Category: Zanzibar

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Amboseli Ethiopia Lake Nakuru Masai Mara Mombasa Tsavo East Zanzibar

More Vacations

Sometimes I think about the way I portray my Peace Corps experience on this blog, and I worry that especially recently, it looks like I do nothing but take vacations.

In any case, I semi-recently had a visit from my dad and stepmom, in which we quite possibly saw every single individual animal in Kenya over the course of four different safaris.  It was a wonderful time.  I of course love staying in hotels, which have modern amenities like running water, sit toilets, showers, and other things that have to do with water, but on top of that I was happy to have them come and witness this place firsthand, even the parts that involved long, bumpy bus rides.  Without any further ado, here are some pictures of animals.

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And here are some pictures with people (I am not related to the guy with a chicken leg in his mouth):

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Not long after my dad and stepmom left, my girlfriend came for her fourth and final time to Kenya. Again, wonderful.  We traveled to Zanzibar and Ethiopia.  Here are some pictures from Ethiopia, where we went to a fun New Year’s Eve event (they use a different calendar, so their thirteenth an final month ends in September):

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ErinRose had helped me in the classroom many times, and the students were sad to see her go (and I believe the feeling was mutual).  The time she spent in the library with portions of my vocational class allowed me to focus on a smaller number of students, so I am grateful as well.  Thanks, ErinRose!

Not long after getting back into my routine (without any guests), I missed a week of school to go to my Close of Service (COS) Conference.  This is when Peace Corps lays out the details of how and when I go home to America.  I generally don’t comment on Peace Corps trainings because I get upset and frustrated, so I’ll maintain that policy here. In any case, it looks like the date of my return will probably be December 17, so I’ll be home for Christmas (again, PROBABLY).

In addition to the conference during the day, the volunteers who are in my group (meaning the ones who will go home around the same time I do) had lots of leisure time in the evenings, and we had productive gatherings like this one:

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It’s worth noting that only 24 of our original group remain.  I think we started with 41 or 42 or something.  This is much higher than the usual attrition rate.  We definitely lost some good ones on the way.  If any of you are reading this, just know that you were missed at the conference and that we’ll all be back in the states soon so we can spend time reminiscing!

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Zanzibar

Zanzibar!

A group of five of us traveled together to Zanzibar for the week right after the Mombasa CST.  I think the flight was under an hour, although the visa process was slow.  I was annoyed to see that my visa which I got in advance from the Tanzanian Consulate was only good for six months, but the one at the border was good for a year.  Both cost an insane one hundred US dollars.  Here we are at the Mombasa airport walking to our plane:

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We stayed at a hostel on the eastern side of Zanzibar Island in Stone Town, which is like a much more beautiful Mombasa Old Town.  The place was crawling with tourists and their money, and as a result is in better shape than Mombasa.   A nice ocean view, nice restaurants, a semi-authentic nightly fish market/BBQ aimed at tourists, etc.  The town also features really ornamental woodwork, especially on all the doors and doorframes.  Mombasa in general doesn’t have wooden doors, as termites are such a big problem, so that was nice to see.  Zanzibar apparently is known for its spices, so our first tour as tourists: the Zanzibar Spice Tour!  Here we are eating food (with lots of spices in it) at the end of the tour.  

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The tour also took us into a slave cave, where the sultan or someone like that used to keep slaves.  The tour guide spent most of the time talking about a magical talking snake so I’m not sure about the real details.

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In Zanzibar, they use donkeys to pull carts… ingenious!  In Mombasa I see carts just like this all the time, but they’re always pulled by men.

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Zanzibar has matatus much like Mombasa, but additionally it has dalah-dalahs (which I’m probably misspelling), which you can see below.  They’re small lorries with improvised bench seating.

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There were also a lot of bicycles and motor scooters trying to hit us all the time, but no tuk-tuks.  Anyhow, for the second half of the trip we stayed on the west side of the island at a small resort hotel.  Check it out:

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I ate a lot of seafood while in Zanzibar, but now I’m back in Mombasa and Ramadan has started, which I’m considering observing, at least by not eating when the sun is up.  Many of my friends and coworkers here are Muslim, so if nothing else it would be best to be respectful and not gorge myself with giant lunches in restaurants, although from what I hear many of them will be closed anyway.  It will be interesting to see how this affects day-to-day life.

Lastly, I alluded to some possible opportunities for me before the next term starts.  During CST it was recommended that I help out the team who is developing the as-yet-unveiled Kenyan Sign Language (KSL) portion of the giant Kenyan standardized tests (the KCPE and KCSE), which I previously wrote about critically (but diplomatically) here.  If this pans out it would mean a trip or multiple trips to Nairobi,  I am unsure as to exactly what I’ll be doing, maybe just some tech consulting, but it’s right up my alley so I’m excited to be doing anything with it at all!