Jambo! For four days last week, we went to a village called Paje on the east coast of the island. The village is a big tourism destination, so its interesting to see women laying out at the resort, while a quarter mile down the road is a third world village. While there, we continued our two-a-day Swahili classes, and learned about different issues that the local villagers deal with on a day to day basis. We had an assignment where we had to go into the village and use our (very limited) knowledge of Swahili to ask questions about topics like use of the sea, vocations of men and women, and religion (those were the topics that my group had), and also water sanitation, health issues, and education. One of the jobs that women have in the village is seaweed farming - they actually grow seaweed in the shallow water, gather it at low tide, dry it on the beach, and sell it to an exporting company from the UK based in Zanzibar. This is a seaweed plot at low tide:
On Saturday, our last day in Paje, we drove to the village of Kizimkazi to go swimming with dolphins!! Sounds great, right? It ended up being quite the adventure. The swells that day were 7 or 8 feet, and we drove out to the site in questionable boats. After a 45-minute boat ride, we found the dolphins!! They were really hard to follow though because the pod kept zig-zagging because of the swells. We managed to get close enough at one point, and I was one of the first ones to jump in with my snorkeling gear on to look at the pod underwater and I GOT STUNG BY A PORTUGESE MAN OF WAR. It hurt so bad, and I got out of the water and back into the boat and immediately started bawling. Meanwhile, one of the guys in the boat had gotten really seasick from the huge swells and started throwing up over the side. It was obviously time to go back. I didn't even get a picture of the dolphins :( Its been 3 days since the jellyfish incident now, and the stings are already much better.
Two days ago, we all moved into our homestays in Stone Town! I'm living with the Sheha, or the mayor of Stone Town. The house is in the busy, crowded central area of the city, which is interesting. I have to go now, but I'll add more to this post later! Miss you all!
So glad to hear your jelly fish stings are better! Too bad you missed the shot of the dolphins - hopefully you will have another chance. I'm looking forward to hearing more about your homestay in the "city" with the Sheha. Great picture of the seaweed farm, looks very high tech. Miss you!
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