Unguja: I just took the ferry back from Pemba today. I was staying with J. Michael Trichter, a ed volunteer who extended for another year and wants to extend again for another five months; he fell in love with Pemba and his site and my guess is he has changed a lot since he arrived. I had never met him before I showed up at the island, but he had sent out a blanket email inviting all volunteers to come visit him. I’m very glad I did to, Pemba is beautiful. He lives in the port town, Mikoani, but I also went to Chake, the biggest town on the island. The feeling is that of a country that was once more developed but has fallen into decay; the island is very hot and wet, there are old apartment buildings originally constructed by the communists as well as decaying stone roads and pathways. His school has a really nice computer lab, complete with internet; it is as good as most American labs, but power is very unreliable so his hours are somewhat restricted. Yesterday I went to Misali, an island national park. Misali is an hour and fifteen minute boat ride from Mkoani, and has gorgeous coral and fishes; I didn’t see anything really big but the reefs were worth it. The food was delicious, a lot of octopus and squid along with excellent breads and lots of coconut rice.
I’m in stone town, in Unguja (main island of Zanzibar) now. It is something like Europe, with lots of narrow stone alleyways and a ton of white people; Dylan says we don’t greet each other because tourists want to think they are in a very exotic location. His site is nice also; we went spear fishing – octopus hunting with some of his neighbors the day before I left for Pemba. I also went biking around his site. I made it to Zanzibar’s national forest, walked around a mangrove swamp, saw a sea turtle rehabilitation program, and stood next to a Zanzibari Colobus monkey. Back to Dar es Salaam tomorrow! I hope to return to the islands before I leave. I
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