A Reunion with my Bicycle

I have missed the weekly update from last week, for the simple reason that I was too lazy to write. In concurrent to my laziness, I felt like I didn't have enough material to write what I thought would be a worthy update. So here is my 2 weeks worth of updates on what I have been doing at my site and on the island of Pemba.

Last week

First of all, my students have won yet another singing competition last weekend. This time it was at Miti Ulaya (the European Trees???) Primary school in Wete. So now, this is the part that everyone has been waiting for, traveling tips on traveling around Pemba. I mean after all you are reading a blog with the name The Hitchhiker's Guide to Pemba. What sort of hitchhiker's guide would this be if there isn't going to be any traveling tips.

To get to Wete from any where on the island is actually very straight forward. From what I have observed, in every major town on Pemba, there is at least one dala dala (a pick-up truck that the local have converted into a mass public transportation, or an overly cramped Toyota Hi Ace van.) Here is one tip, always and always opt to sit in the front cab, no matter the tempting invitations by the locals in the back of the cab to chat with you or anything. More than likely, when you are sitting in the back of the cab in a dala dala, you will experience something many foreigners have called the Tanzanian Squeeze. You will experience something similar to the canning process of the cannery industry. You will most likely be sat on, poked by random appendages, or simply be squeezed into a new waist size that you have not have since you were a wee lad/lass. In the front cab, there is a legal limit of only 3 person including the driver, so it is pretty spacious comparatively to the back. So here is the take-away from all of that, to get to Wete, simply try to sit in the front cab of any dala dala that has the sign in the front saying Wete - ??? or ??? - Wete.

Back to singing competition. According to what I have heard from the other teachers and students, the next competition will be in Michiweni, Pemba. Afterward, if my students are to win the next competition, they will be going to Mkoani, Pemba, then finally to Unguja (the main island of Zanzibar) for an all Zanzibari competition. The singing competition comprises of how well the students can perform the song, how well they have their formations (similar to marching band), and how meaningful and on-topic the topics they are singing about. Hopefully my students will get at least to the all Zanzibari competition, for it would definitely boost their confidence level tremendously.

Now onto some matters that I have observed since being on the island.

There is actually a cottage industry of food delivery services. Now we all know that the States have pizza delivery, Chinese/Thai food delivery, sandwiches delivery. In Asia, there are all sort of delivery services, from McDonald's, KFC, noodles delivery in Việt Nam (Mì gỏ). Well in my village on Pemba, there is a fresh corn delivery service. I was just eating dinner with my lovely neighbors, and all of the sudden, I heard a familiar “Hodi hodi hodi.” In came a kid that I recognized from around my village. At first I did not pay much notice to the backpack that he was wearing, until he took it off to unload his goods. There were at least 10 cobs of corn in the small backpack, don't ask me how they all fit in there. I immediately asked my neighbor what the kid was doing with all those cobs of corn. My neighbor then just casually say that she had ordered the corn a few minutes ago. So yea, I can boast that my village has a pretty speedy (even by American standard) door to door corn delivery service. I think I have also heard of another delivery service involving fresh milk, which I need to investigate into more.

Tanzanians, from my observation these past few months, are a generally amiable people. I have not seen any Tanzanian staying mad for more than 15 minutes. There isn't really a concept of holding grudges. If there are grudges, then the Tanzanians must be quite gifted in the art of acting. An example of I can think of right off the bat is that of my neighbor's kids. One day the older sister was chastising and disciplining her younger siblings quite harsh. But then no more than 15 minutes later, the whole group of siblings were back to cracking jokes, laughing and dancing with each other like nothing has happened. I remembered when I used to get chastised by my parents, I would stay mad and not talk to my parents for at least a day. Now I am not sure if this is due to their amiable nature or being so desensitized to corporal punishment that they do not remember any sort of chastising or lessons. I have no idea what the point of me telling that story, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with my amazement by the stark difference between Tanzanians and Americans

Well well well, now that you have read almost 900 words of this update, I have a special present for you. I have concocted a recipe to make a seafood based ramen with ingredients that one can find on the Green Island. Here is the link to the Ramen Recipe.

Finally, we get to this week

The highlight of this week was a visit by some PCVs from the mainland. Usually PCVs would come to Pemba for one reason and one reason only, to go SCUBA diving. From what I have heard, Pemba is probably one of the cheapest place that a PCV can get certified for SCUBA diving with NAUI. Seeing as how I have not seen many other PCVs for a really long 2 months, I decided that I would meet up with them for the weekend at Swahili Divers in Makangale, at the northern tip of the island. 2 of the visitors came to Pemba on Friday, so immediately after lecturing my students, I bust a move and biked my way to Konde, at 5:30 PM. Now you see, riding a bicycle in dusk was not one of my brightest idea. O yea, the reason why I attempted to ride my bicycle to Konde was because dala dala are extremely rare on Pemba after 4:30 PM. Knowing that it would be hard to catch a dala dala, I decided to attempt to ride a 26 miles ride to Konde. Luckily for me, I was able to hail a dala dala heading for Wete. Since Wete is not on the way to Konde, I had to jump off the dala dala at a junction called Madanjani (the cost was 500 TSH), and continue on my bicycle. After riding my bicycle for a while, I was able to hail a dala dala heading from Shengejuu Secondary to Konde (1000 TSH). Once in Konde, I was able to meet up with the 2 visiting volunteers and another PCV residing on the island. That night, we enjoyed a typical Kondite/Kondean meal, comprising of urojo (Zanzibar soup mix), mishikaki (meat skewer), and a glass of freshly pressed sugarcane juice. The next morning, Saturday, we departed for Swahili Divers. Normally I would have ridden my bicycle through the Ngezi Forest for a nice weekend ride, but seeing as how we had 2 visitors that did not have access to their own bicycles, we opted to take the dala dala to Makangale (1500 TSH). The ride was a long and bumpy ride through the nice forest. Another traveling tip, when you are traveling from Konde to Makangale, opt to take a bigger dala dala, do not by any way take the small kei car pick-up dala dala. The small kei car truck was not meant to travel through rough terrain being heavily loaded with people and other junks with it.

All in all, this weekend was a nice weekend at Swahili Divers. I was able to hang out with some PCVs after a long and stressful week.

A very small note, if you do not want to walk or ride your way back to Chake Chake, Wete, or Mkoani or any place from Konde. Be prepare to leave Swahili Divers before 3 PM if you are traveling by bicycle. The dala dala leaving Konde usually stop running around 3:30 – 4:00ish PM.

So until next time.  Next week, I'll be traveling to Michiweni District.

Master of the Choir and Games

So much for keeping up with my blog.  It has been a decade and forever since I have written or given a thought about this blog.  Well okay, more like a while and a half.  I guess I have been keeping myself pretty occupied these past few months, juggling between teaching, friends, amongst other random things.  Well let's start with the most recent event that I attended.

Today, Duma, my cat, met his mother for the first time in 5 months.  He was also able to meet his younger siblings.  I found out that cats are very territorial, Duma was hissing intensely at his mother and siblings.  His siblings are the cutest thing ever, they were so tiny that they looked more rodent-like than feline.  From my estimate, they could be no more than 2 or 3 weeks.  If only I had more space-time, I would have adopted another kitten (I really need to invent a machine that can bend the very fabric of space-time, so I can have more time and space.)  

This weekend has be quite a trip literally, with the slight renovation of my house and a choir competition.  On Saturday, I took a group of girls from my school to visit another school in the area to compete in a singing competition.  I did not expect much before arriving to this competition.  In my mind this was just going to be a small get together between my school and the other school, but boy was I wrong.  This was a full blown competition of the arts, with many participating school.  There were plays being enacted (which my school did not participate, I found this to be quite interesting.), poems recited, and songs sung.  Each competition was divided into 2 groups, the Primary school and the Secondary school.  Even with the drizzling rain that have been plaguing our island, there were still plenty of folks that came out to participate in the festivity.  All in all, I would have to say that I was quite impressed with the level of skills that these students exhibited.  I do not think that I have as much as 1/1,000,000th of the skills that they possess.  

Here is a 10 minutes clip of the performance that my girls performed splendidly

(I am actually the teacher that is in charge of the choir and games).  My girls won the competition this time around, and we were invited to another competition in June.  In related news, my boys have also won their football (soccer) match against another school some weeks ago, but they will not be attending in the next round of the competition.  They played valiantly even when the field was muddy and slippery from the torrential rain.  Like I say, I only train winners.

Before leaving for the competition, I was starting the process of renovating my house.  I started with knocking down the rotting ceiling sections in my kitchen with the help of my neighbor and the friendly neighborhood all around handyman.  Midway through the job, I had to leave them to finish the renovating of my roof, which was leaking and falling apart due to the plaguing rain that has been tearing the island apart.  Next week I have plans to extend the cement counter in my kitchen.  My kitchen supplies and utensil has grown dramatically since I first arrived here, and the short counter that I have proved to be somewhat lacking.  With the extension in mind, I decided to go into town to go on what turned out to be a shopping spree of kitchen supplies and utensil . . .  All in all, this weekend has proved to be surprisingly interesting, and it got even more awesome when my neighbor surprised me with some prawn soup for dinner.  I think I have the best neighbor ever.

O yea, recently I have found out that one of the villagers is trying to breed peafowls (bata mzinga in Kiswahili) in my village.  Hopefully by next Thanksgiving, there will be enough of them that he is willing to let one go (they do look like turkey).  I also would not mind trying some peafowl egg.

I have also been reading a lot.  For all of you who know me, I do not read a lot of fictional book for recreational purposes.  Since I have received a Nook in a care package, I have been reading everyday, and wow I just realized I have missed out on so many interesting books since I stopped reading for fun.  On a related note, A Feast for Crows is such a tedious book even though it is the shortest of all the A Song of Ice and Fire book.  If you have any recommendations for great books to read, please let me know.

And all of the sudden, I have forgotten all that I have done these past few months.  I seriously need to keep this blog updated more often, so as not to forget anymore details.

And thank you to everyone who have sent me care packages these past few months.  I few so loved and cared for.  You all have made my service much more memorable.  Thank you mom, dad, Diana and all of GDPT Ky Vien, Joey, Dan, Khuyen and Andy.  You are all super awesome.