Zanzibar

Habari!

I am alive and well and arrived in Zanzibar last Sunday and have had an amazing week. Zanzibari culture is amazing, as it is a mixture of Arab, Indian and African. Also, a very long time ago, the Persians were here;) The people are super friendly and always saying "hujambo! or habari!" they don't let you just ignore them either, because they will keep talking to you, even in english. Yesterday, I walked around Stone Town for 5 hours, and by the end, all I wanted to do was sit in a room with complete silence...I think I had said hello to nearly the entire town;) They are very nice people though, and very eager to teach me Swahili. I haven't made much progress on that front, other than basic greetings and such.

I spent my first day swimming with dolphins in the ocean, and meeting some red colobus monkeys...who are very friendly-one of the monkeys lept from a tree and knocked a guy's camera out of his hands while he was taking a picture! The second day, I went on a spice tour and learned all about their 22 spices grown here, although i forgot most of it. I met a lot of cool people though, including a couple from france, whom i practiced my French with (their english was just as bad as my french, so it was all good;) Last night, the electricity went out, so Chesare (an Italian guy also satying at my hostel), nsoro, and Joseph (they work at the hostel), and I watched the sunset over the ocean and talked about life in Tanzania. Life seems very difficult here, and the people are pretty poor...but they are happy and work very hard. lots of the people know some english, so it is pretty easy getting around. today I went to Makemwe, a (extremely) small town on the east coast that had a beautiful beach with no tourists. i was followed around the beach by a group of young boys who loved to pose in front of the camera and then look at the pictures (this entertained them for a good half hour, and would have gone longer). Tonight I am going to have iftar with young kids that work at the hostel i am staying at....when they found out I am also muslim, they got really excited and invited me to dinner...I guess it has some advantages:)

I hope you are all doing well, and I miss you all! sorry to those of you i didn't get a chance to see before i left, but hopefully we will see each other soon.
kwa heri!