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.