Study abroad in Southeast Asia

Wednesday rolled around and I was still in denial about the program having ended four days prior. Shaye, Abby and Liz had recently left for home. That still left ten students in Tanzania, three of which were on Kilimanjaro and three of which were now busy showing visiting family and friends around. Undaunted, I took Brennan and the four who were still hanging around campus on another “field trip” to see the ruins at Mbwamaji as well as the Southern Beaches.

A few weeks before this, I had traveled with Brennan, Hani, and Lauren to investigate the remains of a similar 16th century Arab settlement, the Kunduchi ruins, near the Northern Beaches. This had been my fourth trip to Kunduchi but my first visit to the ruins. I had wanted to stop by them on each of my three previous visits but it had never worked out. The first time I was alone and took to heart the advice of every guide book I had owned saying never to go there by yourself due to muggings that were known to have occurred there. Other beach areas were notorious for the same thing: the stretch along Ocean Drive downtown, as well as Coco Beach/Toure Drive on the Peninsula, and I tended to heed these warnings (ok, I had walked alone along Ocean Drive in 2010 during my visit to the ACM program but I had learned a lot since then). My second and third visits to Kunduchi benefited from our safety in numbers but each time we were in a rush to get to an offshore island, Bongoyo and Mbudya, respectively, and were then too exhausted to care upon our return from the islands. Our first Sunday back in Dar following the field program had thus been a perfect time to take a core group of “tomb raiders” to visit the Kunduchi ruins.

That afternoon, Brennan and I met Hani and Lauren on the beach near the Marine Science Center of UDSM. This beach was just a beautiful and pristine as that which fronted the adjoining Kunduchi Beach Hotel but had the added advantage that you wouldn’t be thrown off of it if you were not some high roller. We swam for a bit near where we had put in each time we had taken a motorized dhow from this location, but soon noticed that the belongings we had stowed on a sandbar were soon to be engulfed by the incoming tide. We either had to more our stuff the 100 yards to the beach proper and continue swimming or pick it up and head for the ruins- so we agreed on the latter undertaking.

The ruins were found a quarter of a mile north of the turn off for the Science Center in the middle of a deserted clearing. It looked like someone had recently built a washroom near the site, perhaps representing the very beginnings of some tourism-devoted infrastructure, but it was unclear if this was an up-and-coming effort or if it had been simply abandoned. The first ruins that were apparent to us were the “pillar tombs” dating from the 18th-19th centuries that filled the clearing. We had seen similar tombs in Kaole, south of Bagamoyo, many containing an enclosed cement structure similar to a personal mausoleum, topped with a stone pillar. Hani took some rubbings of the Arabic writing on these tombs, while I took some pictures (we later had Nidal translate the Arabic for us). Just northwest of the clearing we found some less elaborate but much more recent graves, some had apparently been used quite recently, still containing names written in Arabic that we guessed may have belonged to the descendents of the original settlers. The last thing we found was the mosque itself, reportedly dating from the late 15th or early 16th centuries, and typically representing the first structure built by settlers to the area. The thing that interested Hani, our budding archaeologist, the most about the Kunduchi ruins was the intricate carvings as well as the presence of blue and white Chinese porcelain built into the structures there. The porcelain may have indicated the relative wealth of a tomb’s owner and clearly demonstrates the expansive trade network that existed at this time.

We continued north from the ruins until we reached a small river, whereby we turned and walked back along the beach until we returned to our original meeting place. Along the way, we came across the largest jellyfish I had ever seen washed up on the beach, a good sized fish was still wrapped in its tentacles. Farther on, we found a puffer fish being pushed by the waves which had also somehow met with an untimely end. Now that the tide had mostly come in, we swam some more before hopping on a dalla dalla and heading for home.

Our latest excursion, therefore, was somewhat of a comparative study. Mbwamaji, or “dog water” was the name that Arab traders gave to their settlement that was established around the same time as Kunduchi near the site of Gezaulole, said to be one of the oldest Swahili settlements in Tanzania. I also wanted to compare the Northern Beaches which we had frequented with those found south of Dar, which I surprisingly had not yet been to during my five months in Tanzania. Carla and Zoe joined the four of us experienced tomb raiders for the trip, which involved a short ferry ride from Kivukoni Front in downtown Dar. I had seen Kivukoni dalla dallas in Ubungo but had never boarded one. It didn’t look like the six of us were going to board one on Wednesday morning, either, at the rate we were going. We had allowed three of them to pass us by which we were confident that there was no way we could cram ourselves onto but we soon came to the realization that they weren’t going to get any less crowded anytime soon, so cram we did. It amazes me that, after five months, I was still setting records for most crowded dalla dalla ride ever!

The six minute ferry ride across the bay cost the equivalent of six cents and transported the rider a world away from the craziness of Dar. Although Kigamboni, the ferry terminal on the other side of the bay was just as busy and built up as parts of Dar, the area just outside of the ferry seemed like countryside. Since it took 90 minutes or more to drive around the bay in order to get to the area in question, it felt more akin to the other locales we had been to that were this far outside of the city- Pugu Hills, for instance, or the area surrounding Bagamoyo. We expected that it might be somewhat difficult to find a Gezaulole-bound dalla dalla from the ferry but this didn’t end up being the case. Other than going the wrong way (left) at a fork in the road so that we didn’t end up at the main dalla dalla stand right away, things went fairly smoothly, and our slight miscalculation was easily remedied. As we walked into the lot, an unmarked bus stopped and asked where we were headed. Normally, I tried to avoid answering this type of question at all costs so as not to enter into some private hire relationship with a dalla dalla crew, but this time we fessed up right away. The driver assured us that he was, indeed, headed in our direction before he backed into a parking spot in order to load with passengers. I was encouraged to hear the conductor calling out “Geza,” as we waited for the bus to leave- it seemed like they really had been headed there after all.

About 30 minutes later, the guy sitting next to me in the back of the bus asked me where we were headed so I showed him the sheet of paper where I had copied instructions to get to Mbwamaji. Moments later, he had somehow enrolled a man who was sitting in the very front of the bus to get off at the correct stop with us in order to guide us into the desired village. The main landmark I had been watching for was a gravel road branching off to the left with a sign-post for “Kim’s Kampground.” We passed this road and continued for perhaps another mile before “front man” told us it was time to disembark as “back man” bid us farewell at that point. As front man led us down a path amidst traditional mud dwellings with thatched roofs, I once again had a strong feeling of déjà vu. It was like Alexander was leading us on a short cut to Pugu Hills again, except that we had 6 people in tow this time instead of just Brennan and me. Soon we entered a small village where front man handed us off to one of his friends, who promised to take us the rest of the way. This young man, who didn’t look as if he was much older than the college students, introduced himself as “Black”.

Black spoke little English so we explained to him in broken Swahili that we were looking for the Mbwamaji mosque. He seemed to understand as he continued to lead us in the direction of the beach, where he soon pointed out the tiny hamlet of present day Mbwamaji, along with its decidedly modern looking mosque. We tried to explain that we were actually looking for the ruins of an ancient mosque but no one amongst us could remember the Swahili words for “old”, “ancient”, or “ruins”. Finally, as we walked down the beach heading back in the direction of Kigamboni, Hani remembered that he had a guidebook with him that had the word for ruins printed in it. When we finally started asking about magofu, a look of realization passed over Black’s face and he guided us for another quarter mile or so up shore before heading into the nearby underbrush. There, we finally came across the goal that we had been seeking- the ruins of ancient Mbwamaji.

Unlike at Kunduchi, there was no clearing surrounding the ruins, they were interspersed among various overgrown trees, bushes, and shrubs. The ruins also seemed to be less well preserved than those at Kunduchi, consisting of mostly crumbling foundations with no discernable pillar tombs associated with them. It was unclear whether we had stumbled across the remains of the 16th century mosque or the slave trading quarters associated with the same period, but it was nevertheless intriguing to explore the area. As we readied ourselves to go swimming, Black looked like he was hoping to be our guide for the long-haul. He took off his shirt, waded into the water, and was clearly planning on waiting for us until we were through. Since we had already seen the ruins and were fairly confident that we could find our way back ourselves, I turned to Brennan for help in terminating Black’s employment with us. As I handed Black some money, Brennan came up with the Swahili for “Thank you for showing us around, we can find our way back ourselves.” Hurray for 6 weeks of intensive language training!

Unfortunately, the swimming did not go as well for us as it had at the Northern Beaches. Wading in, I stepped on something that felt like a pine cone but, upon further inspection, I brought a black sea urchin up to the surface. I soon realized that I was in a virtual minefield of sea urchins and, despite how shallow the water was, wading was out of the question at this point. Then, as I paddled out of sear urchin territory, I felt an intense pain up and down my arm which extended from my wrist to my elbow. As I returned to shore, I realized that I must have brushed up against a jellyfish. Lauren was back at the tide pools watching more jellyfish whose brothers-in-arms had managed to sting most of our group by this point. One consolation was that it probably could have ended up worse as Lauren soon came across a blue Portuguese man-o-war close to the shore where we had swum. Our embattled crew soon regrouped and headed farther north up the beach. Another quarter mile from the site of the ruins, we came across the Islamic Beach Club, which we then cut through in order to reach the gravel road that we had first seem on the dalla dalla. Another half mile traveling north on this road brought us back to the “Kim’s Kampground” sign.

As we flagged down a passing dalla dalla, however, Carla and Zoe made it known that they were planning to take a piki piki back to the ferry terminal. Of all the forms of transport available to us in Tanzania, even I had shied away from the dreaded piki piki and had managed to keep the students off of them as well as far as I knew. Piki piki is the Swahili word for motorcycles; these were reportedly the up-and-coming form of transport in Dar due to the increase in traffic as well as the price of gasoline. Just as the introduction of the bijaj had significantly cut into the taxi business by undercutting their prices by 50%, piki pikis were now doing the same thing to the bijajs. Procuring this transport was relatively simple- one flagged down a passing cycle and then rode behind the driver to one’s destination.

It was at this point that I had a startling revelation- there was actually very little I could do to dissuade the students from riding on a piki piki. After all, I was no longer ACM’s resident director of Tanzania 2011- I was just some guy traveling around Tanzania. Also, this wasn’t really a field trip we were on- it was just some friends spending the day together. It was this revelation that helped me to climb aboard my ferry-bound dalla dalla, leaving this particular pair of students to their own devices. They ended up being just fine- if there was ever a place to take a piki piki, it was the relatively deserted streets south of Kigamboni.

I thought of these students the day before I left Tanzania as I wandered alone through country roads near Makongo. I had ridden the lying dalla dalla there once again in order to prove something to myself. I had always assumed that the mis-labeled bus traveled down the gravel road from Ardhi U. to Bagamoyo Road, before turning left and continuing on to Bagamoyo. Looking at a map, I had confirmed that there was indeed a road which connected these two landmarks. Had we stopped just short of Bagamoyo Road? Did we really need to ride the 35 minute trip back to Mwenge, or could we have simply walked to the road in question in order to catch the correct dalla dalla? It’s stupid questions like this that I obsess over- sorry. After riding back to Makongo and walking for an hour in what I thought was the direction of the ocean, I had finally proven to myself that I was actually nowhere near Bagamoyo Road. The dalla dalla had apparently wrapped around campus in a northwesterly direction instead of heading due east as I had expected it to. After walking around these country roads in increasingly the wrong direction, I was exceedingly hot and tired. As I passed by a house with a piki piki parked outside, I headed up the driveway and hired the owner to take me back in the direction of campus.

As I gripped tightly to this complete stranger while riding on the back of his motorcycle through the dirt roads which wound through the village of Changanikeni, I thought of something the students and I had discussed concerning our imminent return to the United States. We realized that we would be asked “So, how was Africa?” again and again, mostly by people who were actually looking for no more than a one sentence answer. How could we even begin to cram all of our many experiences into some pat answer? We had thought about it and had actually come up with an appropriate sentence to use on the people who asked us that anticipated question. We would simply reply, “It makes for a good story…”

My mother sponsors a child through Compassion International. I realized after coming to Tanzania that it is not unusual here to “sponsor” someone to go to school by paying for their requisite fees. A couple of the students decided to do this on an informal basis for some children living near Olasiti. We wanted to visit our family’s sponsored child while we were living nearby but CI requires visits to be arranged months in advance in order to perform background checks on all visitors. Since it would have been hard to commit to a particular day while the ACM program was still in operation, I had scheduled the first weekday after the program ended as a time for our visit to Athulman, our sponsored child.

The official end came on Friday, Dec. 9. The students gave their final poster presentations at 2 pm and we all met at 7 pm at Addis in Dar for one last celebratory dinner together. Afterwards, everyone met at my house to toast each other and, as the clock struck midnight, to take part in a big group hug while we all sang Bob Dylan’s “Rock Me Mamma” for some inexplicable reason. That would be the last time we would all be gathered in one place. Most students were escorted to their homestays around 12:30 am by our guards, while Nidal and the group who were planning to climb Kilimanjaro spent the night. No one at our house ended up getting much sleep that night. By 4:30 am, Erin had returned from picking up her family at the airport and was knocking on our door looking for a place to hang out until breakfast with her host mother rolled around. The mountaineers (Zach, Chelsea, Siri, and her brother, Jents) woke up around that time and within an hour had left for Ubungo to take a bus to Moshi. By 11 am, the Franksons had returned from breakfast and arranged to serve an assortment of holiday hors d’oeuvres. They had brought many of the things we had been missing most from the States: M&Ms, scotcheroos, chocolate chip cookies, “puppy chow”, candy canes, and, of course- cheese, cheese, and more cheese. There were five kinds of cheese served with crackers that day. All 13 of the remaining students attended “Cheese Fest 2011”, and the Franksons had not forgotten the “Kili Kids”, as we called them, as they had sent them on their way with goodie bags of their own. After that, things went on much like they had before the program’s end. Sure, Colleen and Jen had flown home on Saturday evening, and Nidal left on Sunday afternoon, but that still left 10 students in the general vicinity that spent much of their time hanging out at our house enjoying some of the few ceiling fans on campus.
The goal on Monday was to meet Talitha, CIs local representative, at the Bagamoyo dalla dalla stand at 9 am to begin our visit to see Athulman. We were soon to find that, no matter how long one has lived in Tanzania, it always retains the ability to pull a few surprises on you. Trudy had not slept well Sunday night and woke up feeling ill on Monday, so she had decided to stay at home. Brennan, for his part, was running late- so we didn’t get out the door until 7:20 am. Since we were behind schedule, I suggested that we catch the Bagamoyo dalla dalla at Ardhi University instead of going all the way into Mwenge. After all, I had regularly seen Bagamoyo-Makumbusho busses going past the mall and turning up a gravel road near the private university which was adjacent to UDSM. I reasoned that these must take a slightly different route than those we had taken straight from Mwenge, much like the campus busses were a variant of the direct Mwenge-Ubungo dalla dallas. At 7:40 am we boarded the bus in question, after walking to our stop on campus and taking a dalla dalla to Ardhi. The vehicle was already packed with people when we got on and it continued to load as we climbed into the hills. When it came time to pay, the conductor asked me something in Swahili that I took to mean “where are you planning on getting off?” “Bagamoyo,” I replied. “Bagamoyo,” he repeated incredulously as a few people on the bus let out a slight laugh. This wasn’t a good sign. The conductor asked me something else, to which I had to turn to Brennan for help. “He wants to know if you planning on going and coming back on this bus,” he translated. “No, just going,” I tried to tell him. Come to find out, the bus we were on did not go to Bagamoyo, it went to Makongo. It didn’t actually go to Makumbusho either, for that matter, as it had originated in Mwenge.

Now, I had seen an occasional stray dalla dalla that, for some reason or another, had decided to run a different route than what was printed on the front. In every case, the conductor would call out the alternate endpoint, making sure people knew that his particular bus was running a different route than usual. This was the first that I had heard of an entire bus route that was run using the same mis-labeled busses. We stayed on in Makongo, where a man who spoke decent English got on and sat next to me. “You’ll have to ride back to Mwenge,” he told me, “I’ll show you which busses go to Bagamoyo.” I actually knew what such busses looked like already- they looked exactly like the one I was on! “This bus says Bagamoyo,” I pointed out. “It’s a new route,” he replied, as if that explained everything. We finally arrived in Mwenge at 8:40, a full hour after we had climbed aboard the lying bus. So much for cutting some time off our trip!

I had called Talitha from Makongo to let her know we would be running very late. We finally arrived in Bagamoyo at 10:10 am. Once we had met up with Talitha, we took a bijaj to a very familiar location. I hadn’t realized that the school that Athulman attended was run by the Anglican church, through whose door David Livingston famously passed. There, we were introduced to the staff and were told about the mission of the school, which had 220 children- 12 of which, they were quick to point out, were still in need of sponsorship. They also told me that, in the five years since the school has been in existence, only one other sponsor has been able to visit the program. We felt pretty honored to be included in this number. The staff informed me that Athulman had unfortunately been home sick for the past few days and that we would have to visit him at his home. While we sat there, the director of the center handed me Athulman’s personal file containing his vital statistics, grades, as well as medical information, and then sat there patiently, waiting for me to look through it. Coming from America, it felt a little weird leafing through his file, but I didn’t want to be rude so I went through the motions of looking through it.

What I really wanted to know wouldn’t be found in said file- the thing I was most interested in was what kind of kid Athulman really was. I was secretly hoping that he wouldn’t turn out to be an insufferable brat- as I thought this, I pictured the kids in Olasiti who would regularly put large tortoises in the middle of the road for pure entertainment purposes (we rescued a number of them- the tortoises, not the kids) as well as the kids who had asked us for handouts for 26 straight days in the field, never being deterred by the score of previous refusals. Since we wrote to Athulman from America on a regular basis, I knew that it would be hard to pretend to like him in future letters if we ended up despising the kid. After I finished with his file, it was time to finally meet Athulman in person.

The director then asked me if we wanted to walk or take a taxi to which I replied that I was happy to walk. The four of us: Brennan, the director, Talitha, and I thus set off on the 20 minute walk to Athulman’s house. On the way, we passed the school building where classes were held and stopped to inspect it. As we continued, the road looked more and more familiar to me- it was the same road I had accidently taken the students down as we looked for our second lunch establishment on our first visit to Bagamoyo. We stopped after about 15 minutes to buy some water. Talitha was sweating profusely in the 90 degree heat and looked as if she might not make it. Maybe I should have opted for a taxi for her sake but it was a little late at this point. We saw a store with water displayed in a cooler but the director thought that we would prefer Kilimanjaro water over Uhai, so we went to the adjacent shop. Sure enough, they had Kilimanjaro but, as the shop owner was handing it to us, I asked, “baridi?” No, it was not indeed baridi- as they sold it at ambient temperature. It was not uncommon in Tanzania to receive warm water or pop unless you specifically asked for it to be cold. I don’t consider myself a water connoisseur, but even if I were I think I would prefer cold run-of-the-mill water to fancy warm water. We finally settled on a cold Uhai.

Athulman’s apartment was a little farther down the road than we had gone on that trip in which we had gotten a bit lost. The building sat back from the road so that it had a gravel space in front about the size of a parking lot, even though there were no cars parked out front. Athulman and his mother were waiting for us on the front stoop- I noticed that he seemed small for 11 as he politely shook my hand. His mother was also slight of build and could have passed as his older sister if I didn’t know any better. Inside, the individual apartment doorways were each covered with a curtain so people could presumably keep their doors open to stay cool without sacrificing their privacy. From the start, I noticed that the director was calling the child Athulmani, even though the official documentation had lacked the “i”. This did not seem uncommon in Tanzania as Paulina had always referred to me as Jamesi. We gave Athulmani some gifts, which consisted of a new backpack, crayons, markers, notebooks, and coloring books. He seemed genuinely glad to receive them, smiling broadly as he looked though the backpack filled with gifts.

Athulmani spoke very little English but, between the staff and Brennan, we were able to communicate fairly effectively. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Athulmani said that he would like to become president of Tanzania. The power went out while we were talking so that the small oscillating fan which adorned the room (along with a bed, couch, and a loveseat), ground to a whining halt. “If you become president, I want you to find a way to keep the electricity on at all times,” I told him. Athulmani then showed us what he had purchased with the birthday money that my mother had sent him. He had bought a periwinkle bicycle which he kept in the hallway outside his apartment that he used to ride to school instead of walking both ways. When it came time to leave, Athulmani’s mother thanked us profusely for our family’s sponsorship and I told her that she was very welcome. The best news of all is that Athulmani seems to be genuinely a great kid that I don’t even have to pretend to like.

After our visit concluded, I called Hani and Lauren, who were just arriving in Bagamoyo and who planned to spend the next 24 hours in town. We agreed to meet for lunch and I suggested the Travelers’ Lodge, nearby the Anglican church, since I had read that last year’s ACM program had eaten lunch there during their visit. By the time Brennan and I arrived, the two students has already ordered a water to drink but, as we perused the menu, our enthusiasm for the place began to wane considerably. The average lunch entrée cost the equivalent of $12 and, while this might not sound terrible to the average American, it, like the price of the water was about three times the normal going rate. When the drink was gone, we all agreed to find a cheaper venue. We therefore went in search of the “Smoke House Stop” that had at least half a dozen signs pasted around town advertising “the best hamburger in town”, “homemade banana milkshakes”, and, best of all- “non-bacterial ice.” Unfortunately, once we had located this place adjacent to the fish market we realized that all that was left of it was a hollowed out shell of a building with a collapsed thatch roof- it had obviously been closed for some time. Next, we returned to the cobblestone streets of Bagamoyo’s “stone town” and spied a sign with a picture of a succulent roasted chicken, a helping of prawns, as well as a hamburger that, as far as we knew, may have now been a contender for the best one in town. We inquired inside what kind of food they were serving for lunch and became more than a bit disappointed to learn that none of the items featured on their sign were actually being served. Apparently, the only items on the menu were fries and pilau, spiced rice. Since we were currently in the mood for either of these, we ordered some pop and were soon on our way to our fourth restaurant.

It turns out that fourth time was a charm- we found a restaurant near the artists’ market that actually served their advertised food, and at reasonable prices to boot. I ordered pizza and Brennan had prawns wrapped in chapatti. Over lunch, we agreed that Brennan would spend the night at the Bagamoyo Beach Resort with the college students so that they could all continue to enjoy the rest of their time in Bagamoyo together. As I walked back to the Bagamoyo bus stand alone, I thought about how I would miss this quaint little town as well as our Compassion Child who lived there. I hoped that this wouldn’t be the last time I would see either of them.

We got another early start our second morning in Pemba since that day’s boat ride would be the longest yet. We headed out from the dock in the direction of the Matumbi Lighthouse- I was riding in the metal motorboat, as usual. I liked this boat since it was faster than the wooden one and therefore typically arrived at our final destination 20 or so minutes ahead of the other, it also sat low to the water and seemed to rock back and forth a lot less- both desirable attributes to someone who tends to get sea sick. There was a third reason to be in the motorboat on this day- it was able to cut right through the shallows between the dock and the lighthouse, while the wooden craft had to go out and around, tracing the route the ferry had taken when it brought us to Pemba. Beyond the lighthouse, the water in the shallows was the brightest shade of turquoise that I have ever seen water take on. I even put my hand down in the water as the boat sped along to prove to myself that there wasn’t some wayward dye drifting out to sea. After nearly 90 minutes after leaving Mkoani, we anchored near a shipwreck.

The S.S. Paraportiani, a 300 foot Greek merchant steamer, had been taking a load of wheat from Romania to Jeddah, a Red Sea port of Saudi Arabia, in October of 1967. Unfortunately, due to the Arab-Israeli conflict that was raging at that time, the ship was not able to travel the Suez Canal between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, so it was routed around the horn of Africa in order to reach its destination. Reportedly, both the radar and the echo sounder of the ship had stopped working late in the trip, so the crew was forced to use traditional navigation through unfamiliar waters in order to refuel in Mombasa, Kenya. Bad weather and a strong northern current sealed the fate of the ship and it ran aground on a coral reef off the coast of Pemba and eventually sank, but not before all crew members were able to make it to safety.

The shipwreck was amazing- we could see into the broken hull of the ship and watched the many fish swimming in and out of the wreckage. We were able to make out the bow and the stern, the main mast, portholes, as well as various engine components. It was fitting that our final time snorkeling together out of the more than half dozen times we had gone was the most spectacular of them all! As usual, I swam around until I was feeling a bit queasy and then returned to the boat thinking that it would be neat to explore the wreck much more thoroughly while scuba diving. After all, maybe the waves would not be able to wreck such havoc on me if I could remain at a greater depth. Brennan didn’t wait for scuba gear to explore the wreck, he held his breath in order to dive into the hull as well as to touch portions of the ship. It started to rain as I sat and waited for all of our snorkelers to return to the boats. The wooden one soon filled with students and left for port, while Trudy and I waited for the last of the divers to return. Typically, Brennan and Colleen were the last ones to come aboard on our snorkeling trips and they didn’t disappoint us this final time either.

As usual, we were able to catch up to the first boat before we reached the dock. As we pulled up alongside, I made an offhand comment to Ali that one of our students was particularly interested in the flying foxes of Pemba, large bats with faces that resembled that of a fox. “You know that means he is going to take you to see them,” observed Trudy as we were walking back to the hotel from shore. “No, I was just making conversation,” I replied. Sure enough, as we ate a late lunch on the veranda, Ali announced that a tour would be leaving within an hour to see the flying foxes. Although Trudy and a couple of the students opted to stay back at the hotel, at 4 pm most of our group loaded into a dalla dalla to find the bats. We headed uphill away from town and stopped at a village a couple of miles away to inquire about the animals we sought. As far as I could understand, the villagers said that it wasn’t the season for seeing the flying foxes.

Soon, all of the students had piled out of the truck and had walked a short ways up the road in order to watch a soccer game, instead. Since I’m not the world’s biggest sports fan, my attention soon began to wane and I decided to walk back to the hotel with Brennan, Chelsea, and Erin. The walk back was very pleasant indeed, with sweeping views of the Pemba countryside. I had already decided that Pemba was one of my favorite places in Tanzania and this walk only reinforced these feelings. Back at the hotel, we relaxed on the veranda as we waited for dinner to be served. Over time, other groups of students had walked back together and, once the game had ended, those remaining took the dalla dalla to find the bats on the other side of town. This group included Jen, who was the main instigator of our “flying fox chase”. They eventually succeeded in seeing hundreds of them, while those who had walked back had to be satisfied with the few which could be seen flying past the veranda at dusk. “Do you thing by ‘season’ the villagers were referring to day and night?” Brennan asked me as the huge bats flew over our heads. That seemed a definite possibility.

Colleen and I agreed that we both had experienced feelings of déjà vu upon arriving in Pemba. There was something about the dilapidated concrete dock, the lushly vegetated mountainous terrain, and then heading uphill into a sparsely populated town riding in an open truck bed. Discussing this, we realized that we had experienced almost exactly the same thing in the Galapagos together- specifically our visit to Isabella Island.

We had eaten a dinner of octopus, calamari, and fish on a veranda which overlooked this Galapagian scene and then gone to bed in the aptly named villas of the Ocean Panorama hotel. The following morning I was up early but decided to let Trudy sleep a bit more while I walked around the town of Mkoani. With a population around 10,000, Mkoani was nothing like the other Tanzanian port cities we had been in. We had rented out all of the rooms in what was essentially the only hotel in town. Walking around, I noticed a complete lack of tourist facilities in town- most of the 5000 or so foreign visitors per year to Pemba either flew directly into the main town of Chake Chake, or even if they did arrive by ferry for some reason, immediately headed for this town of 30,000 people in the center of the island. Blissfully, the lack of tourists in Mkoani meant a corresponding lack of touts as well. No one tried to sell me anything on my hour-long walk and most people paid little attention to me- which was just fine as far as I was concerned. I saw some mosques, a church, a park, and some stunning Zanzibar doors.

After breakfast on the veranda we boarded our boats and headed to Misali Island for the day. Misali, about an hour’s trip north of Mkoani- about the same latitude as Chake Chake, is known for its coral reefs as well as for its haunted caves. The three water-filled caverns found on the island were said to be filled with ghosts to whom local people used to pray for luck in fishing, for relationships, for good health, etc. The only problem is that each of the caverns had their own set of ghosts that one particular line of witch doctor could communicate with. Each practitioner could communicate with his particular cave’s ghost, but not with any others. Over time, each line of witch doctors had eventually died out so that now people are no longer able to communicate with any of the ghosts. To add to the mystique of the island, it was known to have been used as a hiding place by Captain Kidd, perhaps in the haunted caverns themselves.

When we arrived at the island, we didn’t really have ghosts on the mind- we put on snorkeling gear and swam in the clear waters just off of the pristine beach where we had stowed our things under a large banda. I snorkeled until I felt a bit queasy from being tossed about by the waves and then headed to shore for some time on dry land. Since Brennan and Trudy were both happy in the water, I began hiking alone though some of the island’s interior and soon came across one of the famous caves. The cave consisted of a narrow opening in the ground which spread out as it descended for 30 feet or so- giving the cave sides that would be nearly impossible to climb out of. The floor of the cave was covered with about 10 feet of water which looked inviting to jump into on such a hot day but not so easy to get out of again! I could see a rock shelf off to the side of the opening which contained broken pieces of pottery where offerings to the ghosts had likely been placed by devotees. When I returned to the banda- Erin, Colleen, and Brennan were up for a hike so I took them back to the cave via a new route I had not tried out yet so they could see it for themselves. We returned from our explorations in time for lunch, which consisted of curried fish over rice and, of course, more fresh fruit.

After lunch I took my third hike of the day, a guided tour by one of the marine reserve’s rangers who took us to the far end of the island to see the two caves that I had not yet encountered. Most of the group, including Trudy, came along for this particular hike. Although walking across Misali Island immediately brought to mind similar hikes we had taken across Bongoyo and then Mbudya Islands, Trudy had not participated in either of these hikes so it was all new to her. She had pictured the islands to be crawling with constrictors after we had found the python early on in our trip to the former island but, following our field studies, had apparently toughened up enough to not be constantly worried of encountering snakes. My report the previous week of coming across a green mamba less than a block from our house had, indeed, alarmed her sufficiently but had not kept her from ever leaving the house again, which may have been the effect had this occurred earlier in the program. The second cave on Misali was larger and wider than the first but was similarly arranged, although it had the added distinction of having a number of vines hanging over its sides into the water below- this only added to its eerie nature. The third cave was not far down the path from the second one and was the largest yet in terms of both depth and breath. We peered over the side of the sheer drop offs for a bit, before heading back across the island to our banda.

At 4 pm, we packed up all of our supplies and boarded the boats once again. We were then taken to the opposite end of the island so that we could snorkel near the coral mountains. This was by far some of the best snorkeling that we had done in Tanzania. Giant circles of coral formations lay directly below us in the crystal clear water, along with scores of colorful fish. Reportedly, the coral mountains were prime places to see sea turtles, but none of us, save one, actually came across any. Brennan, for his part, swam a good distance from the boat along the field of coral until he had spotted not one, but two, sea turtles within an hour. Our second evening in Pemba ended much as the first one had: an hour-long boat ride, a seafood dinner on the veranda overlooking the dock, and a good night’s sleep in anticipation of another eventful day.

I couldn’t resist the urge to take the students on one last field trip before the program drew to a close. We had been to Zanzibar at the end of September, but only to the main island of Unguja. This latter term is typically used only by the locals, as most visitors referred to the main island as Zanzibar, ignoring Pemba, the second large island of the archipelago, altogether. This oversight also extends to visits since nearly 95% of the tourists arriving in Zanzibar limited themselves to Unguja Island. Much of this neglect is likely due to the remoteness of the second island, an additional 3.5 hour ferry ride from Stone Town following the initial 2 hour ride from Dar. We were therefore up at 4:30 am in order to make the necessary trek and were pleasantly surprised when our bus actually met us on time before an hour had transpired. The bus then made a series of stops throughout campus, picking up students from their respective home stays, until we made it to the final stop at the university gate just as the sun was rising at 5:45. In addition to the bus being on time, it amazed me that each requisite group of students was ready to go at their appointed stops just when we had told them we would be there. After a fairly uneventful ride into the city center, we found ourselves actually having time to enjoy the complimentary beverages and snacks in the Azam Marine passenger lounge as we waited to board the S.S. Kilimanjaro III at 6:30. This time I took no chances, downing some Dramamine (actually “Sea Legs”) and sat in a bench on the bow so I could face directly into the wind. The 2-hour ride to Stone Town went smoothly, literally; we were met at the dock by Sele, my contact for the next leg of our journey. One strange thing about the ferry tickets to Pemba was that I had only been issued one leg of it. Although I had paid John, back in Dar, the entire cost of the roundtrip to Pemba, he had only issued me enough tickets for us to arrive in Stone Town, leaving me with the name and number of a contact there who would give us tickets for the second leg of our trip, and so on. His explanation was that, if there was a problem with any of the ferries we were taking, we wouldn’t have non-refundable tickets issued for a boat that we couldn’t make the connections to. While I may have been uncomfortable with this arrangement if I had never used John’s services before (tickets are typically sold through brokers instead of by the ferry companies themselves), I figured he had gotten us to Unguja and back once so I could probably trust him again.

Sele whisked our group off to his offices nearby the Princess Salme Inn, where we had stayed on our previous trip, and wrote up our tickets while we waited at the adjacent outdoor café. Soon we were on our way once again, this time about the S.S. Skagit, run by Seagull Ferries. We immediately noticed the complete lack of tourists as more and more people loaded onto the ferry, filling the booths we had sat down at with six people each, filling all available benches, and finally sprawling out onto the floor once all the seats were gone. I would have preferred to sit outside, rather than crushed up against a window in a 6-person booth, but the only outdoor space was a sliver of standing room in the stern, so I stayed put. This made for a hot, cramped, and therefore somewhat uncomfortable ride to Pemba but at least it was still relatively smooth sailing on the way there. Our feet didn’t even touch the island once we arrived before we were ushered aboard two waiting boats by Ali, the owner of the Ocean Panorama hotel in Mkoani, who was waiting for us on the dock. One of the boats was a metal motorboat, while the other was a wooden sailing vessel that had been fitted with a motor as well. As we rode toward our destination, Ali and his crew cut up fruit for us to eat: mango, pineapple, and bananas. This snack was quite welcome since it was after 2 at this point and none of us had eaten any lunch to speak of.

After about an hour, we arrived at our designated goal: Emerald Bay, the site of a 4-mile long sandbar made of gleaming white sand. Viewing the miles of flat expanse brought to mind the dry lake bed of Lake Eyasi, although without the mud. Our group snorkeled in the bay while Ali set up for lunch on a tarp he had spread out on the sandbar. The water was filled with sea urchins, starfish, and sea cucumbers and there was a drop-off just off the submerged portions of the sandbar through which a detectable current flowed. Lunch consisted of a fish pasta along with more fruit- this time papaya, watermelon, as well as some jackfruit. Most of us did not savor the rubbery texture and unusual taste of the latter fruit- but many of us tried it just for the experience. After eating, we agreed that everyone would be left to their own devices until the boats left for town at 5:30. I chose to walk down the sandbar until it jutted out into the bay to its maximal extent, about a mile from where our boat was anchored. I then snorkeled toward the boat for the next hour or so, cutting across the bay, where I saw jellyfish and a live conch in addition to the other sea creatures described. The sun was starting to set as we arrived back onto the Mkoani dock from which we had come- we stood there and watched it set over the offshore island of Makongwe. It was easily one of the most beautiful sunsets that I had seen in Tanzania! With that, we boarded one of the open-sided dalla dallas that are prevalent in the Zanzibar archipelago and transversed the dock into Pemba proper.