Science Scoop from Mombasa

This week I am Mombasa, Kenya, attending the 7th Symposium of the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA). I’ve come with two of my counterparts – Davis Orio and Yo Soma – to present on the Marine Park’s current research and monitoring efforts (here's a link to a copy of the poster we presented). Davis is the Park’s new R&M warden and Yo is a volunteer for the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA, Japan’s version of Peace Corps), who is also working for the Park. It’s been an interesting symposium so far, and has elicited a couple of thoughts that I thought I’d share, particularly since it’s been so long since we’ve updated the blog.

First, outside the context of the symposium, perhaps you’ve heard about the current security concerns here in Kenya. When we flew in on Saturday, we were greeted by the news that the U.S. State Department had issued a warning of “imminent” attacks in Kenya. After several high-profile kidnappings of foreigners by suspected members of the al Shabab terrorist group of Somalia, the Kenya government sent troops into southern Somalia last week to root out the group, which has been connected to the recent insecurity in the region, including the problem with piracy. Apparently, the State Department expected retaliatory attacks due to Kenya’s incursion, and warned against visiting public spaces frequented by foreigners. And sure enough there have already been two attacks in Nairobi involving grenades being detonated in public places.

The symposium is taking place at the well-known and certainly upscale Sarova Whitesands Hotel, north of Mombasa, so it’s hard not to feel somewhat like a target as part of this group of five-hundred plus scientists and marine managers, many of whom come from Europe, Australia, and the States. But the security is tight, not only here at the Whitesands but just about everywhere in Mombasa. You can’t enter a bank, restaurant, or supermarket without first passing through a security check-point. Even most stores seem to keep there doors locked at all times and you must be buzzed in after knocking at the door.

Sarova Whitesands Hotel, Mombasa

I’ll also note that it was only a month ago that I predicted that there would be an American military presence in Somalia within the next few years, and sure enough, reports are that U.S. drones have been striking al Shabab control centers in southern Somalia, as part of Kenya’s operation. Faster than I expected, but I expect it won’t be the last we hear of American involvement in the area.

Anyway, outside of the security concerns, the symposium has offered a glimpse into some of the more compelling research currently underway in the region. One of the more interesting presentations was by a well-known scientist, David Obura, on his research about a potential “coral triangle” at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel between northern Madagascar, northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania. As Mr. Obura is discovering the rich coral diversity in this region is likely a product of number of biogeographical conditions, including paleo-geology and paleo-oceanography.

In short, while the evolutionary history of coral species is very convoluted, this area was likely served as a refuge for coral diversity when the Tethys Sea started closing 150-100 million years ago, with the breakup of the Gondwana super-continent and Africa and India’s northward migration. Unlike the rest of the Indian Ocean, the seafloor of the Mozambique Channel is remarkably old, which may reflect an area of relative stability, allowing for the preservation of older coral taxa that were disappearing elsewhere with the closing of the Tethys Sea. And during the last several hundred thousand years, the channel’s steep sides may have diminished the coastal influences of glacial cycles, again, creating comparative stability compared to other coastal areas in the region.

More recently, it’s widely thought that the coral biodiversity in the region is enriched by the South Equatorial Current, which bring coral larvae from reefs in the eastern Indian Ocean (e.g., Australia and Indonesia), before the current runs headfirst into the African coastline around the Mozambique-Tanzania border and splits into the East African current (running northward) and Mozambique Current (flowing south through the Mozambique Channel).

But Mr. Obura suspects it’s even more complicated than this. The Mozambique Channel
is well known for its incredible currents, some of the fastest in the world, which recent oceanography has shown are partly the result of large eddies that form around the Comoros islands (between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique) and move southward through the channel. These eddies can be as large as 300 km across, with a swirl velocity as fast as a meter a second. Mr. Obura suspects that these eddies are creating a return flow that allows for the accumulation of genetic and larval material.
Anyway, all this suggests that Mnazi Bay-Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park (MBREMP), where I am fortunate enough to be working, is at the center of a “hotspot” of marine biodiversity in the western Indian Ocean. Personally, I love this kind of research that brings it all together – geology, oceanography, genetics, ecology – and more importantly, makes it relevant to resource management – i.e., the need for management schemes to protect coral reefs in the region, like MBREMP. Mr. Obura’s work is ongoing, but it’ll be interesting to see how far he can take his theory about this “coral triangle.”

A glimpse of MBREMP's coral diversity.

Another hot topic at this symposium is the ongoing issue of dynamite fishing in Tanzania. I have long wanted to discuss the issue here on the blog, as I expect it’s hard for us Westerners to believe that the problem still exists. But the practice has become rampant in Tanzania in recent years, including in MBREMP. For example, earlier this year, after a number of individual arrests, MBREMP conducted two large joint operations with the Tanzanian Army that resulted in the surrender of 70 fishermen, from eight villages in the Park, who admitted to having engaged in dynamite fishing. These fishermen were required to take a legal oath to refrain from the practice, with the threat of imprisonment if they break their promise. (Although existing law already includes the possibility of jail time, most violators go unpunished.)

Dynamite fishing in Tanzania

Reef damage in Mnazi Bay caused by dynamite fishing.

But my impression of the problem differs somewhat from what some of the scientists in the region seem to think. I see the problem as fundamentally an issue of poverty and the lack of economic opportunities for Tanzania youth. But some observers see the availability of commercial grade dynamite and incidents like government boats being torched and fisheries officers being physically threatened (blinded by acid in one case) as a sign that the problem represents a form of organized crime and corruption that runs to the highest levels of government.

While I admit, if military detonators are showing up in local fishing villages and fishermen are being tipped off about covert enforcement efforts, some degree of corruption must exist. But when fishermen can make homemade explosives – by filling plastic water bottles with sand, petrol, and fertilizer – and when most of the people engaging in the practice are poor, uneducated youths who can’t afford other types of legal fishing gear, I can’t help but conclude that the overarching problem is economic, not political. Even with the commercial grade dynamite, it would be ignorant to think that a black market for this kind of thing doesn’t exist in a large port city like Dar es Salaam. And in terms of the “organization” behind the crime, when dealers are being arrested on public buses, with the explosives in a box under their seats (as was the case late last year on a bus from Dar to Mtwara), it’s hard to see the perpetrators as “professional” criminals. Anyway, that’s my two cents, for what it’s worth.

So that’s a sample of the discussion here at the WIOMSA symposium in Mombasa. I’ll be back in Mtwara on Monday, where Merritt reports that Moto and Tiger (Kali’s kittens) are now running around the house, constantly fighting each other, and getting into everything. It’s been a productive week here, but I am looking forward to heading back to the Deep South.

Tiger and Moto wiped-out after a long day of play.

Mzito Kabisa

Well, Merritt won both bets – a week and a half and two kittens. Kali is doing well, resting and proving that those mother instincts are strong. Last night, after coming back from a safi dinner at Msemo with a group of volunteers who are in town, we opened the door to find no Kali there to greet us, and immediately I knew, she had given birth. Sure enough, in the basket we’d prepared for her in the office, there was Kali with two little kittens squirming and wiggling away at their mama’s belly.


When we left earlier that afternoon, Kali had seemed a little unsettled, but as she had yet to start nesting or lactating, we were starting to wonder whether it would happen before Merritt left for Dar next Sunday. But I guess with us gone and the house quiet, the time was right. And our concerns about potential complications were unfounded – the kittens look healthy and Kali is doing very well, eating a little, sleeping a little, and purring like a jet engine.


In the past couple of weeks, it’s been somewhat painful to watch Kali, as she’s grown uncomfortably pregnant. The expression here in Tanzania is mzito kabisa, which literally means a person who is “completely heavy.” When not sleeping on the guest bed, Kali would lounge around the house, propped up against a door frame or a wall, in order to relieve the pressure on her ever-expanding stomach. One time, after she fell asleep on a table, Merritt and I watched her kittens squirm around, pressing with their paws out on her belly – it was like a scene out of Alien.



The color of the kittens is somewhat of a surprise – we think it’s actually a mixed parentage, the little tramp. There were really three Tom cats that came over the wall and into our courtyard at one point or another – one of which we scared off. But the other two were uniquely different – one a big, strong, dish-faced calico and the other a long, lanky, traffic-cone orange tabby. Kali seemed to be pretty interested in both cats, and now each of her kittens strikingly resemble one of the two.


As for names, we are still undecided. We may leave it to the kitten’s future owners to name them. Our plan is to give the two kittens away to some of the new Peace Corps volunteers in the region, and we intend this to be Kali’s only litter. Anyway, that's the exiting news here.

Mt. Kilimanjaro!

We returned from our amazing trip safely. Moss and I travelled to Moshi to meet Adam (Moss’s brother) and then to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro! After the 6 day climb we went to Zanzibar for a week of rest and relaxation.

This was a much needed vacation, and it was so much fun to have Adam in town. He was our first family member to come visit from the states. Moss and I had a blast showing him around and giving him a glimpse of what our life is like in TZ. However, he did see the rather safi side in that throughout the trip we stayed in relatively nice hotels with hot running water and electricity. Next time Adam will have to come down to Mtwara to get a better look at life as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Adam arrived in Moshi the day prior to our climb at one in the morning. We spent the day walking around Moshi, enjoying the new city, and getting prepared for our adventure. We went to the tour office to rent the gear we did not have, but thanks to our parents, who sent a ton of warm clothes and hiking gear, we did not need to rent much. Moss and I rented hiking poles. I also needed hiking boots and Moss needed a small backpack. That evening we had a few drinks on the rooftop of our hotel, while looking out at the magnificently massive mountain in the distance.

The following day we got picked up by the tour company and met the rest of the hikers in our group. We initially thought it would only be us three hiking the mountain together, but we were pleasantly surprised that two young med students from the UK, Amy and Ranjit, joined our group. They both had great attitudes and were fun people to get to know.

A glimpse of our hiking experience:

Day 1: Machame Gate to Machame Camp (6,232 ft - 9,840 ft) ~8 miles

We arrive at Macheme gate and fill out paperwork and wait for our first day of hiking to begin. We wait for our luggage to be weighed and all the porters to be sorted out. It turns out we have ten porters, one guide, one assistant guide, one cook, and even a waiter... talk about safi hiking. We only have to carry one small pack with the items that we want for the day i.e. water, clif bars, extra warm clothes, and toilet paper. We hike for five hours on a well developed trail through a tropical rainforest. Once we arrive at camp our tents are already set up and shortly after we are served tea/coffee/hot chocolate and snacks, while the cooks continue preparing our gourmet feast of us delicious soup, potatoes, and salmon for dinner. (This is first time I have had salmon in a year!)

Day 2: On to Shira Camp (9,840 ft – 12,792 ft) ~6miles


It is surprisingly warm on day two, and most of us hike in shorts. We hike on narrow rocky ridges, which is a sharp contrast compared to the first day in the rainforest. We reach Shira camp in the afternoon, rest, have tea, and then have the choice to continue on for about an hour to visit the Shira camp ranger station in order to acclimatize a little. On the way to the station, we check out the Shira Cave, which was used by porters for sleeping and cooking back in the day. On the way to the station there is a clear view of Mount Meru and the western peaks of Kilimanjaro.

Day 3: On to Barranco Camp (12,792 ft – 12,956 ft) Highest Point was 15,120 ft ~7.5miles


It is a cold, foggy day in the clouds, but it’s amazing to see the clouds above and below you as you hike. On day three the landscape is what Adam calls ‘moonscape.’ There is no vegetation, just rocks and dust. We hike up to the Lava tower, have lunch, and attempt to get used to the altitude.

We then proceed to descend about 3,000 ft to our campsite. I have to admit, today was the first day I really struggle. It was unbearably cold up at the lava tower and I did not have enough clothes on, I thought my fingers might fall off, and then the climb down to camp was harder than I expected. Going down the mountain certainly proves to be harder than going up. Despite the cold and the light rain, I try to enjoy the views and look forward to reaching camp and drinking really hot, hot coco.

Day 4: On to Barrafu Camp (12,956 ft – 15,088 ft) ~6 miles

Green News: Mtwara Moringa Project

Just arrived in Morogoro, where Merritt is here for a week of training and I am tagging along for company (and to avoid the bus trip, when I have to be in Dar next week). The road from Mtwara was as bad as we’d heard and we were glad to make it out of the Deep South without trouble. It’s great to be back in Morogoro, one of our favorite cities in Tanzania. Traveling also has a way of reminding yourself that you’re actually living in a foreign country – after months at homesite.

Perhaps the most distinct memory of the trip was seeing all the roadside buildings in villages along the way that have been marked for “bemoa” (demolition). The Tanzanian government recently realized that it has allowed a considerable amount of un-permitted construction – everything from walls to restaurants to gas stations – in government property adjacent to the state-built roads. All around the country, officials have marked with spray paint the buildings that must now be demolished. In Mtwara, this new policy means that the big stone wall outside the Lutheran seminary must be removed and one bank’s ATM must be relocated, so it’s not a big deal. But along 450 km between Mtwara and Dar, this means that much of the “commercial development” (a term I use loosely), must be torn down. It’s hard to imagine that the government will follow through on a policy that is likely to be so costly, particularly to less-developed communities.

Anyway, in other news, there was a good article last week in the New York Times (link), raising some very interesting points about the current state of agriculture and global food supplies. The basic gist of the article is that erratic weather (e.g., floods, drought, heat spells) has been cutting into agricultural yields, raising new doubts about long-term global food security, all the while the international community seems to have lost focus on agricultural research and development. The food riots that broke out in developing countries around the world in 2007 and 2008 were likely only the tip of the iceberg.

As on Jonathan Foley, a professor from the University of Minnesota summed up the issue, “We’ve doubled the world’s food production several times before in history, and now we have to do it one more time. The last doubling is the hardest. It is possible, but it’s not going to be easy.”

Meanwhile, Tanzania has committed itself to “Kilimo Kwanza” (Farming First), a national program intended to “Modernise and commercialise agriculture for peasant, small, medium and large scale producers” (link).

A major component of Peace Corps’ environment program in Tanzania is helping improve sustainable agricultural at the local level, particularly for people living with and at-risk of contracting HIV and AIDS.

My current contribution to this effort is a moringa tree program I am planning for villages in Mnazi Bay-Ruvumu Estuary Marine Park.

Moringa oleifera is a fast-growing, drought-resistant, highly-nutritious tree. The species is believed to native to sub-Himalayan tracts of northern India but now can be found worldwide in the tropics and sub-tropics. With leaves rich in protein, vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, and essential minerals such as iron, this tree is like growing your own multi-vitamin.

I hope that if introduced to some of the villages in the park, moringa could provide a readily available source of nutrients to park residents, who rely on vegetables to be trucked in for much of the year, given the lack of reliable rainfall. To test the feasibility of this idea I have been attempting to grow moringa seedlings in our own backyard, where the soil, to begin with, was about as bad as one can imagine. While the seeds have proven hard to get started, once growing the tree has certainly lived up to the hype.


A moringa seedling trying to grow in an early attempt of a bustani. Notice the poor soil quality.

The first round of a dozen or so seeds I planted back in November produced only two seedlings, one of which was planted in our backyard and one of which we gave to our Mama next door. To see how quickly these trees grow, here’s a little time series of how these two trees turned out:


Clockwise from top-left: (1) the moringa planted in our backyard in mid-February, only a couple of feet tall about a month after transplanting; (2) the same tree in mid-March; (3) by early April, the tree was as tall as our wall; (4) Mama’s tree next door, in early June, which was planted at the same time.

I had to substitute a picture of Mama’s moringa tree for the final photo in the above montage because we came home last week to find the tree in our backyard had succumbed to the Kusi (southeastern monsoon) winds, which have been especially strong as of late. A stiff afternoon wind gust snapped the tree in two. Apparently, while fast growing, moringa can’t be described as a hardwood.


Kali, having emerged from her palm lean-to, inspects the damage.

It was a sad scene – the main stem snapped in half, well below the lowest branch. But as it turns out, once started, moringa can withstand this. A little online research (thanks with the help of a certain Colorado “master gardener”) revealed that moringa can actually be cut back often, as low as a meter from the ground once or twice a year. This is actually recommended, as it keeps the branches from growing out of reach and encourages a thick, hardy main stem.

As for the other half of the tree, I cut off the fresh growth and hung the branches in our storage room to dry (once dried, the leaves can be made into a fine powder that can be added to soups, stews, even oatmeal). I also trimmed off the larger branches so that I could attempt to grow clones of the tree from cuttings.



Moringa leaves drying in our storage room (top) and planted moringa cuttings (below).

The jury is still out on whether the tree (and its cuttings) will live, but if it does, it won’t be a huge surprise. After what happened to the moringa Merritt planted, these trees seem to be fairly hard to kill.

To mark Merritt’s birthday, in early March we planted the sole surviving moringa seedling from our second planting out in front of our house, where the tree seemed to love the sunny, sandy conditions. But in May, just as the tree seemed poised to take off, construction crews arrived to build our front wall and promptly buried the tree under several dump truck loads of sand. After we dug out the remaining stump, we came home one afternoon to find the remains of the poor tree crushed under a cinder block that was being used to help hold up our front gate. I was sure that even if the tree had surviving being buried the first time, it wouldn’t survive this second crushing.

But to our amazement, a week after construction had finished out front, our Mama next door greeted Merritt one morning with the news that the “mti inaota” (“the tree, it is growing”), and sure enough the little sucker somehow survived. We’re letting the tree regain a little bit of its former self before relocating it to a safer local.

When we get back to Mtwara in two weeks, we’ll find out if the moringa in our backyard (and all its clones) have survived. I am hopeful, and encouraged that the tree is right for introduction into villages in the park. I’ll let you all know how it goes.


Anyway, that’s the green news here; hope everyone’s gardens back in the State’s are coming to life.


African honey bees, visiting the flowers in our front garden.

Baseball in Tanzania

Really Building Something…

To build a wall in Tanzania, you don’t just go out and buy the bricks, you make them first.



Merritt and I have found that everything takes longer in Tanzania, from the personal greetings to the simple chores around the house. (For example, need to do a load of laundry? Better clear your schedule, cause it’s gonna take a few hours.) But then you realize it’s not just because your a “mzungu,” for Tanzanians too, even the simple projects can become a Herculean efforts of insanity. Take the new wall around the front of our house as a prime example…



Now, first, I need to make clear that this monstrosity is not of our doing. When we had to renew the rental agreement for our house (which the organization Merritt is working for, I-TECH, is paying the rent on), there was a provision about building a wall in the front. This provision was apparently worked out between I-TECH and our landlord, and stupidly, we didn’t cross it off or insist on its removal then and there. The same provision was in the first contract, and though we were happy with the back wall they built us, we were pleased that nothing had ever come of the front wall that was supposed to be included.

Anyway, so when we recently heard that there was again interest in building the wall, we spoke with Mr. Nzigilwa, from COTC, who knew the landlord and had originally found us the house prior to our arrival. We told him we certainly didn’t need a front wall, that if one was built our house would stick out like a sore thumb in the neighborhood (only attracting more attention to us), and that we were had already started planting trees in front, to create a living fence that would serve much the same purpose.

But in Tanzania, if it’s in the contract, it’s in the contract, and whether we wanted it our not, it was getting built. The only good news, we learned from Mr. Nzigilwa, was that it was only going to be a “ukuta nusu” (half wall), “with pillars on which you can put plants,” as he described it.

So last Tuesday, Merritt returned home in the mid-morning to quickly get something she had forgotten, and found the fundi there with the mama ya nyumbani (house mama, the owner’s wife), laying out their plans for the work. And before they had even finalized the plan or Merritt had a chance to return to work, the first dump truck (of at least a half dozen) arrived, backed up onto our lawn, and proceeded to dump its entire load of sand directly onto all the tree seedlings we had planted (and spent the last couple months watering and tending to). By that afternoon when I returned from work, our front yard had morphed into a brickyard, with a crew of dozen men (actually two were children), including the neighborhood “mlevi” (drunkard) pounding out there hand-made cinderblocks. (The expression “s#%t show” comes to mind…)



To make the bricks, they basically form a big pile of sand, shovel on some dried cement, pour on the water (carried by the children), mix it together, and then shovel it into a single wooden form, and pound it down with the back of a glass, liter Coke bottle. Why it should require a dozen men to make one brick at a time is beyond me, but I honestly didn’t try to figure it out, as I wanted nothing to do with this operation, particularly after they killed all our trees.

My only input into the project was on the first morning, when, after the drunkard arrived just after six, still lit-up from the night before and started stumbling along the top of the piles of sand, shouting, “I love you…!” to nobody in particular, I had to insist that he be relieved of his duties. He would eventually return though, until the work crew also grew tired of his antics and chased him off.

Anyway, now our house looks like … I don’t know, a castle/prison/construction zone, I guess. The front yard will be a hardpan of cement until next year’s rains, and the whole neighborhood mistakenly thinks that we have the money to somehow make this all happen (definitely not the case).

In other news, Kali does not appear to be pregnant, though her boyfriend has plans to try and change this. Our first attempted garden is finally growing (despite some dastardly little worms eating all our broccoli), and our second one (pictured below), covering the former choo (outhouse), is doing surprisingly quite well with squash, tomatoes, watermelon, and of course, for Merritt, salad greens.





Anyway, that’s all the news here. Hope everyone is staying high and dry with the flooding back in the States. Feel free to send a little rain our way, as we’re getting sick of hand watering the garden twice daily.…

Life Update

It has been so long since I the last blogged, so I thought I would give you all a little update about what’s been going on in our life.

From our last post you can see that we had a great time in Zanzibar! It was a blast and it was really nice to get away from our daily working routine. But now it’s back to real life...

Work
It’s the second semester at school and I am teaching Entrepreneurship in Health to the 3rd year medical students. Things are going well so far, but the language barrier makes things difficult at times. Additionally, I just finished gathering data for a library needs assessment of 8 health training institutions in Southern TZ. Now I’m compiling a report and trying to get books and shelving for a number of libraries.

Moss has been working away with both marine park work and his law work back in the states. For the park he is making a great manual, complete with pictures of all the fish and their various samaki names so that the fisherman can properly identify the fish they are catching. He has also been working non-stop on a report for a client back at home (the topic is over my head, so I won’t even try to explain that one.)

Our Garden
It’s growing big time! We have actually been able to make real salads with spinach and mix greens. Anyone that knows me well knows this makes me really happy! We also have kale, various peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, broccoli (it’s kinda dying though), and a number of flowers growing. Our big papaya tree also has fruit on it. We planted a few other trees in our front yard; they are coming along slowly but surely.

Cooking
We now have a new amazing addition in our kitchen, a toaster oven! Yes, it is wonderful! It almost feels like we are cooking in America (besides the fact that we haven’t had running water for 4 days). We have been baking non-stop – we made banana bread, oatmeal raisin cookies, pizza, and last night I made whole wheat pita bread (and it tasted like the real thing, with the little pita pocket in the middle and all). In other culinary adventures, Moss rigged up a grill using a charcoal jiko so we have been grilling fish and steak. You can buy a huge piece of ‘steaki’, which is enough to feed 6 people, for 6,000 shilingi or about $4.00.

Adventures
On Saturday we had an interesting experience... We were dressed in our beach wear (for me that just includes shorts and a tee-shirt, but of course I wouldn’t dare to bare my knees in public, so I just wear a long black skirt on top of my shorts). So we hop on our bikes to ride to the beach, right as a man that Moss works with shows up at our house on a pikipiki. He rode all the way across town to remind Moss of the fundraising event happening at his church. He mentioned this function to Moss the previous week, but Moss completely forgot about it. So after his surprise visit, we decided that we really needed to just stop by and donate a little to the church. We thought we could simply slip in, stay for a few minutes, give a little pesa, slide out, and continue on our way to the beach. Boy, were we wrong!

So we ride to the church, which is actually about 20 minutes away. We did not know exactly where we were going, but we simply followed the sound of the loud music in the distance. This was a singing/dancing event, where the church choir and various performers were selling their CD to raise money. Despite the exciting performance, Moss and I became the show! We parked our bikes and just wanted to listen to a few songs, but suddenly all the kids have formed a circle around us and are just staring and giggling as we stood there watching the dancers. They were mesmerized by the new wazungu. You would have honestly thought that we were the ones jumping around and singing. We ended up staying for a little while; one community member even tried to get Moss to make a speech. Moss managed to dodge that one and we still made it to the beach for a quick swim before the sun went down. All and all it was a fun and interesting day. We told the pastor that we would love to join them next Sunday, so I will have to let you know how that goes.

Kali, Our Paka
We think she might be pregnant! (Or maybe she’s just getting fat!) We are not quite sure, but she has 2 boyfriends that will not leave her alone. Moss continues to scare them away, but who knows what kind of trouble she’s getting into when we are not around. We measured her belly and will measure it again in a week. Hopefully it will not grow. I’ll let you know.

I hope you all had a great Mother's Day! XOXOX

Zanzibar!

Another beautiful sunset here in Mtwara… I was just walking up the hill to the duka behind our house (to get “mayai” (eggs) for dinner), when I came over the rise to see a mushroom-cloud of a thunderhead towering over Mikindani Bay.

I swear I could recognize Mtwara just by the sight of her skyline (see the panorama below of a typical Mtwara sunset). Most days, the sky is filled with building thunderheads, as they role off the Indian Ocean – we only see the lightening and rain falling further inland in the late afternoon. Occasionally it rains hard in town for half an hour, and sometimes, like yesterday, you can be standing in the middle of a downpour, as the sun beats down upon you with its full intensity.


But whereas one might be able to recognize Mtwara from the horizon-up, one will never forget Zanzibar for the other half of the spectrum – the horizon-down. The water – that crystal blue ocean – can only be one place – East Africa’s famous spice island.


Merritt and I recently returned from our first real vacation, five days out on Zanzibar. Except for a Peace Corps training in Morogoro in December and Merritt’s business trips to Dar, we’ve been pretty much at site for the past seven months. While Tanzania is generous with their public holidays (about one every month and three for Easter), we were both in need of a break from the daily eight to four – and also perhaps the seemingly endless household chores that come with living in Tanzania (e.g., washing clothes by hand, filtering drinking water, cutting the grass around your house with a machete). It also happened to be right around our second anniversary, so some kind of trip seemed in order.

While the memory is still fresh, I have a few scenes that I want to describe for you, which I hope will at least bring joy to those of you for whom spring has not yet sprung and are in need of a little reminder of more tropical climes.

Leaving hot, crowded Dar es Salaam, after being hustled for a “deal” on a ferry ticket (“Hapana asante” – “no thanks”), you motor out through Dar’s busy port, littered with dhows and hand-hewn canoes – and as you relax in your bean bag chair (“kweli!” – “really!”), you’re glad you’ve made the effort to come so far already.

And two hours later, having left all the worries on the mainland, you arrive in Stone Town, where the water is so blue it hurts your eyes.


Ferry passengers, residents and tourists alike, burdened with the wares they’re bringing back from Dar and their overstuffed camping backpacks, throng to ferry railing. But there’s really no rush, at least for foreigners, who upon debarking are promptly corralled into a little “customs” waiting area – a set of wooden benches with tin roofing to offer pitiful relief from the eternally fierce sun. But at least there’s a breeze and the ocean to look at – and at least you’re in Zanzibar.

Why do you go through customs when your in the United Republic of Tanzania? Well, Zanzibar has found it advantageous to go along with its coastal neighbor, the former Tanganyika territory, which it joined in 1964, but hasn’t ever quite bridged the gap between it and the mainland,. So things are a little different in Zanzibar.

Anyway, so you finally get through customs, where you Kiswahili lessons pay for themselves, and then, just as in Dar, your greeted by a throng of just as numerous, but even more determined, street “touts.” I hadn’t heard the expression before (it’s British, apparently), but the touts of Zanzibar are a lesson in persistence (in Kiswahili, they’re called “papasi” – “ticks”).

Again, knowing a little basic Kiswahili saves you many a “shida” (problem). “Hoteli!” “Taxi!” “Safari!” They shout at you. “Hapana asante.” “Hatuhitaji.” “Hatuna haja.” You respond.

And when you’re free of the mass of people, you find yourself on the port street of Stone Town, walking in front of the Sultan’s Palace, the House of Wonders, and the Old Fort, and there’s no escaping that you’ve landed in another world, perhaps another time. The city is a combination of Arab, Indian, European, and African influences – big, square, two or three story cement buildings, with massive window-less fronts surrounding their famous carved wooden doors. Built side-by-side, these forts-unto-themselves leave only a maze of shadowy alleyways, in which one can spend the day exploring – every shopkeeper beckoning you into their store, and the occasional small coffee house or outdoor eatery where you can take a rest during the midday heat.

Counterclockwise from top left: House of Wonders (Zanzibar Museum of History); Old Fort; Tanzanian cat; baby basket; and three variations on the Zanzibar front door.

Merritt and I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Stone Town within walking distance of the port, called the Zenji Hotel. The ground floor of this three story building is divided between the hotel office and a coffee shop where the owners sell locally-made crafts, like Zanzibari woodwork and fabrics. The top two floors are small rooms, each individually named, like the “Taste of Culture,” where we stayed. The hotel serves breakfast under a canopied rooftop deck, where you can watch Stone Town come to life, as you have your morning toast (with banana-vanilla bean jam) and black coffee.

Speaking of food, Stone Town, apparently, has many great restaurants – from fancy Italian places to hole-in-the-wall, vegetarian-only Indian joints. However, except for lunch on the first day, Merritt and I wouldn’t know. Two nights in a row, we had talked about and chosen a restaurant for dinner, and both nights we got side-tracked along the way at Foradhani Gardens, a small outdoor park on the waterfront, which transforms nightly into a mecca of street food.

Table after table is piled high with skewers of grilled snapper, barracuda, shark, prawns, lobster and other fish, grilled vegetables, grilled bananas, chapati, nan. Men stand next to giant milling machines, grinding up raw sugar cane to make fresh juice. Then there are desert tables, where they make banana and chocolate pizzas.


After a vendor gives you the tour of his table and you have selected your dinner, they heat it on the grill and give you it on paper plates, so that you can sit out on the pier and watch the sunset, or moonrise if it’s later.

It’s a little overpriced ($1-2 per skewer of grilled fish, $3-4 for lobster or prawns, $2 for banana-chocolate pizza), and you’ll have to forget any questions about the sustainability of your catch, but it may be worth the trip alone.

Stone Town is on the southwestern corner of what is a fairly large island (roughly 30 miles long, 8-10 miles wide), and is in close proximity to several spice plantations that are popular for tours, as well as Jozani National Forest, home to the island’s remaining native red colobus monkeys. Merritt and I were planning on heading to the northern tip of the island, to one of the other major tourist destinations, Nungwi, so we used our one full day in Stone Town to go on a spice tour and to visit some of the other nearby historical sites.

At 8 a.m. the tour guide picks you up at your hotel and before you head out, the driver stops quickly at Darajani Market, where, because it’s so early, you never know what you might see in the “fish department”…

A man cuts up “pungu” (shortfin devil ray) at Darajani Market. Not pictured in this photo, the 12-foot high stack of swordfish directly behind the cameraman. The Island of Zanzibar, roughly twenty miles from the Tanzanian coast, offers its fishermen access to some of the deeper-water, open-ocean fisheries that produce East Africa’s bigger fish. In Mtwara, most fishermen can’t reach such waters in their dhow and dugout canoes, and so the catch is generally smaller.

But it only takes the guide a minute to buy the food for the group’s lunch, and your off to the “shamba” (farm).

The spice tour is, of course, very touristy – for instance, several locals follow the tour group around in the plantation, weaving palm straw necklaces (for the women) and ties (f0r the men), so that they can then ask for tips at the end. But the groups are small and the tour guides good.

As for the spices themselves – you walk along a path through what otherwise looks like the woods, and learn that basically everything you’re looking at – the trees, shrubs, undergrowth – has been specifically imported and planted for some special property. For example, did you know that iodine is comes from the sap of a tree? (This little tidbit proved useful within the hour of learning it.)

Cinnamon trees were another interesting stop – yes, the bark is used to make cinnamon, but who knew that the tree’s roots also contain the compound in menthol, also found in certain types of mint? Seems odd that the same tree can produce two such distinctive flavors.

From left to right: iodine, cinnamon, vanilla, and jackfruit.

Cardamon, nutmeg, black pepper, vanilla, cocoa, cloves – Zanzibar grows it all, and from what I understand, exports surprisingly little of it these days (a compliment to the local cooking).

Clockwise from top left: nutmeg, tamarind, cloves, and cocoa.

If you go on a spice tour out of Stone Town, there’s a good chance you’ll get to visit the Kidichi Persian baths, built by Sultan Seyyid for his wife in the 1850s. There’s not much to look at, but it’s still fun to imagine the sultan, his wife, and their entourage traveling out from their palace for their daily bath.

Our final stop of the day on our spice tour was Mangapwani caves, along the island’s central western coast. For much of the 19th century, Zanzibar was the capital of the East African slave trade. By one estimate, in the four decades before the British abolished the trade in the region in 1873, as many as 600,000 Africans were sold in the Zanzibar slave markets, destined for Arabia, Persia, and the Indian Oceans. After the slave trade was outlawed, however, an illegal slave trade continued on Zanzibar, and the Mangapwani caves were used to hold slaves until they could be smuggled out under cover of darkness. With a small spring at the bottom, slaves could be held here for weeks before being led out the two hundred meter long tunnel that leads to the ocean, where a boat would be waiting.


I think I’ve mentioned before that the remnants of the Colonial era are ever present in Tanzania – from German missionaries to massive sisal plantations to Mtwara’s failed peanut scheme. But Zanzibar, with its spice plantations, Persian baths, and former slave markets, offers a very different impression of colonialism – one of brute subjugation being used to support luxury and opulence.

After two days in Stone Town, we had had our fill of history, street hustlers, and fish kabobs – it was time to head to the beach.

Yet while I would love to be able to tell you more about Nungwi, I honestly can only describe what I saw from the taxi window, as Merritt and I were driving to Mnarani Beach Cottages, where we were staying. Nungwi is, by all appearances, a small fishing village – one that also happens to have several major resort hotels. Only here can you find a Double Tree Hotel in the midst of mud-and-thatch homes.

But Mnarani Beach Cottages is lovely…


Perched on the tidal cliff at Zanzibar’s northern pinnacle, Mnarani has a lighthouse for a neighbor (“mnarani” is “lighthouse” in Kiswahili). And though low tide exposes a half mile section of seafloor, at high tide, the swimming and snorkeling are considered some of the best on the island.

After finally picking up a pair of snorkel and goggles for Merritt in Stone Town, we finally got to go exploring out on the reef together, and Zanzibar did not disappoint. Though we never got a chance to get all the way out to the main reef, what we saw was still pretty incredible. Within our first two minutes, while still swimming out through the sea grass beds, Merritt spotted a beautiful bandit-stripped sea snake – calmly cruising through the sea grass on her morning hunt. We paused to watch her swim by and then continued on for deeper waters.

I must say that much of what we saw was overrun with sea urchin (a well-known sign of overfishing). Still amidst fields of sea grass and coral rubble, you could find these massive brain corals, teaming with tropical fish – wrasses, anglefish, squirrelfish, sergeants, sweepers, gobies, even the occasional puffer fish. And if you dive down to get a better look, occasionally you’ll see the eyes of a moray eel, peering back at you from his cave. Sometimes he’ll even swim out a little to give you a good look at his bald, brown and white-spotted head.

A morning or afternoon can go by pretty quick when your snorkeling. On one trip, it took us an hour to get out of the water after we discovered that the dock at the neighboring Italian resort was packed with bait fish – and barracuda and snapper charging through the schools. We saw more fish in an hour under a dock than we’d seen in three hours out on the reef.

So pretty quick, our two days in Nungwi were gone and it was time to return to Stone Town to catch the ferry to Dar, for the following morning’s return flight to Mtwara.

Anyway, it was a great trip, and there’s much of Zanzibar that we didn’t get to see – like the famous white beaches of the east coast or Jazani Forest. So if you feel like you need to see Zanzibar for yourself, “karibu” (welcome), and Merritt and I will meet you at the ferry (if not the Dar airport).