Sharing Cake, Changing Lives

The VSO motto is “sharing skills, changing lives”.. and I think I’ve certainly lived up to that recently…….

 

As you have probably seen I like making cakes, and I often take them into the lab for the staff to eat at tea-time. This is always a source of amusement and astonishment that being a man, I know how to cook and can make cake!  I always say (half-joking) that I would teach them if want, and this week one of the lab staff, Mtalika took me up on the offer!  I also invited Mama Pepe who runs the  little “restaurant” where I buy my rice and beans every lunchtime who was also impressed by my baking abilities!

 

So with  Two Tanzanians (one male, one female, one muslim one catholic) and two Wazungu (myself and Claire) we embarked on my first Nyangao cookery lesson… in Kiswahili (with plenty of demonstration when I realised I don’t know the words for “to cream”, “whisk” and “cake mix-like consisetency”.  

 

 

 

The result:  One coffee cake, one Mango cake and one Bannana cake; 2 happy Tanzanians; 1 exhausted james!   Word has now got out to the rest of the hospital staff that I am “Mwalimu Mpishi” – “Teacher chef”… and the cookery school is booked full for the next few lessons!

 

I just hope they will cook some cake at home for ME to eat on tea break!

 Sharing cake… changing lives

Nungwi - red people and turtles

Fishermen's Dhow boats at Nungwi

So after all those late nights and dancing at Sauti za Busara festival, Louise and I retreated to Nungwi in the north east of Zanzibar for a relaxing few days on the beach.  Nungwi is a small traditional village but has been surrounded by massive tourist hotels (there is a Hilton!) and is a very mzungu-ey, with German and Italians tourists strolling the main beach in their speedos  - not very culturally sensitive for a Muslim island!  Although Mzungu means “white person”, this must confuse the locals, as actually everyone was mainly red with sunburn (maybe a business opportunity for a melanoma clinic, or at least a sunscreen shop)!

Nungwi Beach

Thankfully we chose a hotel called Sazani beach hotel away from the main tourist strip, and we were glad we did!  It was a small hotel with only ten private bandas with very friendly owners and staff, good food and a direct access to a private beach (well away from the tourist beach) with crystal clear water!  

view from our bedroom!

 

 

 The hotel is aiming to be as eco-friendly as possible, with solar power, solar water heating, composting food waste and no air conditioning (the Nungwi sea breeze is constant and very refreshing).  The hotel had a very personal feel, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting some quiet time (especially as they gave us discount as we are TZ residents!)  We spent our time relaxing, reading, shade bathing (far too hot to be in the direct sunlight) and swimming.  

Private beach and shade-bathing

 

Whilst we were there we found out that the nearby turtle sanctuary was doing their annual release of turtles and so we joined the trip to release them!

The turtle sanctuary was set up in 1993 as a conservation project to help the endangered hawksbill and greenback turtles.  Local villagers used to hunt these turtles to sell the shells to tourists and to eat the meat (turtle soup is considered an aphrodisiac!).

 

How many Tanzanians does it take to carry a turtle? - errr, well 4!

 The conservation project has provided education to the village fisherman about the need to save the turtles, and so they no longer hunt for turtles.  If a turtle is accidently caught in the fishing nets then the villagers can give it to the sanctuary who will give them a small monetary gift (but not large enough so that they actively catch them!).  Also the sanctuary has promoted tourism in the area, and so many of the villagers have been provided with jobs and extra income from the tourists. 

 

 The turtles are often injured by the fisherman’s nets or boat propellers and so the sanctuary keeps them in a tidal pool where they are fed and looked after until they are healthy enough to be released. 

  During the breeding season the sanctuary looks for the nests of eggs, and puts up protective fencing, preventing birds and lizards from stealing the eggs.  When the hatchlings are born they are taken into special pools in the sanctuary where they are kept until they are big enough to be released. 

Village children were off school for the big day!

Once a year the sanctuary releases the turtles and this is a big occasion, with all the village children, the media and even a politician attending the event! 

We paid our money and hopped onto one of four dhow boats, loaded up the turtles onto the deck by our feet and sailed to the coral reef twenty minutes from the shoreline to release the turtles into the wild.  

all aboard

This big one was 20 years old

release the turtle

 It was great to see them up close, although I did feel a little sorry for them sat on a baking hot deck for up to half an hour and being patted and stroked by a bunch of red-people!  It was a relief to both me and to the turtles when they were put in the water and swam away!  A total of twenty turtles were released to the wild, with about 5 remining in the sanctury pool. 

swim for it !

 One red-bodied german tourist asked why didn't they release all of the turtles, to which the Tanzanian guide gave them a condescending look and replied "Well then you wouldn't pay money to come and see them" ! Classic!

louise giving a helping hand!

Newbies, Workshops and 2 string guitars

In February I went off on another “jolly” to Dar es Salaam… you may think that I don’t actually do much work, but this trip was sort of work related!  

Being the VSO regional Representative for the mtwara and Lindi region, I had to attend a meeting with the reps from other areas and the VSO office, and also to meet the new intake of volunteers that had just arrived in Tanzania.  This intake was massive, with 32 new volunteers all needing to ask questions, get phone and Internet sorted, find out about Tanzania, and so I was on hand to meet, greet, chat, and assist them.  I remembered the day I got off the plane, pasty white skin, apprehensive, jetlagged and a bit shell shocked about what I had let myself in for and so I was happy to help the new volunteers settle in. 

 

I also had to run a workshop for a group of teachers who have been employed by the British Council to come to Tanzania for 2 years under the EQUIP-T project, which aims to improve the standard of teaching in primary and secondary schools.  Like the health system, the TZ education system is far from the standards we are used to in the UK.  The schools suffer from lack of equipment (no pens, paper, books let alone computers or interactive whiteboards), lack of staff, and  demotivated staff (Many teachers do not get paid on time, and paid so little that they have to  take a second job and thus often do not turn up to teach) and many other problems which results in a poor quality of teaching.  Although official figures state that most children do progress onto secondary school, the number actually finishing secondary school is low as children drop out due to financial or familial problems (children are often needed to help on the family shamba- farm).

My workshop was an interactive question and answer session about “living in rural Tanzania” – a subject that I’m getting pretty good at having been in rural TZ for 8 months!  The teachers were a mix of ages, but all had a wealth of experience teaching abroad though maybe not in the conditions they may face here.  I think I managed to answer most of their questions and belay some of their worries, though doubtless I caused a few more!

So after a busy week of sharing my skills, it was time for a break!! Louise and I hopped on the ferry to Zanzibar to see the Sauti za Busara music festival (link: www.busaramusic.org/  ). 

 Sauti is a 3 day festival held inside the old fort in stone town with a lineup of bands from all over Africa including Tanzania, Zanzibar,  Kenya, Mali, Ghana and Burkina Faso . 

 

 As we have Tanzanian resident permit, the tickets were cheap and we took advantage of the VSO community by staying with another VSO volunteer, the lovely Kelly in her apartment just outside stone town. 

Atonga Zimba and his 2 strings

 

There was some amazing music performed by some very talented musicians, some of the highlights for me were Atonga Zimba from Ghana with his 2 stringed guitar, Khaira Arby from Mali with her powerful voice, and Makoomba from Zimbabwe.

Shiny gold waistcoats and these Mzee had all the moves!!

As well as great music there was also some great costumes and traditional dress and some amazing dancing, which really proved the point that Africans have got rhythm as well as style!

Sheik Lo.. .(awesome outfits)

Even the Bass Player was dancing!

view of the old fort from a neighbouring roof top

 The music went on until the early hours of the morning so we didn’t get to bed until about 3am each morning - which is the latest I have stayed up since I arrived in Africa!!

crazy french-malinese keyboard player fiddling with his MiniMoog!

Khaira Arby

Louise enjoying a refresher

 

In the daytimes we enjoyed the delights of Stone town, which I have already talked about in this blog so will spare you the details of the fantastic food, amazing views from the rooftops, picturesque narrow lanes, laid back atmosphere and scorching heat!

It's a hard life being a volunteer !!!