The Suited Up Sardine with the Cello Had Crabs

After a short hiatus of being lazy, I have decided to continue with more tips and guides on living on the island of Pemba. Honestly, I have almost fallen into a deep deep trap of not writing and almost given up on this blog, but do not fret, for this blog will continue to live on. And without further ado, let's read on:

After the field trip to Vumawimbi Beach with some of the Form IV students and several of the teachers, I was enlightened with the fact that people on this island actually do eat invertebrates, namely the Pinnidae Mussel or commonly known as the Pen Shell, Panga in Kiswahili. Excited with this fact, I immediately sought out a prospective student to assist me in the excavation of these mussels in the next few days. The student did not disappoint me after all. A few days later, during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, I embarked on a journey with my student, along with my trusty mask and snorkel. It turned out he took me to what could be one of the best kept secrets of Pemba, Kojani Island. It is a mystical place where relatively few outsiders have stepped on its soil. These islanders usually keep to themselves, they even consider the residence of the main island of Pemba to be outsiders. With that in mind, I did not dare to venture onto the island without any invitation from a local (heeding the warning of my student). Between Kojani and Pemba is a relatively flat lagoon that host a wide variety of habitats, namely Eel Grass and Mangroves. I feel like I can almost walk from Pemba to Kojani if the tide was low enough, but I will save that for another day. Upon arriving, we were greeted with the low tide, so naturally we quickly waded through the Eel Grass bed before the returning high tide. Along the way to the lagoon, my trusty student managed to recruit more helps to assist us in our collection process. The process of collection was quite simple because these mussels usually live in small colonies under the sand. So all we had to do was look for small organic openings in the sand and start digging them up. We spent about 30-45 minutes in the water before the high tide returned, and we managed to collect a gazillion mussels. That day, I had a mussel feast with my neighbor. I made two separate dishes: baked mussels with sea salt and pepper & French styled Moules. My neighbors' jaws dropped so hard that they left several holes in their courtyard when they tasted these dishes because it was so strange for them yet according to their words, it was the most delicious dish they have eaten (I can contribute this to the fact that they do not have that many variety of food here, or rather they do not cook much beside ugali/rice and some meat/fish/octopus sauce). But hearing that made me felt more confident about my cooking.

Fast forward to about 2 weeks, I was greeted with another school holiday. This time it was about 2 weeks long so I decided to embark on a journey to the main island of Zanzibar, Unguja. During this visit, I met up with 3 of my regional Peace Corps neighbors. One major break through for me was finding both fish sauce and instant noodle (if you have chatted with me recently, you would know that I've been craving these two items for a while now). On a related note, I've finally found sesame oil on Pemba, I now have all the ingredients I would ever need to cook up all my favorite dishes. Continue on with my adventure on Unguja . . .   I also bought an awesome Raleigh mountain bike for 70,000 TSH or about 43 USD, not a bad price at all especially with brand new tires and wheels too. While I was visiting Unguja, I happened upon Zanzibar Fashion Week. One of my compatriots and I were deciding on whether we should join in on the festivity or not. We were on the verge of not going, but when we met up with our other compatriot, her friend invited us to the fashion show and the after party, all for FREEEEE. (I knew I had to go, I would most definitely kick myself in the butt if I look back 30 years from now on my private island and realized that I did not go to a free event full of models). That night was such a crazy safi night, with the grand opening of a roof top bar on top of an already fancy bar (If you ever get a chance to visit Unguja, visit the 6th Degree Bar, it is a beach front bar with very chill bartenders who would teach you a lot of Swahili, o and did I mention free fast internet?), an awesome fashion show showcasing several local designers (I really liked the Upendo collection, you should look it up), and best of all mingling with the designers themselves and the models. The best part of the night was the unlimited free beer (I was really pacing myself so I would not make a fool out of myself in front of the models).  I managed to somehow landed in the right place at the right time, because I was able to have a dance party with some of the best looking people in this world.  But alas, all parties must come to an end, and so my mini vacation in Unguja also came to an end, but boy was I glad to go back home after a week of jelllyfishing around from place to place.

After a week long absence from my village, it was really nice to be back in my own house again, under my own roof, in the comfort of my bed. But as soon as I was at home, I was bitten by the Car bug, well the bicycle bug now. I had to modify the bike somehow, to my liking. So the very next day, I spent an entire day buying parts (fenders, basket and a rear rack) in Chake Chake, and installing them with the help of a local fundi (technician). While in Chake Chake, I managed to purchase an enormous Cellos, a Tanzanian brand of plastic wares (especially buckets). I bought the enormous Cellos with the purpose of turning it into a water collector. The best part about buying this enormous barrel was lugging it back from Chake Chake to my village. Imagine being in the back of a pick-up truck with 20 other people and a giant plastic barrel in the middle of it. We were cramped like sardines for at least half an hour. But I am glad I did that because lately the village have not been receiving water from our pipes, so everyone has been resorting to using their own reserved water. I sure hope the pipes get fixed soon because I don't want to see anymore girls carrying heavy buckets of water on their heads.

Fast forward a few more days, I was invited to my neighbor house to eat dinner, and alas I was greeted with crabs. I was overjoyed when I saw them but I played it off and acted nonchalant. They thought that I did not know how to open up the crabs and eat them, boy were they wrong. It turned out that the technique that they use to pry open the crabs were not the greatest, using a knife to cut open the crab . . . Seeing how cumbersome this knife technique was, I showed them a technique that have long been passed down to me by my own father who got it from his father who got it from his father and so on . . . Now I can proudly say that I did make a different in Africa, well at least when it come to teaching the local how to open up a crab for consumption, this could potentially put a dent in the local crab population.

This weekend, the school had a Form IV graduation ceremony. The students here have their graduation ceremony right before their equivalence of the High School Exit Exam. So a student can technically walk for the ceremony, but not really graduate from high school if he or she was to fail the NECTA (National Examinations Council of Tanzania) Exam. This is an interesting system, but I guess this way everyone can celebrate the festivities right before arduous 2 weeks long examination period. I hope that most if not all the student will pass their exams (this is my highly optimistic self talking right now).

As with every ceremony, we have food, a lot of food. 

The students are helping out with peeling a lot of tomatoes for famous Tanzania mchuzi (sauce).

What is a Tanzanian ceremony without a huge pot of Mchica na Nyama (Vegetable and Meat)? 

Yup, all of that oil is for making Pilau (Rice Pilaf),

I guess it is our "Fifthy" Graduation.

The awesome student who assisted me in gathering a sack full of mussels. 

Some of the boys wanted me to take their pictures.

My first time suiting up in Africa, boy was it hot. 

So happy . . . 

I really need to teach them how to smile in pictures.

I was the token Mzungu so I was constantly pulled left and right for pictures.

So many different cameras to look at

I wish them all the best luck 

One of the first students to show me around the village 

All the girls wanted to take a picture with me 

"I don't usually cook, but when I do, I'll use the biggest tool they have." - The Most Interesting Cook in Pemba 

Right after the ceremony, I was invited to an event of some sort on Sunday. I did not know what it was, but I told myself why not since I would probably be lounging around my house doing nothing anyway. Well the event turned out to be some sort of dance party. There were music, drumming, and even singing. In the village square, there were roped off area designated for dancing. I was confused but I partook in the festivity and had a blast with everyone. All in all it was blast.

In other news, I have successfully introduced K-Pop to my neighbors. That's right, I showed them music videos of Wonder Girls and Girls' Generation. We even had our private dance party inside their court yard. I hope this will make a lasting impact on the music culture here, instead of focusing on American Crap Top 40's.


Well until next time,
The Mussel Snorkeler

How to travel around Pemba

Finally, today is the day that I will actually talk about a topic that is pertaining to the title this blog, The HITCHHIKER's guide to Pemba. Yes I am talking about traveling around on the tropical island that is my home, Pemba. If you would have to ask me what is the easiest and best way to travel from the middle of Pemba such as say a village near Chake Chake to the northern part of the island to visit various tourist sites, I would give you a simple answer, “Join the Peace Corps”.

Well, it is not that easy. But since I am already a Peace Corps volunteer, this method has proved to be quiet effective for me. I did not need to pay to ride a dala dala. I did not need to ride in a dala dala packed like sardines. I did not have to ride in a dala dala that stops every 2 minutes to pick up and drop off passengers. Here was what I did:

1. I woke up early enough so that I can be on time to teach at my school, which is a long 3 minutes walk from my house

2. I taught my first and second period of Form 1 Chemistry.

3. After I finished teaching, I went outside and chatted with the students and my fellow teachers.

4. As the dala dala arrived, get in the front seat of the dala dala next to the driver.

5. Enjoy the ride to North Pemba.

Ok, I will stop messing around now. All in all, today was a great day for me.  I was able to go on yet another field trip with my school.  We went to the amazing Ngezi Forest in the northern tip of Pemba.  It was quite a refreshing trip because this whole week was really hard for me, with my crazy irregular school schedule.  To be honest it was starting to get on my nerve, so this field trip was a good break from all of that.

Inside a fare pote type of structure just outside the forest of Ngezi as we were waiting for our guide

 Inside the Ngezi forest, there were a wide variety of flora and fauna, but I was not able to see any that were of interest to me.  Well I lied, I did see a specimen of Teak (Tectona grandis) and a specimen of Mahogany (Calophyllum inophyllum).  Beside those two particular plants, I did not see any other species of flora or fauna that caught my eyes.  One thing that really bugged me during my visit to Ngezi was the fact that some of the students and and teachers were uprooting seedlings.  I did not know how to address this during the walk, but I plan to address this issue at a later time in the future.

After visiting the forest, we went on a relatively long bus ride through the forest.  As I was sitting in the very front of the bus, the whole experience felt like an Indiana Jones movie, as we were trekking through the small dirt road in the jungle, bouncing up and down as the tires travel across every bumps and pot holes.  Alas, we finally made it to the lighthouse, Ras Kigomasha, and what an amazing site it was.  This lighthouse was built in 1905 by the Chance Brothers.  I am to believe that this lighthouse is still active, due to its current condition, but then again I am not sure

For a minimal fee of 500 TSH or $0.31 USD per person, we were able to climb the tower to get a view from the top of the lighthouse.

The endless spiral staircase

 It was very scary to climb the lighthouse, but I fought back my fear and ascend the tower.  Luckily I did, because the view was amazing.  It was like switching from a CRT television set to an Ultra HD 4000K television.  My eyes was blown out from the clarity of the scenery.

The view from one of the small windows along the spiral staircase

 And here we are at the top at last.  If any of you ever get a chance to climb a lighthouse, do it, it is worth every aching muscles in your legs.

Ultra HD 4000k eyegasm

The clear fringing reef

Who need a fancy DSLR when the scenery is just that awesome

And of course the required selfie

 After taking this selfie, I realized that I have done this exact pose in a wide variety of places.  It got me thinking of making an entire album dedicated to this pose.  I guess this can be hashtagged as #Lonetraveller.  But that will be for another time, another day.

Some of the Form IV students in my school

He was really adamant about having a picture all by himself

My attempt at being artistic.  I shall call this "The Grated Life"

Last #LoneTraveller picture before my descend

 After descending the long spiral staircase, I was greeted with a friendly fellow.  It was as if he was mooing me to come and pet him.  Naturally I complied.

The flag of Zanzibar waving to greet all visitors of Ras Kigomasha

After our short stint at Ras Kigomasha, we jumped on the rickety bus to venture toward another location, Vumawimbi  Beach.  This is one of the most pristine beach that I have been to, and that is saying a lot.  It was a shame that I did not pack my snorkeling gear, but from the view on top of Ras Kigomasha, it looked pretty interesting.  During our stay there, I was introduced to a delicacy by a student, Pinnidae mussel.  All you had to do was dig up the green pen shell mussel from the sandy beach, pry it open and wash away the sand, and just gobble down the sweet nectary flesh of the adductor mussel.  I was able to deduce the genus of this sweet delicacy to be either Atrina or Pinna.
Well here are some pictures that I managed to snap before the torrential rain

Of course I cannot go to a pristine beach without the #LoneTraveller pose

After a fun field trip, I was able to visit a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer on Pemba, as she lives really close to Vumawimbi and Ngezi.  It was really good to see her because I did not see her or any other volunteers for over 1 month.  It was nice to vent and catch up with her.  All in all it was a great end to a fun day of adventures.

Until next time

The Lone Traveller

Tắm Mưa - Dancing in the Rain

I guess this would be the most recent picture of me that most of you would have seen in a really long time.  Just like my physical appearances have change very little, beside some major details, my personal character has seen some minor adjustments.  

Last night after having the chance to talk to a really great friend (who was also an equally awesome roommate), I realized that I have finally learn one of the greatest lessons to be in my lifetime, letting go.  I have always been an emotional creature, albeit not a very vocal one.  In the past, I always thought my biggest strength was my perseverance, to keep on going toward a dream even under the watchful eyes of impossibility.  This added with the fuel that is my emotion, has proved to be my biggest downfall over and over again both in term of relationships and career choices.  For the longest time I would always dwell on the past, dwell on the what if's, dwell on what was there, dwell on what wasn't even there to begin with.  By talking with my close friend, he enabled me to see the folly that was my mentality in regard to dwelling.  In response to one of his statements, I said, "I finally figured out the secret to being happy with the friend zone, just accept and embrace it."  Ever since then I have not look back and just keep on having a wide smile on my face.  To some of you out there that are having trouble with relationships, I say "Move one, do not dwell on what was there before, don't even dwell on what is here now, for one day you will dwell on what was here now.  In short delete dwell/dwelling from your dictionary."  Thank you Mr. Cool Guy for helping me with this.

Well today, you all are in a for a treat, you get to see a preview of what is my house, pre-renovation.  But first I will document my lazy Sunday, a day with much as much unproductivity as there are sporadic rainfalls.

The view that I was greeted with for the whole day as I was leaving in search of food.

As I was peacefully sleeping on Magodoro ya SUPER BANCO foam mattress, under my toasty 30 degree Fahrenheit rated sleeping bag to keep away from your friendly neighborhood female Anopheles mosquitoes, I was awoke not from the sound of my alarm blaring on of my favorite Dan Nguyen song (Nho Me).  No, I was awoken by the constantly clanging noise of pellets of rain striking my questionably nailed tin roof.  It has become an orchestra, a symphony of perfect meshed sounds of metallic splatters.  As I laid there in my bed, realizing "great another weekend potential going to be wasted due to the rain."  Seconds went by, then minutes flew passed me, and off to lala (coincidentally lala is the verb for sleeping in Kiswahili) land.  For what my internal clock perceived to about 30 minutes, I was sleeping peacefully under the sound of the Metallicaqua orchestra.  My alarm blared off in the fashion of an old transatlantic cruiser.  I jolted up quickly hoping that the rain has already settled down in the red soiled ground.  But alas, I was quickly disappointed with contrast of my expectation and reality.  Trying to wait out the rain, so that I can embark on my adventure to the northern land of Konde, I decided it was best for me to catch up with some news about the United States, the world, technology, cars, and science.  So on to Facebook I went.  Hours passed by and still the rain was be quite persistent, raining for a couple of seconds, then stop for roughly 10 or so minutes ten raining again.  This went on for who know how long, and thus my complaining self emerged.  This time I'm glad he emerged because as he was complaining to one of my coolest friend who is also a snazzy professor at a snazzy community college, a memory from the past emerged.  The memory of tắm mưa, running around in the maze of alleyways that was my neighborhood in Vietnam during the rain, doing slip-n-slides, and just having fun.  Naturally I acted on this memory and went out to my court yard and stripped down and danced to my heart content, well until my fingers were numbed as the water was drawing little by little the heat away from my body.  Overall, today I was really happy to be able to experience one of those lost memories from my childhood again.  Thank you Ms. Nguyen.

Collecting rain water in my court yard.

Well peace outside

- Son

Kwanza

Today is the first day of the rest of my life, similarly everyday for the rest of my life will have the same description.  But what makes today a bit more special than other days?

Well today marks the 99th day that I've been in Tanzania.  Today also marks the 4th month that I have been in Tanzania.  I have been an official Peace Corps Volunteer for 23 days.  I have been at my site on Pemba for 21 days.  Thus today, I decided that I will start a blog.  Originally I wanted to do a VBlog during my service in Tanzania.  Just like many of the roads in country, my VBlog idea suddenly was bombarded with thousands of speed bumps (or sleeping policemen if you're British), well more like 2 speed bumps.  The first, uploading watchable videos (more than 144p) posed to be a problem due to A) the limited bandwidth that I have and B) the 2G/EDGE Internet speed that my allegedly 3G/UMTS is able to attain.  The second problem was after the first 3 or 4 days of doing my VBlog, I consistently forgot to do my daily video every night.  So my plan for a VBlog or even a blog was scrapped.  Fast forward to now, today will be the first day of the rest of my volunteering service.

Let's recap all the events that I remembered since I arrived in country.

First, this was my 3rd day in country.  This would be our first visit the city of Dar es Salaam. *notice the architecture*

Next up, you can see the types of food that I was eating for approximately 9 weeks.  Every night, without fail, I would be eating at least one dish of carbs (rice, beans, or the delicious ugali), one dish of vegetable, some proteins (either fish or goat), some sauce (most of the time it was just some variations of the same tomato sauce), and some fruits).  Surprisingly the food tasted a lot like Vietnamese food, so I fitted right in.  It felt like I never even left home, they even have a variation of Canh Chua.

Here we can see some examples of the types of clothes that are worn in Tanzania, especially in the Muslim community.  That was me in a kangzu and a kofia.  My dada (sister) is wearing a traditional kanga setup.

This here was Simba (I named him), the cat that kept me sane for a while during PST (Pre-Service Training).

Then one day, my kaka (brother) and his friend invited me to come along to Tanga to drop off my youngest dada to a boarding school.  On a side note this boarding school is supposedly one of the best school in Tanzania, and was very cheap to attend comparing to a normal community school.

While in Tanga, I made my kaka and his friend trek with me to the bahari (beach), just because I heard that Tanga is right next to the Indian Ocean.  Thus I touched the Indian Ocean for the first of many time.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, most of the trainees went to the mountainous region of Tanga, Lushoto.  Lushoto was quite different than how most people would imagine Africa.  First it was mountainous and not plainly flat like the savanna of NatGeo fame.  Secondly it was chilly, so chilly that I had to wear a light fleece jacket.

After the trip to Lushoto, the whole training class continue to be bustling with training of course and the the occasional hangouts at either the Atlantic or the Mountain View bars (best mishikaki place ever).  Then alas came the day of site announcement, and as you can already see from the title of this blog, I was assigned to be on Pemba.  I was really excited about the revelation, because I always had a hunch that I was going to be placed on Pemba (even to the point of packing a good amount of my snorkeling/diving gears). Here are some pictures of my first visit to my site.

This was at the ferry landing in Dar es Salaam, about 6:30 AM.

These next few were taken en route to Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar.

Land Ahoy

During my visit, I managed to convince some of my future students to take me on an excursion to a local beach.  I had no idea what to expect of the beach, but it surprised me in more ways than I can imagine.  The beach is the site of a future resort or so I was told by the students.  While I was there I met the Minister of Pemba?, but I wasn't sure.  Apparently he is the one heading this project.

A classic baobab tree, after all TIA (this is Africa), I have to take a picture of one of these at some point, might as well be early.

Finally training is over and we all passed our language, practical and medical exams, and off we go to our site.  But before that I was able to take a glimpse of America in the form Walmart (well GAME, but it is just a recent acquisition of Walmart).

Being at site is a weird experience.  I do not know how to describe it, but most of the time, I really enjoy being in my community.  I sure hope that my neighbors and villagers feel the same way about an Mchina . . .

A lot of the time, my school can be really random.  For example, one day I was just sitting in my desk, minding my own business, preparing lesson plans, then my counterpart came up to me and asked me if I wanted to take the students on a field trip, and being the Yes man that I am, I said uhh of course.  So here I am taking the students on a field trip to the Old Fort converted into the Pemba Historical Museum.  Then we went on a really long and sketchy dala dala ride to some ruins, Ras Mkumbuu ruins.  I guess even on days that I work, I still get to go the beach.

That weekend, I decided to go up to Konde to visit Swahili Divers.  Swahili Divers is a chill location, it felt like a little paradise with the lush tropical forest, and the white sandy coastline.  It was just what I needed after being in country for almost 4 months.

And here we are now, done with my report of what happened to me during the last couple of months, stuck here in my room, not knowing what to do next.  I guess tonight will be a movie night again.

Back to topic, during my time at site, I have had the privilege of cooking a lot of interesting food that I would have never tried to make back in the States.  Some examples are Lengua tacos, Pho, and baked fish.  I guess now that I will have a lot of time, I will try to hone my cooking skill and be the next Iron Chef Tanzania :).

Until next time

Sonnypop out