Welcome to Zanzibar!

Things have definitely been "going" here, but I have basically discovered through my family and Zanzibar, that this is definitely more of a "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" kind of place. I never quite know what my day will encounter and what will be on my "program" as my homestay mom says. The family I am staying with is very interesting in themselves.

First of all, in Islam a man can have at most 4 wives because there are more women in the religion than men and therefore less women to get married if only one woman per man. And it is important that every Muslim experiences marriage before going to Heaven. But a man can only have multiple wives if he is able to provide and support them and any children they have. My homestay father has 3 wives and is considered to be one of the richest men on the island of Zanzibar! So this also means that he has several houses. For the first part of the week, I stayed in their new home of only 6 months. It was a beautiful 3 story home with air conditioning, electricity, indoor plumbing, and TV! The downside to this house is that it is very far away from my school (too far to walk) and far away from Stone Town which is the more "tourist" area of the island.

So on Wednesday morning at about 7:45am, few minutes before my homestay mom was going to bring me to school, she tells me that I am going to stay at another house that is closer to school and that we need to bring all my stuff to the other house that morning! Now, please understand that this was technically my 2nd day of school and I was told to arrive at 8:00am, so I was obviously going to be late. Oh, and the other thing is that I was NOT packed at all!! My stuff was dispersed all throughout my room and very unorganized, so I basically threw things into whatever was close and zipped everything up in about 5 minutes. My homestay mom and I then hauled my 2 suitcases, backpack, and purse down the winding flight of stairs since we were living on the 2nd floor. We get to the car and she realized that she has the wrong car key. Apologizing, she hurries back upstairs to get the correct key. This story makes a turn for the worse because as I am standing outside with my "life" in suitcases before me, it starts to rain...just lovely! So we quickly put all my things in the trunk and I convince her that we can just unload my suitcases out of the car when I get home from school. Phew! And surprisingly enough, I only arrive to school about 10 minutes late.

I go to school Monday-Friday from 8:00am-12:00pm where it is only myself and one other girl, Klara, from Sweden who speaks English very well. We have become friends and normally after school we will go to Stone Town and walk around a bit trying very hard not to look like tourists. I have decided that I do not want to look like a tourist if at all possible because the local people here treat you differently. For example, the other day, Klara and I were looking for a kanga for me to buy. A kanga is basically a piece of fabric and has beautiful designs on it and it also has a Swahili saying on it. You can use them for pretty much anything: a skirt, a shawl, a towel, a carpet, etc. So we went walking trying to find the best priced and best quality kanga for me. Being white and not Muslim, the shops automatically classify us as tourists and they will try to get as much money from you as possible. Klara bought a kanga in Tanzania for about 3000 Tanzanian Shillings (TNS). Every shop that we went to tried to sell one to me for 10,000 TNS! Even though 10,000TNS only equals about 10 USD, that was an outrageous price to pay at a local store! I tried to bargain with them, but they absolutely refused, so I walked away disgusted and not really wanting one anymore. I am so anxious to start speaking Swahili fluently because then I can come right back at those sales men and tell them no!

There is one other thing that happens to me multiple times a day here in Zanzibar...children staring at me and touching me! HAHA. It is like I am some kind of alien that they have never seen or encountered before. I find it very amusing, and they always say howareyou? very quickly. I normally always just shoot them a smile and they cower away, not knowing what to do.

So I am definitely having a good time so far in Zanzibar. It is extremely different here in the fact that no one rushes and everyone is very laid back. Very very different from America. Life works at a different pace here and I like it for now, but it is nice to be able to talk to people like Klara and discuss what things are like in our home countries. But for now that is all, and I will be writing again in a couple of days! I hope everyone at home stayed dry from Hurricane Gustav. I watched what little I could on SkyNews haha!