sunsets over the beaches, from now on

a usual sunset in bwejuu, the beach I’m staying

much of what I’m about to write might make those of you back home either annoyed, pissed off or jealous. I’m sorry. I’m not one who enjoys showing off or bragging, but really, I think I could quite easily get a job in tourism and try to sell zanzibar to as many people as possible, just so I can live here.

this place is paradise.

aside from being in a perpetual state of sweat, I could see myself very easily succumbing to the beautiful lifestyle of a beach bum. in fact, as soon as I’m home, I want to try and spend as much of my free time before job interviews at or near the beach. unless you can get to it every day, you forget how much you can switch off. and here is no exception.

a selection of random shots…

without doing a full on, in depth sunday 8th to sunday 15th recap of my first week, I’ll just do the highlights; swim, apply sunscreen, eat, reapply sunscreen, lay in the sun, reapply sunscreen, read, reapply sunscreen, eat again, have a beer, sleep. yeah, this is the life. I’ve already made it quite well known that I’m a simple girl with simple needs, so having sand as the floor, being barefoot, wearing literally just a dress and bikini all day, drinking beer, eating fresh seafood, being in the hot weather… it makes for one very happy victoria.

I probably think it’s heaven because I’ve not had the luxuries of a proper flushing toilet and a shower that doesn’t give electric shocks or having the water on for long enough to even have a shower, for the past 5 and a half months.

the place I’m staying is pretty cool. aptly named ‘crazy mzungus’ (crazy white people), its actually a very chill place where I have my own bungalow and have basically been their only continuous occupant. my first night, there was a guy from south africa who I stayed up chatting to almost all night, but he left on monday. then monday arvo, andi (an aussie who I volunteeed with in arusha) came to visit and stay for a couple of nights. we were encouraged to go a bit further up the beach to a hotel/villa type place called ‘upendo’, which means love in swahili, to use their pool and have a few drinks before we went to the rock for dinner. the second we drove into this place was like the second heaven. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

the rock was an experience, actually I’ve been twice now. once with andi, and then once with two other volunteers, savannah and beth (both kiwis). literally a restaurant on a rock about 200m from shore, if the tide is out you can walk to and from it – otherwise you get a small dingy type boat. beautiful fresh seafood, although I would argue that the food at ‘crazy mzungus’ is better.

on thursday, andi and I headed into stonetown – I guess it’s like the capital of zanzibar. and I forgot my camera, which I mentally chastised myself but I was ‘that’ tourist who whipped out her iPad to take some pictures. there is so much history there that I really didn’t know much about, including the slave trade that occurred from 1850-something to 1890-something. it was sooooo hot, unbearably hot. and that’s a big thing coming from me; a complete summer and hot weather addict. and it was made all the more worse due to having to cover up and be respectful to the very proper and reserved muslim culture here, 98% of the people in zanzibar are muslim. I’d rather sweat like a pig and feel like I’m dying of heat exhaustion than get acid thrown in my face.

the city tour we did which showed us where the slave market once was, was chilling. including being shown where the slaves where kept for three days before being sold to the highest bidder. these slaves were brought over from mainland tanzania, kenya and uganda (the east african countries), sold off by the chiefs of their own tribe, and walked all the way from their tribe in their home country until they reached the coast, where they they got a dhow (local boat) across to zanzibar. to be able to decide the price, the sultan of zanzibar (who used to rule until the brits came and took over) ordered that every slave – man, woman and child – be whipped. if they cried or made any noise, their price went down considerably as it showed their weakness, if not, their price would be high as it showed they were strong. it took almost 20 years for the slave trade to be abolished; which was started when a dr livingstone from britain came to zanzibar and tried to end it for many years. however, working alone has it’s downfalls and he didn’t succeed until he went home, spread the word and eventually, britain intervened.

we went to the forodhani food markets that night, which was definitely an experience. laid out in a sort of square shape, a whole bunch of locals have all their food on skewers and it’s basically already cooked, you just choose what you want and they go and reheat it. nothing very exciting about the savoury food, however they do make a mean ‘zanzibar pizza’ with coconut and banana which is so yum, as well as a sugarcane ginger and lime juice drink… very very delicious.

so yeah, that’s what I’ve done for the last week – I say as I’m writing this sitting on the beach with a beer in hand – and it’s what I’ll do for the next week until I fly back to arusha. it will be very difficult to go back to inland africa after just having spent two blissful weeks on the coast. I have moments where I feel guilty for having two weeks off, I came to volunteer and I’ve loved what I managed to achieve – particularly in kenya. as much as we think life gets hard, it’s never as hard as it is for some people here in africa. so whilst I’m loving relaxing and trying to switch off, particularly from my reasonably imminent return back home and then the bloody scary reality of applying for a job with ambulance victoria will hit, the kids at little ray of hope and trying to get the eight of them ready for formal school sponsored are never far from my mind.

running in circles, chasing our tails

huge apologies to those of you wondering where I’ve dropped off the face of the earth to, it has been so long since I’ve written an update.

to be honest, it’s because I haven’t had lots to write home about. I mean, I could’ve easily written about the severe diarrhoea I’ve had off an on for the past couple of weeks and the very intimate relationship I’ve had with the toilets in my house (sorry, oversharing is caring), but I’m pretty sure that’s not what you want to read about. bit just a little on that topic, this is now my sixth month in africa, and seventh month away from home, I can’t believe I’m still dealing with such a temperamental stomach. someone please remind me to enquire about an entire gastrointestinal transplant when I get home. one of my friends I made volunteering in kenya, richard (who’s a fellow aussie), uploaded an instagram picture and used the quote “used my butt as a trumpet filled with soup” when he and a mate were sick. it couldn’t be more true.

okay sorry, enough ‘toilet talk’. but being sick and confined to either my bed or a toilet has made time absolutely fly – I’ve already been in tanzania for a month now.

for a couple of my weekends here, I’ve spent my saturdays helping a really lovely girl alice, from england, help build a new house for a mama she met here in arusha when first volunteering in 2010. I got in contact with her through the tanzania volunteer group on a facebook when I was still in kenya as she was asking if anyone wanted to help out on their spare weekends. figuring I’d have not much else to do when I’m not at work, I let her know I’d be keen. long story short, I’ve been for two of the saturdays that I’ve been in tanzania helping with whatever needs help with at the house. god it is strenuous work, I don’t know how alice has been doing it at least six days a week for the last five or so weeks. incredible.
things we’ve helped to do include excavating existing dirt and clay that was piled up after digging the 12m hole for the squat toilet, hacking away at the existing clay retaining wall behind the new house, scrape off concrete from the newly installed doors and window frames, sanding down said doors and window frames with a piece of sandpaper and a machete and a steel wire brush, painting the doors and window frames… it has been amazing to be a small part of such a huge project. click here to check out alice’s website for a much more detailed re-cap of all she’s achieved.

work at my clinic has still been quite interesting, including a day of working solely with a midwife doing fundal height measurements and listening for a heartbeat with an archaic tool that looks like a funnel, as well as spending time doing ‘growth and monitoring’ on bubs, which occurs every month until about the age of 4 years. it’s a bloody great system – they have a scale suspended from the ceiling (like you see in the fruit and veggie shop) and all the mothers hand make these little jumpsuit things that has a loop that hooks onto the scale, so their bub is suspended (which most of the kids hate) but it’s fast, efficient and easy. I’d then record their weight on a brochure like piece of paper and any serious abnormalities compared to the last time they were weighed, I had to report to the midwife. luckily there were no bubs on this day who were malnourished or weighed significantly less than they did a month prior. africa might be behind in a lot of things, but this is advanced to the max.
also gave polio, tetanus, and rotavirus meds/injections to newborns and as much as it was awful making them cry, at least these kids are getting vaccinated like we all were.

I really love living at the volunteer house now, obviously I didn’t when I first got here, but it’s buckets of fun and the bunch of people living here now are a great group and we all get along really well. just took a bit of getting used to living with 20+ other people. it’s so nice coming home to friends asking how your day was, as well as asking how everyone else’s days were. we all have such different experiences at our respective workplaces. I would love to visit a couple of orphanages while I’m here, apparently they’re really well orchestrated here in arusha – including a baby orphanage that I’m really looking forward to hopefully visiting.
also couldn’t be happier that I decided to buy a ukulele when I was in germany, it’s getting a good workout here in tanzania – sitting around the outside fire pit of an evening with a few beers having a singalong is probably my idea of heaven… glad there’s a scottish bloke called iain who is more than happy to join in so I’m not singing all alone. we’ve treated everyone to a rendition of “the four chord song” by axis of awesome (you should youtube it) and added extra songs in as well. but it’s making me really miss my guitar.

okay i guess now that I’ve written all that, I did have stuff to write home about. apologies for being slack.

it’s hard to believe I’m on the home stretch now, about 5 weeks until I’m back on australian soil. christmas looks like it will be loads of fun here, about 10 or so other volunteers spending the holiday in arusha – see what happens when it arrives! can’t believe I got to africa on the 30th of june and now it’s december. if anyone needs a reminder of how fast time goes, do volunteer work… it flies.