Yummy in my tummy. Fun in the sun.

This may have been the busiest week we’ve had since we’ve been here. It’s Rod’s last week, so we have been doing a lot of things before he leaves. Which means I’ve had little time to spend on the blog…which also means this post is very, very lengthy. Bare with me.

WEDNESDAY

We went into work today, hoping to go to what would be our first community outreach. We thought that we would go out into the community every Wednesday, but that definitely was not true. The plan was to visit a child in his home and provide interventions there. When we got into the department, our supervisor said she was waiting for a guy to call her to let us know when we would be going. We sit around awkwardly for almost an hour when she receives a phone call telling us that whoever this man was, he wouldn’t be coming in to take us into the community until 1-2pm. So we decide that we could use the time to clean up the second room in the OT department that is crammed with equipment and you can barely walk through the room. It took us around an hour to rearrange things, which was all we could do because they weren’t willing to move anything from the room. It was sad to see that there were so many resources available to work on school based activities, such as handwriting, colouring, etc. for children, but there has only been one case so far. They had stacks of pencil crayons, crayons, markers that were not being used. The view here seems to be more based on mobility milestones (crawling, standing, walking) rather than activities of daily living, which means our role here is more leaning towards PT than OT. At around 11, we asked to go eat lunch and we would be back to go to the community. While we’re having lunch, we receive a text from our supervisor telling us that the guy now says he won’t be around until 3-4pm so she rescheduled it for next week. Basically, we went into work for no reason.

After lunch, Chels and I decided to go book our Safari Blue tour. On our way, I stopped by the place Mary suggested for getting our eyebrows done. I’ve been trying to go for the past week but the lady is never in and she was finally there, so yay I have eyebrows again! I asked Mary where she would suggest for a massage and she said she goes to Lemon Spa, which is also where Ann Marie mentioned she used to go. Mary had just gotten a message about their February promotion: 1 hour Swedish massage and a pedicure for 55,000TSH (~$35USD), so cheap! She brought me into the spa to tell the people there (she knows everyone) to give us good rates because we were volunteers at the hospital. I book my massage and pedicure for 2pm that day, I really needed a massage. At 2pm, I go back excited for my spa treatment, only to be told that they couldn’t do my massage because one of the girls went home sick and the girl left had someone else at 3pm and she can’t do that many massages…really? Isn’t that your job? Anyways…I was really disappointed but rescheduled for Sunday afternoon.

The most exciting part of the day might have been finally trying the “choc stick” at the Malindi ice cream place on our street. It’s basically a family that sells homemade ice cream out of their house…haha that sounds really sketchy, it would never happen at home, but we always see people eating it, so it must be safe. We asked for choc stick, and to our surprise they come in strawberry and vanilla, but not chocolate. Chels and I both got a strawberry, for 200TSH (~12 cents) each, really cheap. It was delicious, very creamy and never lost flavour. You know when it’s just juice that’s frozen you can usually suck out all the juice and then it’s just a chunk of ice on a stick? Well, this one never lost flavour, no matter how much you sucked (that’s what she said…I know).

Strawberry "choc stick".

We didn’t end up going to the beach because we didn’t have enough time, so it got pushed back to Friday.

THURSDAY

We went in for 7:30am today because we have the early presentation, but what do you know…the presentation is cancelled again. So we started therapy at 7:30 instead of 8:30 since we were already there and there was a lineup of patients outside. It was a busy day, we had 25 patients come through and we finished at around 11:30, which is late considering we started an hour earlier.

For lunch we went to Lazuli again, because it’s so damn delicious. This time I got the prawns and guacamole wrap, it was really good as always. And then we went to meet with Abdi so we could buy a fresh fish for dinner. The fish market, which is at the market we always go to for produce, was gross. It really was…it was smelly (which is given), but also really unsanitary. They wash the fish and their hands in the same bucket of water over and over again. There are flies everywhere, like swarms of flies sitting on the fish that are laying there and anytime someone makes some sort of movement (which is often), all the flies fly off and then come back. They have an area where they auction off fish, we couldn’t really get a good look cause there were so many people hovering over that area. We did see a fisherman slamming a dead octopus with a piece of brick because it makes the meat more tender when you cook it, which makes sense, that’s why you would pound beef. But the issue was that he was hitting the octopus on the floor….the dirty, muddy floor. And then he washes it with the same bucket of water as mentioned above. Just our luck, we happen to be standing right in front of him while he’s doing this, which means we got octopus juice splattered nicely on our legs, feet, and clothes…yum. It was slightly unappetizing to say the least, but Rod rewashed everything with bottled water when we came home, so it made us feel a little better.

 Fish.

 Some sort of manta or sting ray for sale.

 Octopus.

 Squid.

 Our tuna!

 Getting sliced up, wouldn't want to eat this tuna sashimi.

Octopus slamming.

 Meat market...smells awful.

 Fruits and veggies.

 Red bananas.

 This is what the market look likes.

Plantains, they're massive.

In between our fish purchasing and our Stonetown tour, Chels and I went to the “supermarket”, which is really a normal sized store that sells groceries excluding produce. We found Fanta flavours which we’ve never seen before: strawberry, apple and citrus. We had to try them of course. Everything in the supermarkets are a lot pricier than buying things at the market, but they have more novelty items that we wouldn’t be able to get at the market. It was only our second time going there since we’ve been here, but
Chels had been craving Lays chips and they had them there, so I think we’ll be frequenting them a lot more.

So many flavours.

The tour of Stonetown was wayyy longer than anticipated. The tour agencies say the tour takes three hours, but since we were only going with Abdi we didn’t think it would be as extensive…we were wrong. We walked for 3 hours. There were a lot of interesting things that we got to see though, but I won’t bore you with all the details of places that you probably don’t know…slash I don’t remember a lot of it haha. But we did go to the slave market located in the town. There is a lot of history to this place; Zanzibar was the last slave trade in the world. They would bring in slaves from all over Africa to be sold at the slave market. After travelling into the island by ship, which were horrid conditions. On the boat, the slaves were laying side by side with little room to move and of course chained. When they had to use the bathroom they would have to make their way to a hole at one end of the ship where the contents could be emptied in the ocean. But because they were shackled, a lot of times they would trip over other slaves while trying to make their way to the “toilet” and then wouldn’t be able to get up again to continue and would have to soil the area where they had fallen. A lot of slaves died on the ship before reaching the island. When they got here, the men were separated from the women and children and kept in two chambers. The chambers were very, very small with a low ceiling and the only source of light was from the tiny slits considered windows in the wall. Before they entered the chambers they would have to go to the washroom outside because there was nowhere to use the washroom inside. In the chamber for women and children, the room at one point held 75 slaves, as presented in writing with chalk on the wall. And the chamber for men, which was even smaller than the other held 50 slaves. It was said that a slave was strong if they could endure the conditions they were put through. I can’t even describe the feeling of being in the chambers…Rod had to crouch so his head wouldn’t hit the ceiling. It was extremely hot and stuff and there were only 5 of us in the room. We couldn’t see where we were going at all because it was so dark. To be standing in the same spot where so much history has happened is a really crazy feeling. I got attached my mosquitoes as soon as I walked into the chambers, but that little to pay considering all the suffering that has taken place there. They built a monument to show the history of this site; the monument shows 5 slaves chained together by connecting neck and feet chains. We were told that the people chained together would be from different tribes so that they couldn’t communicate with one another to plan any sort of rebellion. The shackles on the monument are original shackles that were once used during the slave trade. Eventually the trade was stopped after Dr. David Livingstone visited and sent letters back to Britain explaining what was happening here and they bought out the area and began building a church. The church has a circle marked exactly where the slaves would stand to be whipped, hence “whipping post”, and be sold. It was contains the buried heart of a priest who contributed greatly to the church. The church was very beautiful, with outstanding detailed in all the architecture. The whole slave market site was definitely worth visiting.

 This is written on the walls indicating the number of people once held in the chamber.

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 This is half of the chamber for women and children, this fit 75 people.

 Chains used to keep the slaves captive.

 Tiny windows, the only source of light and air.

 Really small chains, must have been used for children.

To emphasize how cramped in was in the chambers.

50 males in the following chamber.

 Even smaller and more cramped.

 The Anglican Church that replaced the Slave Market.

 Slavery Monument.

Original chains.

 Inside the church.

 Beautiful alter.

 One of the oldest organs, that they still use for mass every Sunday.

Very detailed stained glass windows.

 The brass circle marks the spot where the slaves used to stand and got whipped to show their strength.

Burial site of Bishop Edward Steele.

We also visited the Persian bath, which is also another historical site where the Sultan of Zanzibar built a bathing area where he would host many guests from around the world. You could tell the place was once very glamorous, but is obviously run down now. They had special areas for everything washroom related. A special nook to hang clothes, an toilet area (which was really just a whole that goes really far down), an area specially designated for shaving private parts, and a cold bath and a hot bath. The hot bath, like a basic, Jacuzzi, was warmed by fire that was under the bath, while the cold bath was from rain water that collected at the roof.

 To wash their feet.

Station where they shaved their private parts.

Cold bath.

 Hot bath.

 the toilet.

This is under the hot bath where they light the fire to warm the water.

At the end of our tour, we went up to a rooftop restaurant that overlooks all of Stonetown; it was a remarkable view. And Abdi explained to us about the infamous brass doors that are everywhere in the town. The rounded doors were from Indian culture and the rectangular doors were from Arabic culture. The bigger the door, the wealthier the man. Good to know because we never knew what all the fuss was about the doors.

 The only Catholic church on the island.

This is what the stores we buy souvenirs and bargain from look like.

 Old Fort, used to be one of the tallest buildings in Zanzibar.

 Sauti za Busara music festival being set up for this upcoming weekend. The largest music festival showcasing music from all around Africa.

 A very tight squeeze, people drive like maniacs here.

 You can see both a church and a mosque in this view, showing the multi-religious base, although most people are Muslim.

 Overlooking Stonetown.

 With the water in the background.

 This tree is called the Golden Shower tree. Commence immature laughter.

 This was the first building on the entire island to have electricity.

Infamous brass doors, this one of the oldest ones.

Dinner..oh was dinner amazing. On top of the entire tuna we bought at the market that was cut, deboned, and skinned for us, we also bought calamari. The whole fish + the extra work only cost us 15,000TSH (~$10) and 4 squids cost 8,000TSH (~$5USD), so it wasn’t expensive for fresh seafood. But the most exciting part was the Rod was making poutine!! We have all been dying for a poutine since we’ve been here. Rod did a lot of the prepping and cooking of the food, he basically cooked everything, except for the tuna which Chels and Abdi grilled on a charcoal grill Abdi borrowed from a friend. We decided to just eat at home because it would be easier; having to bring all the food + utensils and dishes + drinks to the beach would have been too much of a hassle. The fish was grilled with a masala spice; I don’t know how the calamari was made, but it was delicious, and the poutine also had a touch of masala. We didn’t make our own fries, for 6000TSH (~$4), we thought it would be easier to buy 3 plates of fries. Overall, it was a meal that took lots of effort (not so much from my part, they’ve come to learn I’m not very useful in the kitchen) and prep but it was definitely worth it! Poutine was heaven. We also bought red bananas when we were at the market and had them for dessert. They’re much sweeter than the tiny, yellow bananas that we normally eat here – Abdi told us the little ones are called lady’s finger bananas, and they tasted more similar to bananas at home. Homemade seafood dinner + poutine = hugeeeee success.

Prepping the seasoning for the fish.

Ready for the grill.

GRAVY.

 Abdi manning the grill.

 Chels taming the fire. 

Dinner is served! Calamari and tuna.

Homemade poutine!!

We’re lucky that Abdi is also a tour guide so the things we takes us to do are don’t require money cause otherwise the Stonetown tour itself would cost almost $30 per person. We repay him in food, we pay for all the dinners and transport that occurs during the day. It is definitely cheaper, and he is good company, he’s a funny man.

FRIDAY

Thursdays keep feeling like Fridays, so it’s a disappointment when I have to wake up for work Friday morning. Today we’re supposed to go in for the weekly OT/PT presentation and make splints for two clients. What we did instead: sat in the OT department for 2 hours doing nothing. The presentation got cancelled because the PTs had a last minute meeting. One of the two clients showed up, but then it was decided that she only needed an arch support in her shoes, which we don’t do…and the second client never showed up. Morning well spent. During our two hours sitting there, our supervisor told us that she heard on the radio this morning that people in Zanzibar are taking pills from China to make their hips bigger…and by hips she meant butt, but she kept beating around the bushes to avoid having to say that word, and when she said it was for better sex appeal she kept giggling like a 12 year old girl. Haha, I guess I’m used to a more open culture.

We moved our beach day to today, so off to catch the dala dala we went. Chels and I headed straight to the resort we went to last time, the beautiful Green and Blue resort. We ordered the same yummy arribbiata pasta and also some drinks just because we felt like it. I ordered a white wine with soda, felt like being classy. We spent the rest of the day tanning and swimming at the resort, it was glorious. Towards the end of the day, one of the staff at the resort told us that he found a bush baby sleeping under a window and he brought us to see this creature. Apparently these animals are really difficult to see, even on the safari, because they sleep during the day and only come out at night. They have a tendency to eat fermented coconut and get drunk, then sleep during the day…I think this animal and I can become the best of friends. We couldn’t see it’s face cause it was sleeping on it’s belly, but the staff member poked it with a stick and it slowly began to stir. It took it a really long time to start moving, it was moving very slowly. When it finally got up and tried to walk, it stumbled over completely…it was clearly extremely drunk haha it was hilarious watching it, it’s like those times when you come home from the bar and had a few too many and try to change into pajamas but fall over in the act of changing.

 Picture perfect lunch view.

 Pasta and some wine.

Resort lifestyle.

 Sleeping bush baby.

It's not as cute as it's name, but he is completely wasted.

I’ve come to realized that the dala dala is much safer when it is jammed packed because then there are no chances of slipping and sliding and potentially falling out of the car. When it’s empty, you have to hold on to a piece of wood for dear life and hope you don’t lose grip. Our ride home was lucky…very lucky. When we got there we had asked a guy when the last dala dala comes and he said 6pm. So at 5:30 we went to wait for it only to be told that there weren’t going to be anymore dala dalas so we walked towards the main road hoping that there would be more further out, and there is one, but it’s not going back to Stonetown, only to the roundabout ~20 minutes away. So we decide to take it anyways and there might be dala dalas on other routes to take us back into town. Of course we get overcharged for the sort right over, but at least we were able to catch another dala dala to take us home instead of paying for a cab!

SATURDAY

Safari Blue day! We went to meet our drive at 8:30am. It took about 30 minutes to drive to Fumba where we were the first ones to arrive, for once we weren’t late. We had to wait for probably another 40 people to get there and then all the drinks and other supplies had to be brought onto the dhows (wooden sailing boats) which were way out because the tide was so low. Finally we got split into three groups to board three different boats. We were disappointed because there weren’t many other young people around that we could make friends with. So we walked towards the dhows trekking through wet sand and uneven terrain, our sandals kept getting sucked into the sand but we couldn’t take our shoes off because there were sea urchins everywhere. When we got on the boat, we found some fellow Canadians from the west coast. And the funniest family from Turkey. We ended up enjoying the company of our boatmates a lot.

 Getting into the Dhows.

Pretty wooden carvings with our boats name on it.

So after we got on the boats we set off to look for dolphins. We didn’t see nearly as many as when we went on the dolphin tour, and we didn’t get to swim with them. We saw two groups of humpback dolphins and that was it, nothing too exciting. Then off we went to snorkel! We got to snorkel in two different areas, the waves weren’t too calm so at times it was hard to stay in one spot. Chels and I definitely lost the rest of our boat, but we were with the other two Canadians and one guide so we were okay. We saw lots of fish, but the waves made it really difficult to take good pictures; in areas where it was deeper water it was also really murky and not clear. Between the two snorkelling trips we were given madafus (coconut) to drink and then they cut open the coconut so we could eat the flesh. Yum. And they also gave us Zanzibar chocolate and dried coconut pieces to try, they were also really good. After the second snorkel, where we had to swim to the sandbank, we soaked up a little bit of sun.

Refreshments as soon as we get on the boat, what service.

Humpback dolphins.

 Spikey things on the ocean floor.

 Blue starfish.

  Another colourful starfish.

 Fishies.

 NEMO aka clownfish.

 So many fish.

 Hi from Zanzibar!

 Chels doing some underwater dance moves.

 Chels with all the fish.

 Little orange fish.

Gigantic starfish.

Cutting up some madafus.

Bottoms up.

 Eating the flesh in the madafu.

Zanzibar chocolate and dried coconut pieces.

Boat anchored to a sandbank.

 Yupp, we took touristy beach pictures.

 My hair has a mind of it's own.

 Chels and I.

 Just three OTs in Zanzibar.

Welcome to paradise friends.

Post snorkelling we were taken to see the mangrove lagoon. It was calm and peaceful there, but we were just passing through. Off to the barbeque lunch buffet! As soon as we got off the dhows onto another sandback we were offered hibiscus juice and beer, right on. And then lunch was served. Oh the lunch was to die for. All sorts of barbequed seafood…there was lobster, shrimp, calamari, octopus, fish and then chicken and rice with two different kinds of sauces. So filling and so delicious. Then for dessert we got served all types of fruit that were in season here and other desserts; red bananas, lychee, jackfruit, dates, mango, passion fruit, watermelon, sugar cane and something called halua. It was thing big brown jelly blob made out of peanuts, brown sugar and ginger. It was delicious, tasted like ginger maple syrup.

 Lunch!!

 So much seafood.

After lunch, with our bellys filled, we got to enjoy the sandbank and then went to see a large tree. Part of the tree had fallen over and continued to grow, it was cool and the tree was massive. Then back onto the dhows to sail home. On our way to the sandbanks we used a motor, but on the way back put the sail up and sailed to shore. It was nice, I can see why people like taking boats out into the water and just relaxing, it was beautiful. They served us fresh pineapple and more beer on the way home. I can see why everyone says that it’s one of the trips you have to go on when in Zanzibar.

Posing with the fallen tree.

 Sails are up and into the ocean we go.

Fresh pineapples to end the day.

SUNDAY

Today was my spa day! I went for my massage and pedicure at 1pm. It was pretty standard to start, she asked me to take my clothes off except for underwear and then there was a massage table with a kanga wrap to cover myself. But I wasn’t completely finished before she walked in without knocking and I’m standing there awkwardly folding my skirt still, naked. So what else to do but continue with my business and I just hopped on the bed. The massage was good, I haven’t had one since the beginning of December and my back has really been bothering me lately. Although, it was different from home when massaging the butt and my chest became part of the routine. I guess those are possible places to be massaged, but it’s just not what I’m used to at home; the room was really dark as well so it wasn’t as uncomfortable. After the massage, I was told to have a shower to wash off the oil. I’ve never been given that option before either, it was nice to not be oiled up and slick leaving the spa. Then I had my pedicure, which was pretty standard, nothing special. But it’s pretty damn nice to have a day of pampering! That’s the excitement of my day, the rest has been spent responding to emails and writing this post.

Kangas instead of bedsheets over massage bed.

This has definitely been a fun filled and sun filled weekend! Now if only the rest of my time here was spent like this and we didn’t have to work. Can’t have it all I guess, two more weeks of work and less than three weeks til home! I am so tanned, people might not recognize when I’m home. And also burnt to slight crisp right now from snorkelling. Hope you all had as fabulous of a weekend as I did. If you’re still reading at this point, please give yourself a pat on the back, and be glad that it’s finally over.

Happy New Year to all my Asian family and friends. Year of the snake, it’s our year to shine!