Zanzibar

I started Tuesday bright and early with a conference call with our advisors in San Francisco. As always, we had questions answered, but didn’t feel satisfied at the end of the call. But at least we got some answers. We could only get one car to go into the field on Tuesday and since three … Continue reading »

It was cloudy and almost cool when I got up on Monday so I went running before work. It may seem like I go running a lot and you would think that I’m getting into super good shape here, but I don’t think that’s the case. Running is pretty much the only exercise that’s available … Continue reading »

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 »

Check out this video that Tanya took during our spice tour!

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »