Weekend greetings from Zanzibar

We found a really nice cafe with wireless internet connection so we are sitting on a pillows and drinking cold ginger beer and enjoying the opportunity by blogging of course. Yesterday we went to street market to test the limit of our tummies with a grilled banana and coconut bread. Later we went to a restaurant to hear some local taarab music. Today was officially our first day-off and we decided to spend it like real tourists. We booked a boat to Prison Island, which lies 30 minutes boat ride away from Stone Town. It was supposed to be a prison in 19th century, but due to cholera and black plague it was changed to quarantine island. Nowadays there is a hotel and it is a home to 118 really really sympathetic giant tortoises which have lived there almost hundred years. We even got to feed them some spinach. We also saw little antelopes, no higher than 35-45cm, called digi-digi and some birds. After watching animals we went to the coral reef to snorkel and for the first time in my life I put the flippers and the mask on and went to the ocean. Emilia had had one experience before, so we were both amateurs. Corals were fantastic, it felt that we were part of some Natural Geography document. Fish were really colorful and we saw also lots of spiky sea urchins. No barracudas, no sharks as our guide promised to us. Our Saturday here continues so, that we are trying to find some decent place to eat and because our very high work ethics :D, maybe some report writing too. Tomorrow we are also planning to do some work by shopping. It IS important to get to know already existing products if were trying to do some marketing here. Don't you think?

Oh, and Happy Halloween to everyone!

Virve and Emilia

Visiting villages

Hello,

It has been really hot and humid in Zanzibar. Even the locals say that it is too hot so it is not just we. Today we drank first time coconut juice in a market place and it was really good:) Yesterday and today we visited four different villages with Tamrini and other guys from DCCFF. The idea is to learn about the livelihoods and take some pictures of the products. We can use the pictures to make some brochures etc. In the villages we saw how women were doing some handcrafts like baskets and clay pots. Some of them are going to get more training to do bigger and more decorated things especially for tourists. We saw also some fields were people were growing vegetables(egg plants, onions, water melons etc) and woodlods were they grow akasia trees for building materials. Some of them are also keeping bees and having chickens. We have used to get the attention of the children when they see us especially in the villages. Once we even got hugs.



Emilia and Virve

Previously on Emilia's and Virve's trip...

Since the last update we have seen monkeys and peacocks in Dar es Salaam's urban jungle, took a three hour ferry ride to Zanzibar and saw some dolphins from the deck. We also got sunburnt during that ferry ride, despite of the +40 sun lotion and the fact that we were sitting in the shadow. Lesson? Don't ever underestimate the power of the sun near the equator. We have also witnessed a few tropical rainshowers here, but we have manage to stay quite dry.
Today we saw Tamrini, the DCCFF project coordinator and all the other staff there. We made some plans for the next three weeks and tomorrow we start visiting villages, Bambi and Tunduni first.We are really looking forward to get to know the villages and start to cooperate with them. We have also started to prepare our presentation about baseline survey, which Noora and Eve made last time here. Our presentation should be on 6th of November.
Stone Town is a place where people with no sense of directions can easily get lost. Yes, that's us. Hopefully we manage to move around more easily after spending little more time here. We try to load some pictures here, but because the net connections are what they are, it may not happen...

In Dar es Salaam 26.10.2009

Hello everybody,

We are finally in Dar es Salaam after very exhausting flights. We even got our backbags:) The weather is here very hot and humid but we hope we will get used to it. Today we visited the national museum and we saw the scull of Australopithecus. We recocgnised our ancestor. We have also bought the tickets to Zanzibar for tomorrow. People have been very nice for us (wazungu) and we have already used our kiswahili skills:)But now we go to eat something! We will get back to you later! Kwa herini tutaonana!

Emilia and Virve

Emilia and Virve heading to Tanzania today

Hello readers,
Only few hours and I'll take a bus to airport. There I shall meet Emilia and due to this marvelous time-switch we have great opportunity to spend there one extra hour. Jei! Neither one of us has been in Africa before, so we are quite anxious to see how it is over there. Our plane leaves at 6.30 am, from Helsinki-Vantaa we are flying first to Amsterdam then Nairobi and from there to Dar Es Salaam where we have planned to stay couple of nights. Then we will take boat to Zanzibar where we can really start to work with the project.

Ok, do I have everything under control? Let's see...
Backpack? Packed. Passport? checked (at least three times).Camera? Checked. Big bag of medicine? Packed. Salmiakki? Yes, it's packed too:)Me? Well, I think I'm ready to go!

Virve