What I've been up to

Stephanie beating up Tyler. This happens at least once a day.

Me with a 185 eyar-old tortoise.

Our Mahonda Class. For some reason they didn't seem to smile in this picture, but when you talk to them they are really nice and cool people.

There are 6 monkeys in this picture. Can you find them all?

The dolphins, there were about 20 or so, even though you can only see 3 or 4.

Our time here is winding down; my plane for Canada leaves in 3 weeks. Here's what has happened since I last blogged.

After Ushujaa we met Nicole and Melissa from the Morogoro volunteers who decided to visit Zanzibar for the weekend. It was great to see them again, and interesting to hear what their programs were like and the differences between where they live and here. With them we woke up early on Sunday morning to travel to the south of the island to swim with wild dolphins. After the short drive there we chose our snorkeling gear from a rack and stepped onto a small boat. There were 7 of us: the 5 volunteers and 2 guides. For 2 hours we searched the ocean with other boats carrying tourists doing the same thing as us, and at last we found them. We all jumped into the water and were immediately surrounded by these huge creatures. It was very hard to keep up with them. While they were leisurely swimming along I was sprinting with all of my energy just to stay with them. Once they got too far ahead we got into the boat and caught up with them again. The dolphins themselves did not seem afraid of us, and a few even came up to me and swam around me before heading back to the bottom. After half an hour of this we were all exhausted so we were brought back to land.

The next event on our list for the day was seeing monkeys in the Jozani Forest. I thought "It took us 2 hours to find the dolphins, it'll probably take us just as long to find the monkeys." A 30 second walk across a road and the first tree on the right proved otherwise. There were a dozen or so of them, each climbing all around the tree and eating leaves from the branches. We could get really close to them, they seemed used to humans after tourists coming to visit them so often. After taking a million pictures of these guys we went for a short stroll through a mango tree grove and a mahogany forest.

The week then started, and we continued our classes as usual. Every week seems to keep getting better and better, the students are much more eager to participate each session, and even with the language barrier they seem to understand the materiel we teach them. There are a few participants who we have become friends with, and after each class they come up to us and ask us questions about the class, or just to talk about anything. My favourite part of my week was when the Mahonda Computer Class climbed into the back of a rented daladala with us and made the trip to Stone Town for a practical. All the way they were asking us questions about ourselves, singing songs, and all in all having a great time. It was like a field trip for them, and I can't wait until next week's session so we can do it again.

This weekend started, and we went to Forodhani (the seafood night market) as usual on Friday night to end our week of classes. On Saturday we woke up early to go to Prison Island, which was half an hour away by boat. The prison itself had long ago been converted into a quarantine station for an outbreak of bubonic plague that occured a hundred years ago. Now it is used only for tourism. The most exciting part of this island however is not the prison, but the giant tortoises that inhabit it. When I say giant I mean gigantic. There were a few who came to my knees, and mid-thigh if they stretched their necks. There were dozens of them, all in one area, and you could feed them spinach by hand and pet their necks, which apparently they love. Just seeing one was incredible, to actually be interacting with many was an experience of a lifetime. There was one that was 185 years old, and still looked like he had another hundred years to go.

Coincidentally enough, one of Stephanie's friends from Newfoundland is volunteering in Arusha, Tanzania the same time that we are here in Zanzibar. She and 5 of her colleagues came and we met them in Stone Town. Each one of them were great people and really fun to be around, I'm glad we got to share a day together here.

I'm now getting ready for next week's classes. There are only 2 more weeks of actual classes to go before graduation week occurs, and I'm trying to squeeze in as much information as possible into such a short time period. I hope that everyone had a great Halloween, and that everyone actually wore a costume instead of going as themselves (not that I've done that in the past or anything...). We bought Masai robes here and a bit of their jewelry so tonight we will celebrate Halloween with our family a day late. Hope everyone is having a good school year!

rte