hot water and a feel of home for those of us from the West Coast.  Honestly, we thought we’d died and gone to heaven.  My body let go of tension I’d been carrying since July.  Ahhh! 

Pooling our bus and meal money, we then headed off via private car up to the border of Zambia and Tanzania, jumped on a daladala for a few hours and arrived in Mbeya.  We were graciously given sleeping quarters and meals in all their African meagreness, by Deborah (originally from Toronto).  She is the youthful founder and driving force behind ‘The Olive Branch Foundation’ which services 22 villages in the neighbouring area.  The place we stayed in is an orphanage for what she calls “the worst of the worst”,  housing 30 children (many with HIV or disabilities), Deborah and her Maasai husband, and their young daughter.  The Foundation also had a small but enterprising gaggle of volunteers who come through on varying lengths of short-term stays.  These younger women stay out in the villages during the week and come to the orphanage on w/e for a shower and nights rest in a bed.  Amazing how comparison works...it can always be worse.

 

The primary work of the Olive Branch is done in the villages helping to improve HIV awareness, prevention and treatment, plus most importantly providing and running Montessori schools (every school has one M- trained teacher with a goal is to train >44 teachers in all).  An M trainer from Toronto, has come for a couple of summers and taught the teachers.   The current volunteers are doing studies and capacity building with the teachers.  Michelle and Lois (who was a Montessori teacher at one time) went to the villages and were reportedly very impressed.

Meanwhile Derrick and I headed to the town of Iringa, our next destination, as he required some medical attention.  Both Mbeya and Iringa are at about 1500 M (and Mpika was similar) and so the temperatures were lovely...20-25 during the day and requiring blankets at night. Ahh!!  Although we had rain off and on during our trip, overall it was very pleasant.  In Iringa we stayed at Neema Crafts Guesthouse, a workshop for people with disabilities.  The guesthouse is run by the deaf and dumb, while the other crafts such as weaving, pottery, paper-making (from elephant dung), jewellery making and quilting, are done by people without legs.  I did not discover the reason for so many limbless people but know it’s not landmines as there has not been a civil war here.  I do notice a lot of people with club foot and backward feet which may lead to amputation.  After a good year of apprenticeship, the crafters are assisted to set up their own business in their own communities.  As they are paid during training, their status at home is often elevated to the highest earner in the household (from a position of no status at all except to be seen as a burden).

The town of Iringa was remarkably cleaner than anywhere else we’d been in Tanzania.  We soon learned that a woman in government was brought in to local office and instituted garbage pickup and street cleaning.  Although she’d since moved on to another region, 4 years later it was still working.  One of the few local attractions (besides a very big and quiet game park called Ruaha), is a pre-historic site with hoodoos.  The archaeological finds were many and dated to stone age man and animals.  It was one of those experiences, like seeing the animals in the game park, where I felt very insignificant and minuscule in the grand scheme of things.  Ahh!!

 

While my other companions headed back to Dar (a ten hour bus ride), I broke the trip up with a few nights back in Morogoro at the convent.  After 6 hours on the hot crowded bus (back down to lower elevation and into the oven), and after checking in to the convent, I headed to a local hotel.  Extending my vacation a bit longer, I treated myself to a swim and pool-side snack.  Back at the convent I was then provided with a free concert.  The chapel was being used by a choir making a recording, and the sounds of their beautiful a capella four part African harmonies filled the entire building for several hours.  Ahh again!! (or is it awe, this time)?