A Weekend in Zanzibar

After a whole two weeks of not going anywhere, it was high time to get travelling again. Actually, to be fair, the recent itchiness of foot has been mine alone; the rest of the family has stayed firmly put in Dar es Salaam. This fact, along with the increasingly frequent power outages, made Soma’s keenness to escape all the more understandable.

We didn’t go far afield, mind. After almost two years, we felt it was high time to make the short flight over the water to Zanzibar. Apart from the obvious attractions of white sandy beaches, we were guaranteed a few days of electricity- for some reason known to nobody, Zanzibar has absolute first priority when it comes to power supply. Tanesco produces most of the electricity and then “sells” it to Zanzibar. I added the inverted comments deliberately. As far as I know, although the island happily receives this electricity, it never gets round to paying the bills. It would appear that one part of the union does the producing, while the other part does the taking- similar to another union of proud neighbouring countries I know of!

Anyway, that’s enough politics for now! Last Saturday morning we were up bright and early and before we could even think, found ourselves at the tiny domestic terminal at Dar Airport. With minimal security and (for obvious reasons) no passport control, getting from entrance to departure gate took seconds and before long we were walking towards the plane. As usual we had booked with Coastal who, despite an often annoying disregard of customer service on its commercial side does actually have the best and safest planes. Kieran’s dreams came true when he got the plum seat next to the pilot. I told him to keep his hands on his knees and he did exactly that for the entire 20 minute flight.



Kieran occupying the best seat on the plane- note hands firmly on knees, despite the obviously tempting second steering wheel!



Surprisingly enough we descended from clear blue skies to find a somewhat sodden Zanzibar. Sodden became torrential on the drive down to Kizimkazi, causing me to regret my previous wishes for rain- okay we badly need rain but why did we get the downpour seconds into our holiday? The rains were shortlived however, and, by the time arrived at the hotel, normal blue sky service had resumed.

Unlike our previous visit to the island, we decided to base ourselves in the southern village of Kizimkazi. We had briefly visited the place in 2007 when we went looking for dolphins. This time we were after a simple couple of days by the sea, with perhaps a little local pottering to break things up.

The hotel we stayed in deserves a special mention I think. We’d sent Phil and his friends there when they visited us a few months back and they had returned with mixed but generally positive thoughts on it. It seemed that it was generally good but, having only recently opened, had a few issues to iron out. Well, I can honestly say, that all ironing is now complete- the place was brilliant.

The hotel beach- luckily for us, the skies cleared soon afterwards but the beach stayed just as empty!

First of all the setup of the hotel was brilliant. For $150 per night we got a huge 3 bedroom villa complete with large upstairs living room and balcony and exclusive pool. The beach, shared pool and all other facilities were first rate and the food excellent. However, on Zanzibar, excellent facilities are not uncommon- what made this place really stand out was the quality of service. Now, when compared to a top hotel in the UK or Europe, the service here was about the level you’d expect- although the staff here were probably more attentive and definitely friendlier. I guess you have to come to Zanzibar to understand just how special and exceptional, that level of service actually is.

Just one small example of what I mean. We went into breakfast and the waitress asked me whether I’d like tea or coffee. I asked for coffee and got a freshly filtered coffee with milk on the side a few minutes later. Well “whoopee doo” you might say! Well, I would say exactly that except without the dripping sarcasm when I recall the efforts I went to at the Zanzibar Beach Resort to get the same simple request fulfilled. After three attempts over half an hour to get a disinterested waiter to get me some milk for my coffee I ended up in the F&B Manager’s office begging for some milk. A further twenty minutes later I got a jug of chocolate milk.

I know the manager at the Dolphin Paradise Beach Resort, Benjamin Bayo, has established top class standards well beyond anything that our previous hotel could ever aspire to, but after my earlier experiences, I set the bar much lower and was more than happy with what I got. In short, I’d recommend this hotel for a holiday without a second’s hesitation.

Our first and only full day started with a brisk walk to explore some of the surrounding visits. Our guide for the morning way Olly, a young maasai whose sidelines also included modelling.

Olly, our Maasai guide, with the boys

Olly took us to the nearest village, Mkongoni and explained its history. The name comes from the Kiswahili word for almonds, due to the fact that there used to be a lot of almond trees in the area. These have largely vanished now, though a few remained. It did have an interesting history, however, and was linked to the slave trade. The village lies directly east from Bagamoyo, the main gateway out of Africa for slaves. Mkongoni was the first settlement at which the slave vessels reached on Zanzibar and was therefore the site for a slave market. Little evidence of old settlement remains but, given the climate in the area, this is not a surprise. In fact the main attraction of the village was not a building at all, but a large baobab tree. These trees grow all over the continent and, as you can see, get very large indeed. According to Olly, local residents used the tree as a lookout post, scattering into the forest when they saw approaching ships. I’m not sure how this tallied with his earlier claims about the slave market though. I guess a slave market where the population scattered when anyone came close can’t have been very long lived!

The Baobab tree at Mkongoni

From there, we moved on to the next village, which goes by the name Dimbani. This village contained a cavern which led down to a fresh water spring. It is this spring that kept the surrounding areas supplied with fresh water.

Apparently there is a belief that you should never utter the name of someone while that person is inside the cave. According to local legend, two women, rivals for the affections of the same man, went into the cave to draw water. One woman left the cave and uttered the name of the other. The poor woman left inside turned into stone. There is indeed a block of stone resembling a (very short) woman right next to the spring. Who knows, it could be true- although given that in my experience, every single big block of stone through history seems to have been caused by some poor soul being petrified, I’m a little suspicious. All the same, I tried the theory by calling Kieran’s name but sadly he re- emerged some seconds later!

Soma, Olly and the boys walking along the beach

Before we’d come to Zanzibar, there had been a slight difference of opinion between Soma and myself over how active we should be on this holiday. Having engaged in plenty of “activity” over the past few months, I was more than happy to lay down on a beach for two days. Soma, on the other hand was far more gung ho and wanted to fill the holiday with adventure. Her original plan, which I’d reluctantly gone along with was to spend a full day on a dhow exploring small islands and going snorkelling (actually that sounds much better now I think about it- what was I thinking?). After witnessing the tropical storm upon arrival, Soma promptly changed her mind and cancelled that expedition. Instead, we were to enjoy a two hour sunset cruise in the waters around Kizimkazi on a traditional Zanzibari dhow- much more like it!

Traditional Zanzibari Dhow and crew

Sadly for Soma, in her thirst for adventure, she forgot that she is highly prone to motion sickness. A cruise on marble- like flat waters is fine, but at the first sign of waves, we’re in trouble! Sadly, the laws of physics do require some wind for a boat propelled by sails. Well, there were, tootling along very nicely indeed, thoroughly enjoying the sea spray and small waves when I noticed that my normally brown wife had turned a funny shade of green. Minutes later our poor Maasai companion, Olly, was very bemused to see this mzungu family scene consisting of a lady bent double over the side of the dhow, a confused younger son and a highly unsympathetic older son in hysterics of laughter at his stricken mother. The scene was rounded off by an older male trying to suppress his own giggles while telling off his elder son for being unsympathetic!

Sadly, we discovered that Rohan too was prone to seasickness and before long the family was split in two. Two of us were thoroughly enjoying what was becoming a fairly rough ride, while two others were holding each other in a strangely combined foetal position. Eventually sympathy took over and we asked the dhow crew to turn for home!

We’re back in Dar es Salaam now, having thoroughly enjoyed our short trip. I hope we’ll find time to come back here again. However, having made this short trip, I realised just how long it had been since our last domestic holiday. I hope that next year, if it is to be our last full year in Tanzania, will give us the opportunity to see a few more places- perhaps the Selous or maybe somewhere more adventurous out west!

No water, no electricity, but plenty of politics!

We’re now entering mid October and the cool winter months are slowly but surely coming to an end. The weather is gradually warming up and before too long I think we’ll be turning the AC back on at night.

Over recent weeks however, this potential use of the AC has been a bit of a moot point. The multi year drought that has affected East Africa is finally impacting us here in Dar es Salaam. For sure, the impact is nothing compared to those poor souls elsewhere in the region who are now relying on Oxfam and the UN for food. What I saw in Lushoto earlier this year was bad enough- things can only have got worse since then. The relatively affluent communities of Dar es Salaam are nowhere close to starving and are unlikely ever to reach such a point. However, when you have such adverse conditions across the region, nobody escapes entirely.

For us lucky expatriates, the impact has been mainly to do with access to electricity. The vast majority of the country’s generation comes from hydroelectric facilities, located across the country. When the rains fail, the water levels drop. The poor short rains in late 2008 and the almost entirely dry rainy season this spring means that no prolonged rainfall has been experienced since mid 2008- the rivers are now low and the dams would appear to be more or less dry. As a result, severe power rationing is now in force. We have now got used to having power cuts between 6pm and 11pm most nights. Yesterday was even worse, with no power at all between 9am and 7pm, followed by a further cut in the middle of the night.

This situation brought to mind a Tanzanian newspaper cartoon drawn in response to a UN sponsored initiative to turn off the lights across the world for a single hour to mark World Environment Day:

Them: “We shall shut down power for one whole hour to demonstrate our commitment to the environment.”

Us: “That’s just child’s play. We have started rationing power, and we will be implementing the shortage across the whole country for a whole year!”

Anyway, it would seem that we’re all now reducing our carbon footprint here, whether we like it or not. We do have diesel generators but given the extent to which we’ll be relying on them over the next few months, it makes sense to minimize their usage. These contraptions are generally on their last legs, make a load of noise and cost a fortune to fill up.

One silver lining to all this has been the extent to which you become aware of how your household depends on power and the areas of it which suck up the most. I’d never realised, for example, that using the microwave and cooker could use such phenomenal amounts of power- sometimes creating so much load as to take the generator offline. Given that the current situation is bound to create a huge run on diesel, making it both a rare and expensive commodity, it doesn’t hurt to figure out how to minimize usage. We’ve managed to go from using a full tank on an evening to barely using a quarter.

Anyway, although it’s not fun, this situation is, thankfully, not really down to my company, meaning that I can generally keep my head held high around the Peninsula without risking it being knocked off by some angry expat wife. Although things may improve a bit, the born pessimist in me can see power cuts happening for some time to come. It’s a nuisance to be sure but I know there are a lot of people who have never enjoyed access to electricity in their lives who are being affected in far more profound and painful ways than any of us are- another time to thank our lucky stars I think.

So what else is going on here in Tanzania? Well apart from power rationing, which, after all is really only annoying the minority who ever had access to power in the first place, we are entering some interesting times, with the elections only a year away.

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the death of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania and a man remembered as fundamentally decent and honest. Many people, myself included, would view his policies as hugely misguided, but very few would ever question his motives. Between 1950 and 1990, the continent of Africa had over 150 different leaders in total. Of these, only 3 left power voluntarily. Nyerere was one of the three. We had a national holiday to mark the occasion and today the papers were naturally full of articles and commentaries covering the event.

Most of the commentaries were very nostalgic in tone, hearkening back to a selfless, decent leader and wondering whether the present generation of leaders has lived up those ideals. Although it is painfully obvious that the welcome development of the country has been accompanied by a growing gulf between the poor majority and a wealthy elite, surprisingly little attention is given to the merits of past and present policies. After years of grand corruption, what people really want to see is a ruling class which regardless of belief is at least trying its best to improve life for the people. I guess people will forgive wrong policy and mistaken ideas a lot more readily than they forgive corruption. I guess in that regard Tanzanians aren’t that different to anyone else.