running ruminations

Hello hello. A quick update and then a collection of thoughts from my run this morning.
Things here are going fine. The predicted power outages never arrived... amazing. Of course it has been off and on here and there, but overall, quite dependable. It is raining less now, and the tourism high season is gearing up.
I met up with a French couple vacationing on the island and it was so nice to speak French! I got some mental gymnastics in when I was translating directly between French and Swahili at the market when I was showing them around. I realized I've often done the switch between French and English, or Swahili and English, but never French-Swahili. I enjoyed it.
Still working on med school applications and the research project here. I've been here over a month already, and am feeling a bit stressed and disappointed that I only have a month and a half left. Of course I'm looking forward to the tail end of the Maine summer with my family and friends, but yikes, my time here is going by rapidly!

I'm running a 1/2 marathon next Saturday, so have been running more in general, especially with the weekly long runs. I did about 10 miles this morning, and here is some of what went through my head:

-I wonder if doing a long run today will help get rid of or will exacerbate this cold I have
-I wish I could keep the temperature and daylight level as it is now for the entirety of my run (I started just before 6am when the sky was ever so slightly pale, sun not yet up yet).
-why did I just dream about being in my high school locker room after swim practice?
-when people here say "mzungu" to me, is it the same as the impulse I have to say "mooooo" every time I pass a cow here?
-when I run in shorts here, are people offended? If so, does it bother them less if it's in the early morning, when perhaps they'll have some respect that I got my keister out of bed to pound the pavement? Do they even notice? Mind you, my shorts are far from being hot pants...they are legit soccer shorts that fall just above my knee.
-is it better for me to run in the early mornings when fewer people are up but I tend to run slower, or run in the afternoons just before sun down when there are more people and traffic but I tend to be able to push myself a bit more? What would make me have the same quality workouts in the morning as I do in the afternoons/evenings?
-why have all the ads that show up just above my gmail inbox are recipes featuring Spam? I've never eaten Spam. What else have I never eaten?
-how long will it take for my brain to forget the phone numbers of my childhood friends? (I still know a ton of them by heart)
-what does the organism that is causing my GI troubles look like? What food did I get it from- the fruit from the market that I didn't wash, the fresh sugar cane & lime juice, or the unripe mango soup whose meat/potato contents were placed in the broth by the hand of the vendor (who also takes the money)?
-what does my spine think of my running shoes?
-do running shoes really ever get worn out? Barring actual holes in them, is it bad to run on them past 500 miles of wear? I'm skeptical yet do notice how much it feels like gliding on cushions when I get new sneakers. What is this whole barefoot running movement? If my shoes already have 500 miles on them, and the experts say they're "worn out" how is that different than running barefoot but with some thick socks on? .... what the hell is my friend Sam Fox wearing for footwear during his trek across the Pacific Crest Trail? If he averages 40 miles/day for 60 days, he'll need new shoes about 5 times, if you believe the 500 mile thing. Does he have a shoe sponsor?
-will I ever have to have a knee replacement in the knee that has the cadaver's ACL? (replay vault at BU where I tore all those ligaments)
-remember what it's like to pole vault (correctly w/o getting injured). Wish I could do it right then and there
-what would it be like to run a 1/2 marathon in a burqa (most women here wear them during exercise, or at least long pants and shirts)
-should I run a marathon in October (with Mr. TD and Amber?!)?
-how much fluid do I lose from sweating when I run here in Zanzibar?
-how much of my hair has undoubtedly curled away from my head? Does it look like a mini halo yet?
-how many grains of gravel and sand are in my shoes?
-how big is the blister that is developing on the middle toe of my left foot? Why is it only there, and only has started developing since I got to Zanz? I never had one when I ran in Dunkerque. Did I change my running form in such a way that it only affects my middle toe on that foot? strange. What else is affected that doesn't present itself as visibly as a blister?
-is it bad to run in this heat for so long without drinking any water? should I stash a water bottle for myself somewhere along my running route? nah... someone would take it.
-what would happen if I collapsed during one of my runs? (this and other "what if I had a medical emergency" questions have been running through my head recently b/c a friend of a friend got into a motorcycle accident and smashed his head on a telephone pole... the care he received at the hospital here in Zanz was underwhelming. He has been transferred to Dar es Salaam, where they have recommended pressing charges against the hospital here in Zanz...)
-what would happen if they did press charges against the hospital? What would it take to get proper "emergency" care here on the island?
-is anyone from my family still awake right now?
-what is the Swahili word for _____(insert a variety of things that I saw on my run)___
-where did the rash/cut that has been on my right bicep for two weeks come from? It looks kind of badass, but I'd like it to go away.
-ugh, I need to finish my med school applications.... and find a job for post-August.
-are the cats that live at my flat aware of how much it annoys me that they meow incessantly when I'm getting their food ready, every morning, every evening? I wish I could put them on mute.
-why am I so annoyed by the cats? They're hungry.
-I still don't like them.
-what food do I have at home that I can eat once I'm back from this run?
-how does the kombucha tea culture really work? Who the heck figured that out?
-if I had to get 5 mosquito bites right now, where would I least mind getting them? 10 bites?
-why do pens always seem to run out even though you can still see ink in the cartridge?
-who is more annoyed: the bug that just flew into my throat or me? Would a bug prefer to die in my throat, my stomach, or my eye/tear duct?
-what are the ants communicating when they cross paths and briefly bump antennae?
-is it high tide? If so, should I go directly to the ocean after this run to swim, or should I stop by the apartment to drop off my sneakers?

I'm sure there were others that are eluding me at the moment. I'm not sure who would find this insight into my brain interesting, but there ya go. The quotidian and unformed results of proper synaptic cleft communication between my brain cells.
What do you think about during your workouts/commutes/grocery shopping/etc?
I hope all is well with you kiddos. I'll write again once I have news (or not, as was today's post!)

oh, hey, it's me again!

Thursday, May 19, 2011 9pm

Habari za siku nyingi? I’m writing just as the power has been cut off here in Zanzibar. Shocking, I know. There are scheduled 15-hour long power cuts in Dar es Salaam for the next week; time will tell what that means for Zanzibar. Lucky for me, the flat where I’m staying has a nifty solar powered back up system that allows us to run a few lights, charge a computer or phone, and even maintain our internet connection. The positives are obvious, the negatives include that I am now functioning as a homing device for all mosquitoes that are within any reasonable vicinity. So, here I write, from a warm and humid night on the Spice Island, with a long-sleeved shirt, pants, the thickest socks that remained in my luggage from France, and a scarf around my neck. Every so often I’m motivated enough to make an attempt at smashing the latest mosquito that crosses my line of vision in front of my computer screen. Current kill count is 4, plus a few that were trying to bite me through my pants and were swiftly snuffed out. As was the case last year, I’m not taking any anti-malaria pills so even though I never was graced with the parasite, I do know I need to be careful. A wise investment would be some insect repellant…

Zanzibar has welcomed me with an impressive amount of rain. It was so loud that it actually woke me up this morning around 6am. It turned out to be a nice sunny day, in contrast with the first few, which were gray, cloudy, and drenched.

I have committed to doing a 1/2 marathon at the end of June, called the "Lewa Sympathizers International Run" in honor of the Lewa, Kenya marathon (and 1/2 marathon) that I ran last year and that my friend is running this year. I don't have the $ to make it up to Kenya for the real event, so I emailed some other friends from Zbar who are back in the US and proposed that we each do a run on June 25^th wherever we are in the world. I went on a decently-long run Sunday after arriving/unpacking, and then went on another good one Tuesday. I forgot how long it took to complete a certain loop and ended up running for almost an hour and a half. Someone chucked a strawberry milk shake out of their car window and managed to aim it square at my left shoe and shin. That was a first. Good thing it has been SO rainy that there was no shortage of puddles for me to choose from to rinse my hands after doing a finger-squeegy move to get the melted (and surely synthetic) milk product off of my dusty and sweaty shin. I was partly annoyed, yet partly surprised because I didn't know milk shakes existed here. You learn something new every day, huh?

My left shoe still smelled of fake strawberries despite washing it until yesterday, when I jogged to ngazi mia (the old Hindu Crematorium with 100 stairs from the beach to the street level) and ran the stairs in the rain. I received a number of curious greetings and glances, but enjoyed the camaraderie despite the lop-sided gender composition of the other people working out there. A number of people had on these great bright yellow soccer jerseys that had “ngazi mia” screen printed on them in green. I’ll see if I can score myself one. I’d be stoked!

For my first blog posting in a long long while, I’ll try to answer some obvious questions you might have:

~Why am I back in Zanzibar?

I’m continuing work on the public health research project from last year, tying up loose ends and organizing dissemination materials. I’m also applying to medical school, but I could do that from anywhere with internet access. I’ll be here until the end of July, will then return to the US and continue searching for a job for the 2011-2012 academic year.

~Why haven’t I written anything since August of 2010?

Part 1: this blog is called “East African Adventures” which suggests that it takes place in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and maybe Rwanda, Burundi, or Ethiopia. I haven’t been here since then.

Part 2: I had many good ideas for blog entries while I was in France between September 2010 and April 2011, but I never actually finished them, and thus, didn’t post them. Why didn’t I finish them? Good question. Perhaps deep down it was because I hadn’t coordinated enough brain cells to click together and come up with an appropriate and broader title for my blog, so didn’t feel justified in posting my experiences from France in my EA blog. Should I pay less attention to such self-imposed and flexible parameters? Maybe.

~What have you been doing since you left TZ/KE last summer?

Well, I worked as a waitress in Maine to earn a bit of cash before spending 7 months in Dunkerque, France. I worked there as an English language assistant in two public middle schools, studied for and took the MCAT, and worked to improve my French skills.

I lived in a rented house with three French guys who were all master’s students at the university there. After taking the MCAT, I had more free time and spent it working on my French skills, doing a mini-internship at the local bakery and pastry shop, going to some hip hop and house dance classes, and occasionally offering my American accent to a R&B/soul radio show that a good friend of mine produces each Wednesday night.

In early April, the traveling & wrap up began. I went to Holland for a long weekend to visit a friend I had met in Iceland back in 2007. We had a good time catching up on the past four years, driving from Zwolle to The Hague, then across the Deltawerken to Antwerp, Belgium. We tried raw herring with minced onions on the pier in The Hague and had a nice cup of tea at a hotel overlooking the sea… it was at this hotel that I overheard a few people speaking Swahili a few tables away! I imagine they were certain there was no one outside of their group who could understand their conversation, but au contraire! There was also a Zanzibar restaurant nearby, with vaguely African-inspired décor. We went for a really great run along some trails and ended running in the surf on the beach once the sun came out. I caused some laughs with my butchered attempts at pronouncing all of the Dutch road signs.

My Dad came to Europe (for the first time!) in mid-April after lugging a suitcase full of my Zanzibar-appropriate clothing. As usual, his suitcases were searched by security agents and met with raised eyebrows as he replied that he was indeed traveling alone and had packed the suitcases himself. We had a great time in Dunkerque and Paris, then spent nearly a week driving around Ireland, which was really fun. We did get a flat tire due to a rock that had fallen off its stone wall. Some helpful soul told us that our tire was “only flat on the bottom- yer okay!” Gee, thanks. It gave us a moment to observe the happenings at a very very very small village gas station/post office.

We checked out the town where the Harrington relatives used to live, a small fishing village in the southwestern corner of the island. It surprised me how willing people were to help us try and find out more information about our ancestors. After saying that our last name is Harrington, one woman replied “well, that’s not much help in these parts!” She also said that the 1840s “wasn’t so long ago” when we showed her the names and birth dates of my father’s relatives. Quite a different perspective. I couldn’t tell you anything about anyone who lived in Belfast, Maine in 1840. I enjoyed having the Irish accent fall on my eardrums, although at some points, neither my father nor I were completely sure of what the person was saying.

We flew back to Brussels after seeing two cousins in their World Championship Irish Dancing competition in Dublin, and promptly took advantage of the chocolate and waffles. It was great to spend time with the Dadster and visit some new places. Unfortunately, my Mom was too sick to come :-( Next time…

I then had a few short days to finish moving out of my house in Dunkerque and say goodbye to my friends there before I took a train to Paris en route to Le Havre and met up with three dear friends from Yale. We rented a car and drove around Normandy, the Champagne region, and Strasbourg in France before heading to Switzerland. We touched down in all 3 linguistic regions of Switzerland (German, French & Italian), and I even ran into some Zanzibari friends on the street when I was in Bern! Small small world.

We stayed at my friend’s parents’ condo in Locarno, Switzerland and did some great hikes in the hills and mountains there, always with a lovely view of Lago Maggiore. It was so nice to stay in a “well prepared nest” after having moved from hotel to hotel during the French portion of our trip. I flew from Milan, Italy to Zanzibar after spending a day in Bergamo, Italy. I’m slightly in love with Italy, especially after feeling persecuted every single time I had to buy something in Switzerland with their Swiss Francs… while the franc is weaker than the euro, the prices of things in Switzerland are so.incredibly.expensive. The Italian gelato was even more delicious because it was half the price of what was available just across the border in Switz. I loved the traveling I did in the month prior to landing in Zanzibar (and reconnecting with my Dad and Yale friends was just so so nice), but it was nice to arrive and not have to live out of a suitcase for a change!

~What are the things you’re glad to get reacquainted with in Zanzibar?

BALUNGI (pommelo), mkate wa ufuta (sesame bread), and passion fruit. Those mini finger-sized bananas are much appreciated as well. So is the oh-so-refreshing and swimmable Indian Ocean. I’m a fan of the scratch-off pre-paid cell phone vouchers (France used these ridiculous receipts where you had to actually call a number, listen to the menu choices, push way too many buttons, then not even be sure you correctly updated your account… although I only did this a few times before I got my monthly phone subscription, I have never met a person who enjoyed the process).

I do enjoy hearing the call to prayer 5 times each day, visiting the market and buying from the same people I saw every day last year, and generally be back at my old stomping grounds. It’s a bit strange not to have some of my friends here (The McDows! Flore! Allison & Lillian! Marielle!)

~What are the things you miss from France?

My bakery and all of its daily bread and pastry goodness

Fromage blanc with crème de marrons SO good.

My android phone & internet service without counting megabyte usage

Hearing & speaking French!! (especially with my friends from there)

Running on the digue & beach in Dunkerque

Overall, it feels good to be back, although it is a bit of a mind bend to realize that in the past month or so I’ve been in 8 different countries, finished with my time in Dunkerque, and am already back in Zanzibar. When did this all happen? I sound like an old fogey. I do miss being in Dk. As with most wrap-ups, the last few weeks (months, even) went by in a flash. So full of good talks with friends, nice jogs on the beach, and on a most basic level, appreciating the place I was living in at the time. I look forward to returning, and in the mean time, keeping in touch with the friends I gained there.

I’ll stop here for the sake of saying I’m “done” and will therefore actually publish this post. Plus, now I get to check off a box on my long “to-do” list, which always gives me a healthy level of satisfaction.

I’ll try to write again soon. Until then, hope all is well with you all!

waka waka ayyy ayyy

so less than 1 hour until the world cup final! I'm seriously rooting for Holland and their orange tulip & windmill-powered nation. I have a vague dislike for Spain, perhaps only because my friend described David Villa as looking like a skeeze ball. We'll see how the match turns out!

Walking around town there are a number of people who hum either the Shakira Waka Waka theme or the K'Naan Wavin' Flag theme, and the club I went to last night played each of those songs at least twice while I was there. Everyone at the club who had a vuvuzela appropriately took it out and gave it a blow. Whenever a game is on, the Old Town section of Mombasa sounds like it has been or is about to be taken by a large swarm of bees. bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

We went to an outdoor screening of the US-Ghana match and were four of the total 7 US supporters in a crowd of over 100 people. It wasn't uncomfortable to be there, on the contrary, it was exciting to see the excitement for any good shot, save, corner kick, and goal that the Ghana team had.

I'm off to go watch the match with a number of the Yale students. I'll be in Nairobi & Mt. Kenya area for the next week and a half, so will try to post right after I get back. In a nutshell, everything here in Mombasa is going well. My phone was stolen from our house while I went up to the roof to hang out my laundry, but other than that no big issues.

Hope all is well!

:( leaving Zbar

Mambo vipi? (Swahili equivalent of "what's up?")

These past few weeks since getting back from the US have been SOOOO busy! Lots of loose ends to tie up for our research project, world cup fever has started and we've only made a modest dent in packing up the house. We're leaving Tuesday to move to Mombasa, Kenya and will be there until early August. I'm going there to be the teaching assistant for the Yale summer session course on East African History. I'm looking forward to living in Mombasa again now that I'm used to the particulars of life in this part of the world and with my Swahili being much better than it was 1 year ago. I am quite sad to leave Zanzibar, though. While transitioning to Mombasa last year seemed like we had to do-without a number of things that are easily available in the US, compared to Zanzibar, Mombasa is a step up. For one thing, there is a movie theatre there, and a 24-hour grocery store. Hooray for urban development.

I am sad to leave Zbar because I'm comfortable here, I know where to go to get things, and I am a huge fan of the "Azam men" aka the men who ride around on white bicycles fitted with coolers that sell popsicles (the best 18 cents you'll ever spend here) and ice cream. I guess that's one area where Zbar exceeds Mombasa. While I haven't mastered all of the twisting alley ways in Stone Town, I generally know in which direction to point myself when I need to go somewhere. I have my regular people I go to when I buy tomatoes and someone different for avocados and balungi (I think it's pomelo in English). I'll miss our pitch-dark and grungy office entrance and working in my office smelling both the pungent bloody scent from the butchery and the freshly ground spices from the shop next door. I'm not sure I have described our office in this blog yet, but it is right behind the main open-air market where you buy produce, fish, chicken, goats, beef, bread, rice, beans, and small dukas (shops) sell various packaged goods. I usually ride my bike from our house the 6km into town, from a residential area near where the President lives to the comparatively lively and "urban" center of town. I'm slightly an odd sight when I ride my bike because I'm one of 3 people I have ever seen wearing a helmet here, out of the thousands who ride bicycles. A friend of mine joked with a Zanzibari guy who asked why we wore helmets that we wazungu need to wear helmets because we're not protected by Allah and the kofias (embroidered hats that most Muslim men here wear). There my friend was undermining any chance for a public health initiative promoting helmets making people believe their hats and Allah would keep them safe... awesome.

When you can see the conglomeration of dala dalas (pick-up trucks made into public transportation vehicles) on the right, I turn left to the "2-way" road that can't actually fit 2 lanes of traffic that goes behind the market. I usually have to keep my eye out for the large fish, manta rays, or squid that are getting parsed up early in the morning as the fishermen bring them in. Some days I get a light shower on my feet as I ride through the trail of salt water, blood and dirt that drain from their resting place... obviously this isn't by choice, but is unavoidable because there are too many other people standing, walking, talking, riding bicycles or mopeds, or some car trying to get through. Wednesdays are the most challenging because the men who sell wood furniture also set up their goods to be sold along this street, consuming 1/2 of the available territory plus the space for the people who are looking at their goods. The bell on my bike was stolen a few months ago and I haven't yet spent the $1 to get it replaced, partly because the brakes on my bike are so loud and squeaky that they do a better job of warning people I'm coming than my bell ever could.

Once I'm through the foot shower I get to wind my way around to the back side of the market where I have to get off my bike and walk it the last 20 meters to our office entrance. On the way I see the same 10 fruit and vegetable vendors every morning with their produce on their carts or propped up on boxes and crates with their scales nearby. There is one guy who spits out greetings almost faster than I can respond. I've gotten better and instead of being on the defensive to his "mambo vipi? shwari? mzima? habari gani?" I've started launching them at him at the same speed which makes us simultaneously ask and respond to our own greetings, and usually elicits a smile from everyone. Once I catch sight and the scent of the slabs of cow parts held up on huge metal hooks that look like you could catch a whale if you were to use it for fishing (yes, I know whales are not fish, but you get the idea), I turn into a little alley to the backdoor of our office building. On the dusty beige wall at that corner "asali ya pemba ipo" is scrawled in red paint that dripped as it was drying, making it seem quite morbid even though it is a mere announcement that honey from the island of Pemba is sold at the duka around the corner. I unlock the door to our office and hoist my bike up the 1-foot high step and roll the bike toward the staircase. I have to leave the door open while I lock up my bike because the light is not usually on so it's pitch black. Our office is on the 2nd floor and the staircase is one where even I have to duck to make sure I don't hit my head due to the low ceiling clearance. I've seen our office rats scurrying around a few times near this staircase when the light is on and I walk up, so I actually prefer the light to be off when I enter in the mornings so I don't need to acknowledge that the rats are there first thing in the work day. As much as I appreciate them as my welcoming committee, I can do without.

The office has three rooms and a small kitchen that branch off the main entryway. It's a simple place, but from the second room there is a balcony that looks down on the backdoor entrance and the alley there. We have 3-4 Zanzibari women who have been working with us for the past 6 months who come each day and make sure that we all sit down for tea around mid-day for a proper bite to eat. Eating and working at the same time is not admired. With our office so close to the market, we hear the shouts of the men as things are loaded, unloaded, bickered over, celebrated and announced. Every day around 1pm there is a man who comes around selling rat traps & poison who has a loudspeaker with a recording shouting "sumu la paaaaaaanyyyyyaaaaaaaa buku na .....". Many sellers have this same recording, and before I had seen where that voice was coming from, I assumed it was some recording about Allah and religion and the like. Oops. I was wrong. I've never figured out what the last part of the message says but the first part says "poison for rats, bukus, and..." now rats, we all know. Bukus, on the other hand, are more like the rodents of unusually large size as seen in The Princess Bride film. Some are as big as small dogs. They're intimidating and I'm glad I haven't had too many encounters with them. I've contemplated making that recording my ringtone. It'd be unique, that's for sure.

After finishing work for the day I ride my bike home past the soccer fields where numerous pick-up or semi-organized teams are playing. All of them are male. Most afternoons there are two basketball courts occupied also by males. I've once seen a female handball game but the teams were both from Dar es Salaam, or "the mainland," a place blamed for any moral decline in Zanzibar due to the fact that a smaller proportion of the mainland Tanzanian population is Muslim. It's a funny relationship Zanzibar holds with the mainland. Zbar thinks quite highly of itself and believes it would prosper more if it weren't a part of Tanzania, even though that's not likely true.

There is one big hill that I have to ride up on my way home that is somewhat of a challenge. It's fun to push past other bicyclists who have abandoned ship and are walking their bikes up the hills as I'm in a (long-ish) skirt. Most bicyclists here are male, although there are a sprinkling of females. Once past that hill it's easy to cruise the rest of the way home and in the afternoons I sometimes get into leap-frogging with the 12-year old boys who are also on the road. It is one of the few times where I get to have G-rated trash talk, our exchanges consisting of something like "ehhh! mzungu!" "ongeza zaidi (go faster)" "unenda wapi? (where are you going?)" "nenda nenda! (go go!)" "huwezi (you can't!)". It's mildly satisfying and ensures that I have a negative split for coming home compared to my time going into town in the mornings. I turn off the main road onto a smaller 2-way street and then 1km later turn just before the big orange mosque onto our bumpy dirt road. I'm a pro at avoiding the potholes below and tree/shrub branches from above. Through the tall metal gate and I'm home.

So, there's a synopsis of a day in my life. Ultimately, the buildings, people, and things I see each day are just ordinary and non-remarkable for most people here. It's just how things are. It's not exotic, it's not striking, it's just the way it is.

A view from our office balcony

We went to the sandbank with our research ladies this past week, which was the first time they had ever gone in their lives. I think I've been there nearly a dozen times this past year. None of them know how to swim so we gave them quick tutorials and life jackets. It's a good thing it's so easy to float in the ocean because the salt content is quite high! It was fun to see how they were able to relax and not worry that they weren't dressed in their normal buibui (long sleeved & full-length black dress with head scarf) while they were swimming. In contrast to the everyday market scene that is common for Zanzibaris, going to the sandbank is not something that is ordinary. It's much more of a touristy thing to do, mostly because it costs 30,000/= (~$24) to go, an amount that is not likely to be spent on a beach trip by average Zanzibaris. Talking with them about the trip to the sandbank made me more aware of how people can exist in the same setting but have quite different versions of life. To me, Zanzibar is linked with the beautiful beaches and a desire to take advantage of them while for our research ladies the beaches don't hold much appeal for sunbathing, swimming, or otherwise.

L-R: Rukaya, Fetty, Solomon, Alison, Tuma, Umi in the boat on the way to the sandbank. Fetty didn't want her pic taken because her headscarf wasn't on properly. Sorry, Fetty.

Ok, I'm off to go pack! yikes. so much stuff to put into suitcases. The move to Mombasa involves the following:

-schlepping the 25+suitcases (estimation, given that we had 23 last year and have more stuff now) to the ferry port in Zbar, loading those bags onto the ferry (part 1 of my 2 least favorite parts due to the hectic nature of the port and having to ward off people taking your stuff w/o you asking them to help you).

-2 1/2 hr ferry ride to Dar... then part 2 of my least favorite bit, unloading the luggage and keeping track of the kids.

-sleep in Dar, leave the packed safari van in the car lot and hope nothing gets stolen, leave Dar at 4am to beat the traffic and get to Mombasa in time to watch the US-Algeria game... the drive could take anywhere from 8 to 12+ hours. We'll see how many times we get stopped by the cops. A good 1-2 hours of the drive is on a bumpy and dusty dirt road, so we'll arrive in Mombasa with a nice coating of reddish-brown Tanzanian soil.

-unload everything in our flat in Mombasa. It's right near Fort Jesus, a Portuguese-built monstrosity right on the ocean. I think the flat is about 1/3 the size of our current house. Hopefully it's slightly larger than last year's apartment, but I guess I'll find out when I get there.

wish us luck! I'll try to write again once we're in Mombasa.

Zanzibar in NYC? Yes indeed. I plan to go here after landing in NYC in August, although I'm sure it won't have the same feel that the true Zbar does :-)

also: in other news, we've been playing a few rounds of Yahtzee here and there at home during the night and I had been having trouble with getting a full house, so naturally, I practiced. I haven't missed getting a full house since. How's that for defying the odds and logic?

And, there will be another Maine kiddo in Lille next year in my same program, and she has worked in Nairobi and has been to Zbar, too! What are the chances of the Maine-Lille-East Africa combo? I'm excited.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. Love ya Daddy-o. Hope the weather's nice so you can go for a long motorcycle ride :-)

WiFi! and A/C! and Toilets! Oh my

Blog 5.31.10

Yahoo- this is my second blog in one month, which hasn’t happened since December. I’m currently on the bus from Portland, ME headed toward Boston and it’s exciting that they have WiFi on board (“Concord Coach 923 Left Side”—seriously? Does it matter if I’m on the left or right side of the bus?!). It’s a far cry from the buses I’ve been on in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda… for one thing it has A/C, a video playing, and a toilet. Other differences include the absence of any livestock, people standing in the aisles, or peoples’ babies on laps other than their parent/guardian. I will say I appreciate my leg-room and the availability of the loo, but there is some charm in the long-distance bus traveling in Africa. I’m looking forward to going back to Zanzibar for a few weeks, then to Kenya until early August. The move from Zanzibar to Mombasa, Kenya will be a long trip, not in a public bus, but in an avocado-hued safari vehicle that will have 7 people and the year’s worth of stuff.

Before I left Zanzibar, I felt hesitant to come back to the US and was slightly mad at myself for taking 2 weeks for the visit, given that I’ll only have about 3 weeks there once I get back before moving to Kenya. I was also nervous that I would feel uncomfortable and guilty about being back in the US due to some of the discrepancies between the two places, and the general level of excess that is the norm in the US. I felt neither mad nor personally guilty when I landed in the US, however. There were some ways in which I felt uncomfortable and out of place, such as the grocery store, but ultimately it felt so nice to be back in the place where I grew up and have spent the majority of my life.

So, why the discomfort at the grocery store? There are so many choices for everything from bread to crackers to types of yogurt. It is impeccably sterile compared to the open-air and refrigeration-free market where I get my food in Zanzibar, cleaving my food from most traces of its source. Also, you can go through the store without having to have a conversation with anyone (unless you’re buying fresh fish or something from behind the deli counter) due to self-checkout aisles. [by the way, my little sister pressed the “Español” option before I started scanning my items and everything was fine until it was time to scan my wasabi-coated peas from the bulk foods section, which required punching in the PLU number and putting them on the scale. I didn’t know the PLU and didn’t know the Spanish word for wasabi-coated peas (no, it wasn’t listed under “W” for wasabi). So, Annie walked/hopped with her broken ankle boot back to the bulk foods section to find the PLU number and then call me on my cell phone. In the meantime, I had even tried to enter the peas as plain pistachios but it didn’t work. How the machine knew the difference I don’t know]. Another thing is that you don’t have to bargain for anything, the price is dictated by the barcode. Overall, there is just so much stuff there that I haven’t seen, tasted, or thought about in a year that it makes me slightly uneasy.

It was incredibly pleasant to see my family, friends, neighbors, and both the Yale campus and Belfast, ME as a whole. I went to Yale during the class of 2010’s graduation weekend and had a lovely time. I ran up East Rock and quickly realized how I’m not in as good physical shape for running hills as I was at this time last year due to the lack of hills around where I live in Zbar. But, the experience of running on trails in the woods instead of on pavement was refreshing and much welcomed by my knees. I saw some dear friends and admired the castle-like gothic architecture that characterizes the campus. I also went on a boat tour of the Thimble Islands with a mentor and friend of mine that was really nice. It was such a different coastline than what I’ve been seeing for the past year with the classically New England-style houses/mansions.

The day before I arrived at Yale I was in Boston with Nora and went for a run in the morning. While it wasn’t cold by normal standards, my lungs felt as they did when I did the polar bear dip in Maine (jump into the ocean on January 1^st): like they were the size of marbles. It was so hard to breathe! I was winded very quickly, and instead of switching sides of the road to run in the shade as I do in Zanzibar, I opted for the sunny side of the streets to help warm me up a bit and reduce the goosebumps my skin was showing. It was funny to me to see dogs on leashes and people with all sorts of different hair colors and styles, and of course, the short shorts and tank tops. Dogs are only used for security purposes in Zanzibar, they are most certainly not loved pets as they are in the US. Because almost all women cover their hair, it was striking to me to see all the variations when I first got back, and with the short shorts I must say I just find myself thinking “really? why?” I know I wore them at some point in my middle or high school years, but they just seem extreme to me now. It’s all a matter of what you’re accustomed to.

I’m almost out of battery power so need to wrap this up. I’m glad that I came home and had a visit with my family and friends, whether it was a motorcycle ride with my dad, an impromptu walk on the beach with a good friend from high school, a drink at Rollie’s in downtown Belfast, or spending the weekend with my sisters, niece, brother in law and close friends from both Yale and Belfast. I ate some great food, went on some nice bike rides and runs (including running the hill by the Belfast harbor that I used to run for soccer training… preseason memories!), had engaging conversations, and felt lucky to have spent the past year in Eastern Africa but to be able to call the US “home.” If I’ve ever had a tangible amount of pride in being American, I’ve felt it these past few weeks. Sounds cheesy, but it’s true (except for the situation with the gulf oil spill). Off I go back to Zanzibar and then Kenya until early August. I’ll try to keep updating the blog with any happenings in my part of the world.

Hope you’re all doing well :-)

highlights from the past month and a half

two pictures to start things off with:

this is a sunset Nora and I saw one evening. I told her how the dhows (sailboats) usually sail across the horizon at sunset to make nice pictures for the tourists, but she didn't believe me. At least the birds got the memo that I had brought my camera.

A gas station that had no gas. Nora and my friend Allison are standing there, wondering how we're going to make it to Matemwe to go snorkeling at Mnemba if we're on empty. Luckily, I was able to get a 5L jerry can of gasoline with the help of the snoozing gas station worker a little ways down the road from some guy who happened to have some. I'm not sure why anyone bothered coming to work if there hadn't been gas at the station for a week, but I guess that wasn't his fault-- he gets paid by the hour, not by how many litres he sells!

Happy Mother's Day!!

I only have a few more weeks here in Zanzibar (until the 3rd week of June, with 2 weeks in the US starting May 19th), and have been thinking more and more about how this past year has gone. On the blog front, I haven't kept it up as much as I anticipated. While I suppose it could be viewed as a sign of neglect on my part, I think it's more just a lack of opportunity and is indicative of the amount of time I actually spend on the internet here. It's not the same access as I had in college where I'd check my email in the morning when I woke up, between most classes, before track practice, after dinner, as a study break, and before bed. Here, it's more like 2-3 times a week on average, less for those 3 months when the electricity was out.

So, instead of telling about weekly happenings I find myself trying to recap 1 or 2 months worth of adventures. What have I done since March when I last wrote?

-late March/early April: Nora came to visit!!! We went around Zanzibar, swam with sea turtles (after getting stopped by many many cops and told that I'd have to go to court and pay a big fine over a registration discrepancy), snorkeled at Mnemba Island, went for sunset swims, and shopped around Stone Town, then went to the TZ mainland for a safari at Mikumi National Park. Nora got her first experience on a long-distance bus in Africa, complete with us holding someone else's baby for part of the ride and having a live chicken on board (what other way is there to travel?). I'm so glad she came. Thanks Nupa!

- mid April: LOTS OF WORK on the research project, transcribing and translating the focus group discussions, revising the interview guides for the one-on-one interviews we'll do, getting permission to do interviews at the hospital, getting our interview room at the public hospital set up... many many little things that end up taking a lot of time. I feel like our team has a good dynamic between working on the various projects we have.

-Was a co-quiz master with Dodie and friend Hilda for the monthly Quiz Nite that attracts a mix of Zanzibari and ex-pats. It was very fun and the people seemed to enjoy our cleverness. We had 4 rounds of about 10 questions, with the answers to the questions pointing toward a "meta" answer. For example, if you had the clues "46664, Madiba, Robin, Winnie, ANC, 1918, Nobel Peace Prize" the meta answer would be Nelson Mandela (46664 was his prison #, Madiba his nickname, Robin referencing the island where he spend 27 years in prison, Winnie referencing his wife, ANC his political party, 1918 the year he was born, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize). For this round, one of the questions that didn't make it was "what is the square root of 729?" (answer: 27) I was told it was too hard and people wouldn't get the answer. Really? I'm not so sure it was too hard, but I got the veto anyway. In making the quiz, we all had to realize how relative "general knowledge" can be depending on a person's age, nationality and profession. Most of the quizzes I have attended this year have a fair amount of commonwealth-country related questions, whether it's on history, geography, or those sports that we just don't play in the US (cricket, handball, etc.) Luckily my team has always had at least one commonwealth member, so we've been ok :-)

-I've finished season 3 of The Wire, the only TV-esque thing I have here. I'm looking forward to seasons 4 & 5!

I think those are the highlights.

I will be in the US from May 19th until June 2nd, then will come back to Zanzibar for a few weeks. Then, I'm heading north to Mombasa, Kenya to help teach the Yale Summer Session course there on east African history. I'm greatly looking forward to having a concentrated intellectual engagement with this area after having my own experiences this past year. I'll be in Mombasa until the beginning of August, then will be home until mid-September. Then, it's off to Lille, France for the year to teach English there! I'm excited to go there and try out life on my own with all of those "adult" things like finding an apartment and bank, grocery shopping, having a strictly scheduled job, etc. I'm also sad to leave here, though I suppose it's good to leave with the feeling that I want to come back so I'll have that as an option. Lille's weather is supposed to be similar to London's (ughhhh rain and clouds) so I will surely surely miss these beautiful tropical days, but growing up in Maine should have prepared me to deal with whatever conditions the clouds spit at me.

I'm off to help make dinner and munch on a few Hint of Lime tortilla chips that Alison brought back from the US. These coveted "green dot" chips access a flavor spectrum we just do not have here. They're incredible. I will most definitely be bringing them back with me when I fly back over here in June after my 2 weeks in the US. For sure.

I hope to see many of you in the second-half of May. Let me know if you'll be in the Maine/Boston/NYC area any time between May 19th and June 2nd! I fly into Boston the 19th, then out of NYC the 2nd of June.

umeme- umerudi!!! (electricity has returned)

ELECTRICITY IS BACK!!!!! After 88 days, or 12 weeks and 4 days (nearly an entire college semester), the electricity has returned. How nice of it. It’s pretty incredible there wasn’t one public protest or rally from the Zanzibaris. Apparently, the president didn’t want to declare it an “emergency” because that would have made him look weak (and elections are coming up in the fall), yet, many foreign governments and NGOs have money that could have been used to speed the repair process along had the e-word been invoked. Because the big man isn’t on the best of terms with his fellow politicians on the TZ mainland, no one came rushing to his aid. So, there is where the 88 days comes from. Word is the cable running from the mainland to Zbar will be fixed in 2012. We’ll see if that comes to pass. We still have some power cuts, and each time I mentally prepare myself for another 12+ weeks w/o electricity. Luckily, the cuts have been short-lasted.

The rainy season is starting and man does it p.o.u.r. here. One of our research assistants thought the expression “it’s raining cats and dogs” was quite hilarious. I suppose so, and for her it must have been frightening as cats are mostly of the incredibly mangy variety here, and dogs are only used as guard dogs… they are not loved pets; it goes with their religious beliefs that dogs are dirty animals. It's not the same kittens and puppy dogs I imagined when I was young and heard that phrase.

Anyway, Nora will be arriving here next Sunday! I’m hoping she’ll get to see some sunshine and the days with 14hrs of rain won’t coincide with her vacation. If they do, though, I suppose we’ll have a lovely time puddle hopping together like we did when we were in elementary school.

I’ve been quite busy with our research project lately. We have completed twelve focus group discussions in Unguja (the island where I live) and Pemba (the smaller and less-developed island to the north). We did eight groups in Pemba (which had electricity) before the electricity came back on in Unguja. Those 12 weeks were likely the first time in the past 40 years when Pemba has been better off than Unguja. It felt luxurious to have the breeze of a ceiling fan, and to be able to use a computer without the noise of a generator. Such a deal! However, the water tank dried up two days before we left so that put a cramp in things. Pemba on the whole has a slower pace of life. There is no evidence of the typical tourist shops that have taken hold in Stone Town, very few wazungu, and (at least where I was) less people concentrated in one area.You can’t buy butter, yogurt, or ground beef. Pringles, Coca-Cola, and a bunch of packaged foods imported from Oman and the UAE are available. Pemba is much more agriculturally-based than Unguja. It used to be the bread basket of Mombasa, Kenya. It has many more hills and overall variety to its landscape, where Unguja is mostly flat. At night, there are many people lining the one main street selling food by kerosene lamps-- breads, chapattis, grilled octopus & squid, maandazi (like a donut, but with a slight coconut flavor), tea and coffee. While I don’t usually wear a head covering or scarf here in Unguja, it felt uncomfortable to be without in Pemba. All the shops there close for each of the 5 calls to prayer each day, something that doesn’t happen here in Stone Town, except occasionally on Fridays. You can see a picture of the street during one such call to prayer- it is empty except for a few children playing.

We did four groups (older women & men, younger women & men) in each of the two sites, one near the large town of Chakechake, and one in the northern part of the island. I felt exhausted at the end of the day, after hearing almost exclusively Swahili for the entire time. It’s great practice, but it’s a lot of mental energy! In each location, we were received warmly and the participants had good contributions to the discussions. It was nice to see how we as a research team are improving our discussion facilitation skills and to actually put our training and preparation into action.

We have three more groups planned for this coming week, which will be conducted near Stone Town. I’m curious to see if the responses will differ noticeably given the urban environment. I’ll keep you posted. We’ll also start our in-depth interviews with health care providers, key informants, and women who have had a pregnancy interruption at the end of this month and in April. It will be nice to have a one-on-one conversation them more pointed questions that we don’t ask in our focus groups.

I’ve been working on job applications for next year and have a few phone interviews coming up in the next weeks. At the moment, I could end up in Boston, Newark, Rwanda, France, the Caribbean, or stay here. When I narrow it down, I’ll let you know!

I was recently doing a cross-word puzzle that my Mom had sent me (thanks!) and was becoming more certain that the editor had made a mistake, because I knew, with absolute certainty, two clues that built off each other. I finally realized that I had spelled “practice” the British way (practise). Thank you to the long-lasting influences of colonialism. I feel slightly bad for the kiddos in school here because all those words like color, favorite, center, or program, they’re all considered “correct” if they spell them the British way. I think that’s rubbish, hogwash, or bloody mad… but maybe that’s just me. Right then.

My favorite week where we didn’t have electricity was Feb 11-16^th. Why? Because it was the Sauti za Busara music festival in Stone Town! Sauti za Busara means “sounds of wisdom” in Swahili. It was such a nice change from the typical routine here, allowing me to forget that we didn’t have electricity. There was great variety in the musical acts, with some dancers as well. Many artists were from Africa, but there was a Tanzanian-Japanese group and a performer from Norway as well. My favorite hands down was Ba Cissoko, a group from Guinea that features the kora. I seriously didn’t know which instrument was producing the rich sounds I heard. They’re on iTunes (but not all of their albums)—check them out for sure. They had an incredible amount of energy and stage presence, and had everyone standing up dancing. I’m determined to see them live again at some point. There was also a great dance troup from Uganda that made me want to go back there and spend more than the week I spent there in November (see picture of the woman with all the jars on her head- she danced like they weren’t there at all, and had even more than what is in the picture on top of her head by the end of the dance!). The entire festival had an incredibly friendly atmosphere and was just so pleasant. I’m sorry that’s a vague description, but it was simply delightful.

I’ve included some other pictures in this post. I must give credit to Allison, an MPH student here working with us, for the photos.

This is our research team (minus a few members) during a meeting in our office.

This one is of the place where I usually buy my lunch (sesame seed bread) for 250 shillings, or about 20 cents. Note the green and yellow CCM decorations for the political party.

This is an aerial view of Stone Town taken from our plane trip back from Pemba. You can see some of the boats in the port, and allllll those corrugated metal roofs.

This is a view of the fields in Chakechake, Pemba.

That’s all I have for now! Miss you all