Forodhani Gardens

The first time I came to Zanzibar my friends kept mentioning Forodhani Gardens; but it took me about two months to figure out that they were referring to the grassy dirt lot across from the House of Wonders (picture above is from 2007). Sure there were a few trees and a cement gazebo in the middle, but it just didn't seem very garden-like. Then, two years ago when Patience and I visited, we wanted to head to Forodhani to get some of the famous street food the vendors sell there at night. But it was boarded up! Sheet metal surrounded the entire 1/2 acre or so of the only seafront in Zanzibar Town. Turns out the Aga Khan Development Network decided they didn't like the grassy field very much either and decided to do an upgrade. (Sidenote: the Aga Khan is the spiritual head of a Shia Muslim organization that graduated from Harvard, wears a three-piece suit and whose organizations own the nicest hotels in East Africa). Well, after a few years of construction, here's what they came up with.

Lawns, planters, new Gazebo...

Street lamps, new tree plantings.... (this is facing the House of Wonders)

Pavement, a new Seawall

Benches, trash bins (that's Patience)

And, the food vendors have returned....

Here's a closer look. That's not just chicken - there's lobster on some of those skewers.

After dinner, a desert of nutella and banana or mango wrapped in an egg pastry.

Patience displays the food

I eat it; mmm, a little hot (she got one too).

They also put in a well-equipped playground for the kids. The parents have to pay about $2 per kid to get in, but inside are bikes and push cars that they can take around a mini-track, swings, slides, jungle gym, and babysitters (I mean safety attendants). Honestly, its the nicest city park I've been to ever, except that they don't let you sit on the grass. Nothing's perfect.

Ramadan in Mombasa

The 4:30 am call to prayer is much louder during Ramadan. During the rest of the year, many Muslims sleep through the obligatory pre-dawn prayer, but during the Holy Month of fasting, many recommit themselves to communal prayer and give up things like cigarettes as well as food and water during the daylight hours. Of course if you're going to miss out on the day-time meals, you'd want to wake up in time to eat a quick meal (Suhuur) before dawn. In some Muslim countries, neighborhoods appoint someone to walk around with a drum to wake everyone up for their early meal; but here it seems that the mosques just turn up the volume on their speakers.

Patience still manages to sleep through these early morning supplications, but I usually wake up for a few minutes before drifting back to sleep. I find the prayer calls quite beautiful. A 'recitation' rather than 'music', they blend the melancholy timbre of Arabic semi-tones with a joyous praise that motivates the faithful to prayer. Besides the pre-dawn prayer, the calls are repeated four times throughout the day, with an extra one during the month of Ramadan. In the afternoons, sermons usually reserved for Fridays are piped through speakers every day of the week. Living in Old Town, we had grown accustomed to these sounds so much that we rarely noticed them. But this month, the muezzin (prayer callers) are gaining our attention again as they seem to put more attention and care into their craft.

The favorite part of everyone's day is, of course, iftar--the breaking of the fast at sundown. It is still bright outside when the sun sets in Mombasa, and groups of men gather on corners and established spots throughout the island to share some 'bitings' - dates, spiced potatoes, samosas, bhajia, and some sweet cakes are favorites. The meal is started as soon as the prayer is called; then the start of the prayer is postponed 10 minutes for everyone to eat. After the prayer all of the shops close for an hour or two as friends and family gather for a larger meal. My friend pointed out yesterday that during the rest of the year the evening prayer calls for each mosque (there are about 15 in Old Town alone) come at different times; but during Ramadan they all come at once; following the careful sunset/sunrise calendars that restaurants, shipping companies and stores distribute at the start of Ramadan.

The other day I happened to be out doing an errand for Patience before dinner when the store owner who supplies our drinking water invited me to join their iftar meal. About 7 men and 6 boys crowded a small table on the side of the street near our apartment. Every few minutes another would join the group, spilling the contents of a greasy newspaper onto the table. There was pleasant conversation about football (soccer) as we waited and then everyone dug in as soon as the prayer call began. I tried to let others have a turn (after all, I wasn't fasting), but they encouraged me to eat until I was satisfied. The boys were kept at bay until the adults had their turn. Black arabic coffee was served, but when they learned I didn't drink coffee someone quickly fetched a small bottle of water for me - free of charge. As I finally bid farewell they encouraged me to pass by again to share another meal.

Almost every day we are asked if we're fasting (umefunga leo?). We keep promising them that we'll join them in their fast during the last week... but now that the last week has arrived we're feeling a little less committal. 14 hours of fasting seems light compared to the 24 hour fast we just finished today, but who wants to wake up at 4:30am for breakfast?

Chess and other things

A few weeks ago we went to Nairobi to get Patience's Dependant's Pass/Visa. We never quite got the pass, but the nice immigration supervisor gave Patience another three months in the country while they finish processing it. But while we were holding out hope for the pass, we spent a glorious two weeks at a friends apartment with running water, fresh sheets, furniture (not just a bed!), and a nearby Java House (we don't drink the coffee, but we love the burritos, hamburgers, and shakes).

Anyway, we also had a goal to get a beautiful chess set while we were in Nairobi, and for once we succeeded. Voila!

Its just soapstone, but its such pretty soapstone and the big pieces feel nice in the hand. We've missed playing and its great to know that we can both beat each other soundly on occasion.

The vendor threw in this little rhino for fun. Patience has named him...

Arnold

In related news, we're going to be packing and shipping a big box of stuff at the end of September. So now is the time to place your 'orders' if you want any special souvenirs. Here are some of the things we've found...

Fish soapstone bowls

Comfy leather sandals (beaded, plain or furry)

Woven bowls in many sizes designs and colors

Wooden carved statues ranging from 3 inches to 7 feet if you'd like (the price for shipping is per ton)

Necklaces, earings, bracelets (stone, bronze, gold, silver, you name it)

Baobab fiber bag (or cheaper if made with sisal fiber); "The Best Bag EVER!!" - Patience

Bark cloth (they usually come in long strips like this, imported from the Congo and Uganda)

And of course everyone's favorite carved animals. They come painted or not.

Today as we passed a curio shop I also saw some Vigango (anthropomorphic carved posts that Giriama use as grave markers) that have been traded on the art black market for several years - think of it like selling your ancestors grave stone. And there're the shells and starfish you can buy off the beach in contravention of conservation efforts; but I think we'll avoid 'importing' anything like that. But anything else, let us know and we'll see what we can do. Most of its much cheaper than you would guess.

Festival in Malindi

Daren has one of the best research gigs around. Basically, he goes party hopping. Well, he writes, does interviews and other such things too. He's a very hard worker, but yeah, we like to party. Because Daren is focusing his research on festivals and the like, we travel up and down the coast to where ever the next shindig is. About a week after moving to Mombasa, (this is back in March) we packed our bags again for a weekend trip to Malindi, a beautiful beach town about three hours away, to attend the first annual Malindi Cultural Festival. It was in celebration of the culture of varied tribes with at least 12 performances of different dances. Going was kind of spur of the moment;  The festival was very well attended, Kenyans from all over flocking to Malindi to join in the festivities. While Daren was busy videotaping and hobnobbing, I was once again getting Henna applied for the women's competition - 2nd place! (Daren says to apologize for the blurriness of some of the pictures. Apparently people tend to move when they're dancing). In addition to the dance festival, they had a women's night (for women's only dances), a lively forum for drug-treatment awareness, and a public seminar on Swahili identity.

What's a festival without a good Kenyan footrace!

Or some child acrobats.

The Kamba group warms up before the main show.

The Pokomo puts on a good show for the crowd.

We're not sure which group these women are from, but we love their flourescent "grass" skirts!

The Waata claim to be the "ORIGINAL" inhabitants of the coast. Mombasa, Malindi and other place names come from their language - of course others make similar claims... They are usually grouped in with other "hunter-gatherer" groups in the region.

Some fine examples of the newly revived national dress of the Mijikenda - the Hando. We're told that in precolonial days, this is all the women would wear.

A small sample of the crowd early in the afternoon, before everyone else arrived.

The Kenyan Coast's favorite Mzungu Model. Even Patience starts to lose it a little bit after fours hours of drawing and two hours of drying. I suppose that's the price of beauty, and the reason most people only go to such extents on their wedding day. (You know, once in their lives instead of twice in one summer).

A Flautist on the Farm

Last week after finishing an interview with an mganga (traditional doctor), I heard some music outside his homestead. At first I thought it was  radio, but the sound was much too clear. Since I happened to have a video camera in my hand I figured I should investigate. Enjoy! (especially you Courtney).

Our Apartment

As promised (a long long time ago) here's what we've done with our apartment.

First, this is the reason we relented to take an apartment without running water (we have it delivered in six 20 liter jerry cans every few days ). This isn't quite the full panorama, but its a nice sample of our view over the water.

The doors open up to the balcony patio - mainly we do our laundry out there, but its also nice and cool to sit there in the evenings. We had the curtains custom made (material and all) for about $40. You can also see my oud and a plate wall-hanging we recently picked up in Lamu.

Here's our office/den/parlor/sitting room. Please ignore the clutter. The fan has a long enough cord for us to move it anywhere in the room when its a bit hot. For now we're sticking with plastic chairs, but we may splurge on something nicer if we decide to ship things home. The couch and table were inherited from the previous occupants. We couldn't get rid of them if we wanted to do - they are HEAVY! The Table is made from tree halves instead of planks.

Our favorite wall hanging from Lamu - its the one in the office.

stove, fridge, fruit... 

coconut milk strainer, 70 liter water tank, plastic under fruit bowls to protect against termites

 

Another view of the kitchen.

Looking back across the room - we picked up the woven mats from a tourist shop by the market - BAD IDEA. They overcharged us by about 60%! That's after bargaining DOWN to $120 for the two large rectangular mats and the large round one, plus the two smaller rectangular mats for the kitchen floor.The other flooring option was linoleum (or leaving the hard tile and buying furniture).

 

The bathroom. Without running water, we keep a reservoir (50 liter tank) to fill the tank over the toilet after every flush. The sink is just about worthless, and the picture just barely cut out the 5 liter jug with holes in the bottom that we use as an emergency shower when we can't make it to the gym. (Want some incentive to go to the gym? Turn off your water at home, or at least the water to the shower.)

This is our breakfast table. The grapefruit is actually the best I've ever had - though they cost a pretty penny here. The pillows (we have six) were about $100 to have made. It was impossible to find anything that large pre-made in any of the stores. Labor is so cheap that almost everyone just has things made to fit whatever they need.

A few more wall hangings and a stool we inherited from the previous owners - its very heavy and not too steady. Another similar stool holds our drinking water tank (see above).

Our moving picture frame. If you move around the room the picture in the window changes. This is the Bhora Mosque that's our near neighbor (there's one other property between us). The Bhora are a group of Muslim Indians, or is it Indian Muslims? In any case they've lived in Mombasa since the 1900s (the earliest Swahili settlements in Mombasa are at least from the 13th century). This was built in the 1980s replacing an earlier mosque built on the site in the 1910s. They've recently updated the molding, fixtures and such.

A final look back out our apartment. The square box in the back is our 'bedroom'. The partitions are made from bamboo or the bark of some other tree - I'm not exactly sure. We can roll them up when cleaning, but its nice to have our bedroom enclosed a little bit - and it helps keep privacy when we have visitors. (Where else are you going to throw dirty socks in a hurry? - not that we wear socks mind you, sandals are the way to go in Mombasa.)

So that's our apartment. Its one of those places that oddly looks BIGGER when its full of stuff. As you can see, we don't have a guest room, but we're still up for anyone who wants to visit. Hope you enjoyed it, we sure are.

Kasa

Look what we found to do for Patience's birthday in Lamu!




There are about 20 green turtle nests on the ocean side of Manda Island (across the bay from Lamu island). Along with 15 other tourists (and a few resident wazungu) we took speed boats through the mangrove lined channels then took a 10 minute hike through the island until we reached the shore where they dug up the baby turtles. All but three (of 203) eggs had already hatched with over 100 already escaping to the sea. The caretaker (a former "poacher") dug the rest out by hand to help improve their odds (and the enjoyment of paying tourists).

first look in the nest

turtle love

down the ramp

and into the sea