Monthly Archives: June 2011
lazy Sunday
Taking Friday off work really made Sunday seem like a bonus holiday; it was great. I went running in the morning and saw the largest snail ever! Its shell was nearly the size of my fist and it must have been eight inches long. The shell looked like it belonged to a crab, not a … Continue reading »
Coconut tree climbing
Check out this video that Tanya took during our spice tour!
Edmund’s last day
Edmund’s flight home was Saturday evening so we had just enough time during the day to do one last fun activity with him. We decided to go to the beach on the east coast of the island. Masoud picked us up at 9 again and it took us about an hour to drive to the … Continue reading »
Spice Tour
Since Friday is a short day (due to prayers), we decided to take off work entirely and to show Edmund a bit of Zanzibar. We decided on a spice tour and arranged for Masoud to pick us up at 9 am. I went running in the morning then made some pancakes for breakfast. Edmund made … Continue reading »
more GIS training
Since we didn’t cook dinner the night before, we didn’t have anything for lunch on Thursday so I got up with enough time to make pasta and sauce before we had to go to the office. Apparently I should not be in charge of making food anymore because I have been making it too spicy. … Continue reading »
GIS training
I woke with a start at 4:30 in the morning, feeling something bite my pinkie finger of my left hand!! My finger really stung and after a few minutes I got up and turned on my light. I flipped over my pillow and say a centipede crawl away under the other pillow!! Gross! Even though … Continue reading »
Edmund and Jaclyn arrive
On Tuesday morning I went running in the morning and made it back just before it started to rain. Jaclyn (another student who will be here for two months) and Edmund (a professor from Berkeley who is a Geographic Information Systems expert) were arriving at 10 am so Tanya and I spent the morning at … Continue reading »
more films
Even though we didn’t have to be to work until 9, Tanya and I got up early to go running before it got too warm. The air quality here is rather poor in general but mornings are not so bad. Many of the cars and trucks here are old and emit a thick black smoke. … Continue reading »
15 postcards
The skies opened up in the middle of the night on Saturday. I was awoken by the rain sometime around midnight. I haven’t heard it rain that hard in a long time and I was very grateful to have a good roof over my head. By morning it was hard to tell that it had … Continue reading »
Rural village mapping
We told Makame to meet at our house at 8 am to get to the Bubweni Misufini health facility by 8:30, the time he said we would arrive. He and the driver picked us up at 8:20 so we were a bit late. When we got to the health facility, there were people everyone, which … Continue reading »
a short work day
Friday morning Tanya wasn’t feeling well, so I went running alone. I should explain a little bit about where I run because it’s pretty interesting. From where we live, you can run to the ocean in about seven minutes. There are several roads that all lead to the same place by the beach and I’ve … Continue reading »
More planning
On Thursday we had to be home in the morning for the fundi to come back and finish fixing the toilet. That took a little while so we biked to work around 10 am. Although the temperature doesn’t change much from dawn to the heat of the day, 10 am seems much hotter than 8 … Continue reading »
Wednesday: the day of rest
The toilet in Tanya’s bathroom wasn’t flushing correctly so we had the landlord send a fundi (repairman) over to look at it. He could only come at 9 am on Wednesday so we needed to be home to let him in. Since we didn’t have much work to do at the office and we were … Continue reading »
More market adventures
When we were riding to work on Tuesday morning the ground was a bit wet from the rain during the night. At one point a car ahead of us stopped very suddenly and the motorcycle behind it, carrying two young guys with no helmets, couldn’t stop in time and they laid down the bike. It … Continue reading »