A Tale of Two Continents

Dec 24, 2010

Well, now that I’m in a rather snowy Dublin, relaxing in the lead-up to Christmas, I figure it’s time for a (possibly final?) update about my time in Zanzibar.

It was really hard to say goodbye, to our host family, the staff, fellow volunteers, and of course, the students; everyone was great and made my time in Zanzibar something I will never forget.

I’ll start off by talking some more about the work we did since my last update. Just for a quick review, our work consisted primarily of preparing a curriculum for and facilitating basic and intermediate computer and English classes, but we also spent some time assisting with various events, namely World Aids Day, International Day for People with Disabilities, and International Volunteer Day. I also took on the task of compiling a list of all local NGOs that did work relating in some way to environmental conservation.

This experience has given me so much more of an appreciation for teachers and the work they do. I was aware of, but never really realised, the amount of work that goes into the job, from preparing the curriculum before the term, to reviewing it and altering it before each class, to marking at home, and then of course the actual class time! Just a shout out to all those in the education field I suppose. Mad respect.
I’ve also gained much more of an appreciation for the difficulties of development work, or at least in Zanzibar. People there work on a different schedule, we nicknamed it Swahili time (which actually exists, add 6hrs to Western time). What I mean is that you have to allot much more time to a task than you would at home, allowing for lateness and other inefficiencies. Some cases: We arrive at the offices Zangoc (one of our partners) shortly before our class was scheduled to start, and find that our classroom had been taken over for a meeting. Asking if we could use it, we were gently brushed off and forced to teach English outside. I must say its rather distracting to have a cow wander through your ‘class space’ during the middle of a lesson. Another case… preparing for World Aids Day. Despite being assured numerous times that the pamphlets from the Ministry on Aids prevention would be ready in plenty of time for the event, we were asked to go back the day before the event, when we were told they wouldn’t be ready after all. This is in addition to having to schedule classes to start half an hour before we actually want them to start, just so students would be on time… etc.

Some other difficulties include: occasional power outages, meddling immigration officials who force you to go home to get your visa during class and then disappear before you return and never follow up, torrential rains and mudholes, internet outages, markers that dry up after writing two words, and of course the language barrier.

All in all however, despite the many frustrations and innefficiancies, I would have to say that I think this program was a true success; based on both my observations and more quantitative results. Quantitatively (can you tell I miss academia?), students in all our classes performed much much better on the post-tests compared to the pre-tests, short tests designed by us to evaluate the student’s knowledge on all the course material. Marking the tests, I felt extremely proud whenever I came across one I could put ‘100%’ on… you just know you made a real difference then. More generally, the fact that students continued coming after 7, 10 classes, tells you that they were learning. This is in addition to seeing them fluent in things like Excel at the end of the course, when just weeks before, they couldn’t even handle a mouse. Just a sidenote… I really admire students in Zanzibar for their motivation, and I’d imagine it would be similar around the developing world. The motivation of these young adults to succeed in these voluntary courses was something that I have never seen in Canada… It made me feel incredibly guilty to realise that they do all this in addition to their regular school because they have to, simply to achieve something (post secondary, decent jobs) that we just take for granted back home. Its sad to realise that despite their best efforts, it is quite honestly unlikely that without financial support they will ever achieve their dreams. It sounds cliché, but the sky isn’t really the limit down there, money is a very real and ever present limit.

Anyhow, enough of that, back to the success. Our graduation, held on our final Friday in Tanzania, was a way to celebrate all that, with speeches, certificates, snacks, the whole shebang. It was a real surprise when after we gave our thanks, a rep from each of our classes came up and gave a speech thanking us for our work in teaching… some classes pitched together to give us gifts, like scarves and pineapples. Fresh fruit is big down here ok?

We were involved in two events for World Aids Day, which falls on December 1st. The first was a rural outreach program in the village of Tunduni (Spelling iffy) which took place the weekend before. First off, I’ll explain that with the exception of International Volunteer Day, it was up to our local NGO partners to organise the events, with YCI providing the funding and volunteer support when necessary. This is consistent with YCI’s mission to build the capacity of locals, and have locals determine the best way of dealing with issues, rather than having the ‘ white man’ come in and say what works best, a mentality that has caused countless problems in development work. However, from the perspective of us volunteers, this often left us feeling rather redundant, as our participation was largely us putting on the event shirt and sitting with the other dignitaries.

Anyhow, back to the event. It did begin with us watching the events with the other dignitaries, which was quite entertaining, even if we didn’t understand most of it. The educational segments were punctuated with various activities to keep the crowd (of close to 400) engaged, like tug of war, skits, dancing, etc. My personal favourite, which me and another vol participated in, was the chicken chase. Literally that, a chicken was released, and 5 people ran after it, with the first person to catch it declared the winner and receiving the chicken as a prize (not me unfortunately). We finished off by distributing a number of educational pamphlets, and administering short surveys to see how much was learned… the results were quite positive.

The events of Dec 1 were much less exciting, we attended the official ceremonies, at which the vice president, a rep from the UN (who spoke English!), and a number of other stakeholders gave speeches.

The events for International Day for People with Disabilities took place on a day when we had classes, so only a few of us could attend the event, which was a friendly football (soccer) match between a team composed of persons with various disabilities, and another made up of reps from the government department of disabilities. Again, we were present as guests only, we all felt a bit awkward seated next to people like the Speaker of the House of Representatives, but we put that aside and enjoyed what was a rather exciting match. The disabled team gave the reps a run for their money (as they were all a bunch of overweight middle-aged men), but lost by one point. It was really neat to see people missing limbs competing, and being successful! It also makes you realise how far the issues surrounding disabled peoples still need to come there… obviously very little is accessible, and even albinos face much stigma.

We were much more involved in International Volunteer Day, which took place the following Sunday. Since volunteerism is largely a foreign concept in developing countries, we came up with a night to celebrate our achievements, but more importantly, thank all our partners and local volunteers, and make them realise their work does not go unrecognized. It was a fun, relaxed affair, although Shaib, who has a history working in government, tried to make things a little more formal by having us all give statements… which were a good thing, a big pat on the back all round!

Well, nothing much else to say, other than after being in a rather unseasonably snowy Dublin for the past week, I wish I was back on the Island enjoying sea kayaking… fresh mango and coconut. Speaking of which, I managed, after about an hour of trying, to chop one open on my own to get at the water inside, something the locals do in about 5 minutes. And I climbed halfway up a coconut tree! Two of my greatest achievements! Well, Merry Christmas everyone, and missing you always… I’ll probably post some other shorter updates… more random stuff that happened in Africa as I go through my journal, etc.
Badai!
Michael
P.S. Shakira ft. Freshly Ground: Waka Waka definitely became the song of the trip… hugely popular down there, and a just a great song!

Well, here I am, halfway through my stay on Zanzibar, watching So You Think You Can Dance on tv because there is nothing better on. You’d think me being on an island surrounded by gorgeous beaches and filled with so much culture I’d have something better to do`, and if I’m honest with myself, yes, yes I do, but I can be lazy too! This is probably why my skin is no darker than when I left… most disappointing. On a related note, one of my biggest issues here is the bad reception on our 60 channels… that shows just how great things are going.

Living with a local family has really added so much to this trip. The three of us have really bonded with the ten (so I was told) family members, and as such, have been included in and experienced so much more than a tourist in Zanzibar would.

One of the best experiences was Nyla’s (our ‘sister’) friends’ graduation. At first I really didn’t want to go, seeing that we’d have to miss a day at the beach and get up at 8 in the morning on a Saturday, but it will be something I never forget. We were driven to the school, a novelty in itself, since we typically have to take crowded dala dalas everywhere, where we sat for one and a half hours waiting for the ceremonies to start (this is normal…everything takes time here). This gave us ample time to survey the school, which is so typically African; exactly what you see in movies, with a courtyard (for the graduation filled with shelters and chairs decorated in pink, yes pink) enclosed by a collection of one story classroom buildings. I half expected Whoopie Goldberg to come dancing out of a door like she does in Sarafina. When the show finally did start, it was amazing! Nearly four hours of students of all ages dancing and singing in both traditional and modern styles. The graduates even danced onto the stage to some bongo flava music. It was much more fun than grads in Alberta, and they even fed us all! The only downside were the speeches required of any ceremony- the minister of education took nearly 45 minutes to have his say, and it wasn’t just us who got bored, even the graduates were blatantly talking on their mobiles and playing games.

And then leaving the school, what should we see but a Chevy Venture minivan with Ontario plates… er?

Celebrating Eid al Haj with the family is something else I will never forget. Eid is one of the biggest holidays in the Muslim year, when everyone celebrates the return of pilgrims from Mecca. The holiday lasts 4 days, but only the first is an official government holiday. Oddly enough, the date isn’t set in stone though... it follows the lunar calendar, so although we planned to miss a day of work on Thursday, that just shifted to Wednesday! I just find it funny how government holidays can just move around at the last minute.

My guidebook tells me that day 1 is traditionally fairly quiet, spent at home feasting with the family. This is also when children go door to door in a fashion similar to Halloween (minus the costumes) asking for money or small treats as Eid gifts. Quite simply, we feasted from dawn to dusk that day. The day started off with an assortment of traditional pastries, and ended with a massive meal at our program manager Shaib’s house. We had been looking forward to dinner at his house since he mentioned it our first week; mainly because he is one of the funniest and kindest people I have ever met, and the girls (and I guess I agree) melt over how adorable his son is. We certainly weren’t disappointed. The meal started off with coconut water drank straight out of the coconuts that were plucked from trees in his garden earlier that day, and moved through rice, chapatti, fries, salad, veggie and chicken stew, fried chicken, fried fish, beans, then fresh watermelon, mangoes and bananas. The star of the show in my mind however, was homemade passion fruit, pineapple, watermelon, and avocado juice. I don’t think I have ever tasted something that delicious, nor will I ever again.

The second day isn’t an official government holiday, so we held an additional computer class in the morning for those who wished to come. Despite most students saying they would attend, only 4 out of 20 actually did. I don’t really blame them though, who would get up for an optional 9am class on a semi-official holiday day after spending the previous night celebrating? Later that evening it was our turn to go out… we went to a local disco called Children with our sister. It wasn’t quite what I expected, since it was actually filled with children! We had a great time nonetheless, and it was certainly interesting to see the normally conservative population in clubwear that rivals what we wear at home.

The next day we toured Stonetown’s museums in the morning, and took the two youngest kids, Ali (10) and Yha Ya (13) to the beach to teach them how to swim in the evening. Its really nice to have the ocean 15 minutes from your door.

Little things like being taken to local beaches that other wazungu never see, being warned about tourist vs. local prices (sometimes a huge difference),and being fed delicious local cuisine play just as an important role in making the experience that much better. Also, speaking of the little things, today we found a supermarket that sells pickles! And Pillsbury cake mix! And Lays! I mean, fresh octopus and coconut and spices and all that are great, but sometimes one just needs some processed North American garbage.

Now onto why I’m really here: We’ve started teaching since I last wrote, and it is much more enjoyable than planning. I definitely won’t miss the two weeks that were sitting in a stuffy office, in front of a computer screen for 8 hours a day, developing computer and English curricula.

The other four volunteers and I have been facilitating six classes in total: two intermediate computers, two basic English, and two intermediate English. We just finished our intermediate computer classes on Thursday (the program was only 8 days), and I will definitely miss it. The students were a great bunch and really caught on to what we were teaching. The class was also great for me- I basically taught myself Excel as I was teaching the class.

There isn’t much to say about the English classes, since we’ve only had 3 or 4 classes each (Eid meant we had to cancel a few), other than as I expected, Basic English is turning out to be the most difficult of the three as I kind of expected. It’s quite difficult to find out ‘where the class is’ in terms of their skills, and change what we teach based on that. Sometimes I find myself frustrated when we teach a concept and we are told everyone understands, and then when we test it, the complete opposite is true. I am however hopeful that we will make a difference… I just have to force myself to be a bit more patient. Also, a major challenge that applies to all classes is getting females to participate. It is a much different culture, and to generalize (because it certainly isn’t the case with some i.e. our host sister, who wakes me up most mornings with her singing), women are much more reserved here. I want to make it clear that of course that statement doesn’t apply to everyone; as much as some (read those political far righters) who like to paint the Middle East (which Zanzibar is culturally similar to) all with the same brush would have us believe. Women here are strong figures both at home in the community, and while most wear hijab, it is definitely a choice, because many don’t.

… I realize what I wrote is confusing and poorly thought out and kind of contradicts itself… Basically I want you to understand that women here can not be pinned down by one stereotype, and while it may be difficult to get them to participate in class, that may just because of language. I don’t know. But enough on that!

Alright, now that I’m finally done that essay, time to go and enjoy some more of those wonderful sandy beaches under the hot November sun! Hope to hear from you too, rafikis!

PS. I wrote most of that before we spent a day at the beach and I burnt myself to a crisp. I may not be able to stand anything touching me (and I have a hurt foot after slicing it open on coral, and a strained back after running on the soft sand), but I am much darker than before!

UPDATE NUMERO UNO
September 17, 2010
Jambo Friends!
Now that I’ve spent some time getting used to my new home on Zanzibar, I thought I’d update you all on how things are going, and what I’ve been up to.
Although my 2 day journey to Tanzania was pretty good, with a few hours in my favourite city, London, it was a relief to set down in Dar es Salaam. After a rather chaotic experience in customs, I passed by the guards armed with automatic rifles, and set foot into Tanzania. Immediately I was met with hoards of taxi drivers and safari operators trying to sell me (or rather, scam me) their products. I met up with some of the group at that point, and had a terrifying ride into the city. Driving rules don’t seem to exist in Dar; it really is every man for himself. If there is a traffic jam, one simply drives onto the sidewalk. Traffic lights are only sometimes followed.
The Safari Inn was our home for the next three nights, as we did a short orientation. It was during this time where I finally understood what I was to be doing here, and contrary to what I told most of you, it has very little to do with HIV/AIDS education. Although other groups did engage more in health education, we are, aside from planning an event for World Aids Day, teaching English and computers to youth in Zanzibar. It was also here where I realized my sleep pattern was going to be much different from at home, as calls to prayer from the mosques and numerous roosters nearly guarantee a 6 am start. Its not so bad though, there isn’t much to do in the evenings as we aren’t allowed out in most areas past dark (although we do have HBO and numerous movie channels at our homestay… last night we watched SWAT and Flashpoint… some good ol’ Canadian drama).
We arrived in Zanzibar last Thursday, after a brief ferry ride, which despite relatively calm seas, did not treat my stomach well. It’s hard to describe the beauty of the place. The ferry lands in Stonetown, a UNESCO world heritage site, a perfect blend of labyrinthine alleys, grand colonial architecture, and the tropical environment. I fell in love instantly.
Things changed quickly though; our taxi ride to our homestays took us into neighbourhoods that were rather sketchy in appearance, with garbage strewn everywhere. I was a bit nervous about what the house itself would be like… but I was pleasantly surprised. At least twice the size of my house in Canada, with satellite tv… and my own shower (I’m the only one, everyone else uses a bucket  ). The family we’re staying with is really nice too; it took a while to get to know them, what with the language barrier, and the fact that we’re not quite sure how many people actually live there… but we’re slowly establishing connections. The soccer ball I brought was certainly a big help in making friends. The neighbourhood has also grown on me, we are greeted and welcomed to Zanzibar several times on our walk to work every day, and I will definitely miss the street food vendors that appear nightly.
Speaking of, contributing to my love of Zanzibar is some of the best food in the world. From fresh fish, to tropical fruits I have never heard of, to the best Chai I have ever tasted 3 times a day, it’s hard to go hungry here. We also were treated to one of the best restaurants in Stonetown by the CEO of Youth Challenge Int’l, who was in town to check up on programming. Called Monsoon, you sit on cushions on the floor, and eat at very low tables. Adding to the atmosphere is live traditional music. The guidebook to Tanzania also claims that Monsoon has the best coffee in the world, which it very well may be.
Segue into our first beach day… which also involves delicious food. We took a rather crowded (40 people in a space meant for no more than 25) 2 hr ride a Dalla Dalla, minibuses that serve as public transportation, to a gorgeous beach surrounded by swaying palms, monkeys, and a warm turquoise ocean. After a dip in the water, we were served grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches on silver platters (a resort backs onto the beach). Cheese is something to be taken advantage of whenever possible as dairy, except in powdered form, is virtually non-existent.
Side Note: For anyone looking for a very affordable vacation experience, the costs of getting here ignored, Tanzania is the place to be. You can get roughly 1500 Tanzanian Shillings to the dollar, and most things here are very affordable. Just yesterday, I bought a Samosa for 300 Shillings… so just under 30 cents. For all of you who know how thrifty/cheap I am (coupon clipping etc.), you’ll understand how much I love this place.
Now, although it might sound like we’re just enjoying a tropical vacation on the cheap, we are actually at work from 9-5, 5 days a week. For now, until the national election is over on Halloween (we plan to have a party), we are just planning course outlines and lesson plans. I’m excited to be teaching… it seems as if YCI volunteers do have a real impact on locals… one of the homestay mothers actually learned English in a YCI program!
I also took on the task of figuring out how YCI can increase its programming with local NGOs that relates to environmental sustainability. I’m quite excited for this, because while the touristy areas of Zanzibar may be pristine, everywhere else seems to be ignored, with litter proliferating, and the primary means of waste disposal being burning. Aside from glass pop bottles, nothing at all is recycled… that isn’t quite true, as much finds a new use to keep costs down. Regardless, there is much room for improvement.
I’m going to try and write every couple of weeks or so, but once programming starts, I may not be able to. For now, I’m missing you all, and I hope that some of you will write back to me in some way!
Michael