That's all for now folks!
- jeremyskoler
- Jun 12, 2018
- 9 min read
4/29/18 - 5/12/19
I got lucky enough to be here for the school’s Match Day. We split into the four houses (Hogwarts style), Wami, Mikumi, Victoria and Kilimanjaro, and then had soccer and netball matches. I was Victoria. It was a blast. The kids were all hyped and we even set up a professional-ish soccer field with lines and everything. Pascal served as the referee with a whistle and homemade yellow and red cards. It started pouring so the whole school huddled under the eaves of the surrounding buildings for at least an hour. It was just great to see the kids outside of the classroom laughing and playing.
I had to say goodbye to all my readers the last time I read with them. I brought them each a caramel. The hardest was Hamisi. He started crying. Man, this is heartbreaking. I think I was actually able to help a few of these kids and I can’t believe I’m just abandoning them now.
The baobab kids all made me beautiful cards. We opened them together on my last night. I can’t believe this is goodbye. Teacher Rajabu and I exchanged shirts. I gave him a Jewish one, he gave me a Tanzanian one.
I spent my last couple days packing, transplanting, typing, arranging, printing, teaching, laminating, organizing and contacting everyone I needed to so the projects I leave behind will hopefully continue. It has been super busy but has helped me keep my mind off of the quickly approaching end to my joyful life here. I am now a little hopeful that I have made some lasting impact and imparted some new knowledge.
On the day I left, I brought the kids to Dar with me. We spent four long hours on the bus but managed to get to the trampoline park in the city. The kids had a blast hopping around. Then we discovered the foam pit and I got to throw children into it willy-nilly. Wonderful! We got pizza for lunch and I said a quick goodbye before running to the ferry. I will never forget that last goodbye on the steps of Pizza Hut. I’m really going to miss those guys.
Juma and I took pikipikis to the ferry. On the way my helmet blew off and my driver very angrily had to turn around to collect it. Oops! Once we arrived we found out the ferry was so full I couldn’t even bribe my way onto it. I managed to find a taxi to the airport and a flight to Zanzibar for only 20 dollars more. Juma and I said our goodbyes then I took off. The motorcycle to the airport was wild. I had on my heavy backpack and was gripping the back of the seat trying not to be dragged off by the weight. Finally I arrived safely and was ushered into security. I walked through the metal detector like three times because I wanted to keep my eyes on my bag which they kept running back through the machine. It was a very relaxed checkpoint. We had struck a special deal so I was led into a back office. There I handed over a small bribe and my passport and was quickly issued a ticket. I waited around for an hour and then boarded a small prop plane. It was definitely the first time I’ve watched a pilot fly, which was pretty cool. Anyway, I made it to Zanzibar and sadly said goodbye to the final stage of my gap year.
Being in Zanzibar has been a shock. There are so many tourists around. It is impossible to see the real city behind the façade that is being erected for all of us. Of course, the other side of the coin is that the less touristy places aren’t always safe. The influx of tourists means that the mugging rates are much higher. It’s odd, because so many people come to see the sights and this has caused the sights to become obscured by flashy attractions or guarded by unsavory encounters.
I spent the evening wandering all over Stonetown. I got some ugali, kebabs, sugar cane juice, and my new favorite dessert, some sort of caramelized rose chewy candy that came wrapped in woven straw. I saw a super touristy food section, a much less touristy market and the coast. There I met a fisherman casting off the beach into the dark night waters. We sat in silence for a couple minutes then I wandered on. I haven’t seen so many white people in all of the past three months, it is very strange. I tried to find my own way home instead of retracing my steps and instead got twisted around in narrow winding dark walkways between the buildings. Once I found myself alone in the lightless alley I remembered Delphine’s warning about frequent muggings. Of course, there was nothing to worry about, but I quickened my pace and hurried my way out of the labyrinth and back into the mzungu section.
I think this is the first time I’m actually traveling alone. It is only 4 nights but I am exploring this island by myself, and it is very new. It feels very different from my bike trip because now there are sights to see and things to do instead of just riding all day. We will see how it goes!
I woke up and headed north to meet Delphine and Sam at their turtle sanctuary in Nungwi. The ride was miserable. In Zanzibar there are two types of daladala, the normal bus kind and the pickup truck bed with benches around the perimeter and a claustrophobically small wooden box covering the whole thing. They had wanted to put my big backpack on the roof but chose not to at the last second, which I figured would be good so I could keep it with me. However, I didn’t think about how uncomfortable it would be to jam into the daladala with the huge bag. Everyone was hating me for having such a large obstruction in the small space. We were packed in extremely tightly and my body was aching from contorting to minimize the space my bag and I took up. It was a relief, to say the least, when we arrived in Nungwi.
Sam and Delphine guided me back to their place and helped me make a cheap hotel deal. We spent the afternoon hanging out and walking around a bit. One of the locals was having a birthday boat ride that night and the Europeans had been invited to finance it. We boarded the wooden vessel and set off down the coast. The mast was a tree trunk and the boom was made up of four sticks tied end to end, it was pretty cool. There was drumming, dancing and a jump into the fresh ocean waves. Suddenly flames erupted from the wooden floor. The musicians had built a fire on the deck to heat their drum heads for a better sound. It seemed like an awful idea to me but there was some magic in that creaking vessel and the boat didn’t burn. It was a nice time but the thing that will stick with me most is that pieced-together ship.
After an awful night’s sleep in my hotel’s inadequate bed, I woke up early to go diving. I had planned to do a snorkel but Sam had convinced me I had to do a dive in Zanzibar. I wandered into town for some breakfast then set out along the beach to meet my dive instructor. Once geared up we hoped in the water to practice the basics. After a three minutes lesson we sped off to our first sight, coral garden. It was underwhelming. I didn’t have contact lenses which made it less visually appealing and the water wasn’t too transparent. The second dive was nicer. I was able to get within inches of the fish so I could actually see them properly. I saw a turtle, lots of eels, a dragon fish and a really big grouper. The highlight though was just swimming up and around the corals. The three dimensional world you can travel in as a diver is unlike anything else life has to offer. I took a daladala back to Stonetown. This time I just owned the fact that I was taking up two seats and wedged myself and my bag painfully into the corner.
After dropping my bags at the hostel I decided to walk around the small part of town I hadn’t yet seen. Instead I ended up walking for three hours away from Stonetown. I passed through some marshy areas, small fishing huts and open sewer pipes draining into the sea. Then I reached a stretch of beach filled with locals. They were playing soccer, jogging, practicing martial arts, performing gymnastics, participating in mass work out groups, swimming, trying to master the high jump, dancing and plenty more. It was really cool to see the culture and how athletic and healthy it is. I saw one other white person on that beach and it was good to be off the tourist trail for a bit. I finally reached the end of the beach to find a small fishing village. I got a couple odd looks until I went a couple more steps and was suddenly in a super affluent neighborhood with large fancy walled houses.
I struggled to work my way out of the built up area but eventually found a main road. By this point it was getting dark and I decided I should take a pikipiki home. Except, I had counted on taxis and pikipikis to stop and ask me if I needed a lift constantly like they did everywhere else. I was just walking along the highway, no one was expecting to pick up tourists there. I finally asked a guy by the side of the road for help. He didn’t speak English but I crudely communicated my need for assistance and he generously called someone for me. People are so nice. I had gone from a super touristy area to an extremely poor polluted one, then a thriving active hot spot before entering the desolate wealthy neighborhood. I feel like that walk was a sample plate of Zanzibar.
I went to the night market to eat the touristy delicious food offered there. Yum! Then, unsure what to do as I’d already walked all around Stonetown, I headed back to my hostel to relax. There I happened to see a facebook post from a guy I had met in Bagamoyo and remembered he lived in Zanzibar. I sent him a message as a shot in the dark and he told me he was in town and would be at my hostel in five minutes. We went to the rooms he rents with seven artist friends. They have the top floor of a building which they have painted and decorated with art. We walked up the creaky wooden stairs and came out into a room where two of his roommates were gliding around on hoverboards. They have a business buying things cheaply in Zanzibar’s internationally connected economy and selling them on the mainland. Tonight they were testing that everything was working all right. We climbed onto their roof to get a gorgeous view of the city at night. What luck to have reconnected with him and be invited into his life briefly.
We went out and Saleh tried desperately to teach me how to dance like an African. I can’t. Enough said.
The next morning I planned to meet Saleh and a friend we had made the previous night. On the way out of the hostel I started chatting with a German guy and he came along too. We all packed into Saleh’s car and headed on a whirlwind tour of the island. We wadded through the flooded Jozani forest barefoot searching for the red monkey found nowhere else (four photos back). There was a stroll on a raised boardwalk through an inland mangrove forest fed by an underground seawater spring. We swam in a hidden freshwater cave in the middle of the jungle. Afterwards we sat with a group of musicians as they freestyled on drums and guitar. We caught the sunset while eating takeout Zanzibar cuisine on a pristine white sand beach. It was an incredible chock-full day. I crashed at Saleh’s house in Page.
I can’t express how refreshing and lucky it was to have a connection and see the real Zanzibar. Saleh was an awesome guide, a great friend and a talented driver (as can be seen by the leftphoto of him backing the car up.) He knows everyone and how to do everything. We talked our way around the island getting the inside deals and bribing the corrupt cops. It was such a unique experience and something I would hope to relive in any country I visit. Saleh is the guy in the picture backing up the car. Thanks Saleh!
The next morning we slept in then headed back to Stonetown. I snuck into my old hostel and got some work done while the guys ran errands. I napped a lot too. Then we went and got dinner at the local version of the night market, it was much better. They dropped me at the airport and that was that.
Now I am on my flight from Dubai to Chicago. It is Emirates and it is so freaking fancy. I was given a toiletry kit, airplane socks, sleeping gear and got to watch Black Panther. There are pinpricks of light all over the ceiling to make it look like a stray night sky inside here. I was handed a menu to pick my 3 course breakfast which was eaten with chilled utensils. This is flying in style! They took my neem seeds at customs. That was a huge bummer, but I’ll live. Eamon picked me up at the airport in Chicago and we rode the train to his dorm. That night we saw the new Avengers movie. The next day we explored Chicago a bit and hung out a lot. I accidentally apologized and thanked more people in Swahili than I care to admit. Now I’m on the megabus headed home to St. Paul where I will move in with the Baer-Bensons for the summer. That’s it, gap year over. Thank you to everyone who has made this possible and impacted my year even in the slightest. It has been a dream come true.
Being back in the states has been a huge shock. All the windows have glass, no one is chatting on the street and I have seen more types of food in 24 hours than in the past three months. I’m passing through the familiar midwest and it is blowing my mind. All the land is either covered by fields, concrete or fenced in. It doesn’t seem right, yet no one notices. This is so extremely strange. I know in a couple days I will be used to all of it again, but I don’t want to be comfortable with it, it’s so unnatural.
The bus passed through Milwaukee. I recognized the streets I rode down all those months ago. That seems too far away. I have done so much since I left Minnesota on my bicycle. I have seen Europe, the Middle East and East Africa. I have traveled, worked and volunteered. I have met more fascinating people than I could’ve hoped to have known in a lifetime. I have learned everything from permaculture to African cooking to teaching techniques to how to properly pack a UPS truck. I’ve shared more new experiences with strangers than I can count. I’ve been nervous, scared, ecstatic and eager. I’ve let life take me and, man, did it take me places. I can’t go back to the routine. I can’t go back to the same. I don’t think I am the same. Now I’ve lived. So, what now?
