Coconuts and Palm Trees Baby

I am back in scenic Kampala after a little impromptu holiday in Zanzibar. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I must have prayed to the right false idol or something because my stars aligned and I got the amazing opportunity to tag along with one of my roommates and her mom on their beach vacation. The whole thing was pretty whirlwind actually, within a day I went from petty jealousy to self loathing guilt for falling into such a crazy princess vacation. No crazy tales of misfortune and mistaken identity really (although the passport control lady called me a terrorist and threatened to put me back on the plane I came from), it was pretty much an effortless and disaster free vacation. A welcome change, I suppose.

I flew out from Entebbe in Uganda on Thursday for my first intra-Africa flight. I’m not sure if I’m glad or kind of bummed but it was pretty normal. I can’t say I wasn’t halfway expecting chickens in the aisle, I certainly fully expected it to leave two hours late. But, it was pretty much just like any other flight. One wrinkle though, I guess the intracontinent flights leave as soon as everyone has checked in, schedules be damned. My flight was normal, but I guess my friend’s flight from Rwanda to Nairobi left 45 minutes early. Which I guess is kinda cool, but still. The way back to Uganda though was on a rinky dink little airline and it was more what I was expecting. The plane had probably 20 seats, propellers and once we were airborne, a healthy dose of thick, white mystery gas pouring in around my knees. I figured it was probably ok, which in retrospect was probably a bit too nonchalant for Africa. The guy next to me decided that its better safe than sorry, so he investigated. There were no flight attendants, because it was a bathtub with wings (and by the way no safety information card, much less monologue about what to do in case of emergency). My guy gets up and hunches his way up to the cockpit and polite as you like knocks on the pilot’s door. The copilot came out and took a look (we are rapidly gaining altitude at this point mind you), and I guess it was fine because he gave us the thumbs up and went back behind the wheel.

Anyway, we flew into Zanzibar, which is an island off the coast of Tanzania. It’s basically equal measures beach paradise and cultural/ historical wonderland. The beach part is pretty self explanatory, white sand, palm trees, pina coladas, bathwater-warm Indian Ocean. It was certainly a welcome retreat from landlocked Uganda and the questionable beaches of buggy unswimable Lake Victoria. Just like the guidebooks said though, the history and culture was the real attraction. Zanzibar was the main, if not only, trading port in East and central Africa for like 500 years or something. All the slaves, ivory and spices passed through the Zanzibar markets, so there was a ton to see even for someone as disinterested in history as me. Unfortunately, since some Kenyan rascal absconded with my camera, I don’t have any pictures of my own.

We spent the first few days in stonetown, which is the original city from since forever. It’s very Indiana Jones, with narrow, narrow winding streets and mysterious goods being sold around every corner. We stayed at this amazing little hotel that was managed by a “European top chef.” It was like a Sultan palace a different design in every room and super Zanzibari-style (google it if you’re interested in all that architecture) high beds and doors and hookahs. In preparation for dinner, we placed our orders with the manager/chef in midafternoon so that he would have time to go down to the fish market and buy our little friends. Of course my roomie ordered the lobster stuffed with guazamole, because who wouldn’t on their Mom’s tab. I got the most hostile looking prawns this side of that South African alien movie that came out over the summer. No joke they were the size of bananas, and still had everything but their hats and shoes.


We checked out the site of the former slave market, which was cool although not a lot to see. It’s the site of a big church now, so most of the artifacts were gone. We checked out a spice farm which was pretty cool. We sampled a bunch of everyday spices fresh off the branch and played name that spice with our tourguide. Cinnamon, cloves, chocolate, curry, pepper, etc. All in all pretty cool, though not too exciting to write about.

We then spent like 4 four nights on the beach at a resort, which was beautiful and relaxing. We did the standard Hawaii routine of swimming in the ocean, reading on the beach and getting our day-fade on with colorful fruity grownup’s sodas. Again, there aren’t really any misadventures. We did however rent a little mini-catamarand. After a 20 minute lesson from Cap’n Max, I was ready to conquer the high seas. It was a nice reminder for how well things function in the Western world. It was absolutely the most relaxing and easygoing vacation from Africa I could ask for. It was perfect and I would tell anyone if they ever get the chance to see Zanzibar to drop everything and do it (like I did with work, unfortunately for everyone but me). Unlike Europe I wasn’t a tragically uncultured villager in the big city and was able to utilize my bargaining and demolishing food with my bare hands skills I’ve spent so long honing while here.


As great as the trip was, it is so nice to be home. I finally managed to get reenergized for work, and we’re actually seeing some amazing results from all the hard work over the last 8 months. In a couple days I think I’m going to write a totally unsolicited little update about some of the cool projects we have going on right now. Today I saw empirical evidence for the first time that our program is actually making a difference in the behavior and lives of our clients.

So basically life is awesome.