Greetings from Tanga!

COUNTRY: Tanzania
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Building, renovation & conservation
WRITTEN BY: Tanzania Gappers 2012

Since the last update we have had a very eventful week in Zanzibar, as well as some more exciting times back home in Tanga.

After a very, very, VERY long journey of a taxi, a bus, another taxi and a ferry we finally arrived in Zanzibar. Although we didn’t know exactly where we were going and had a bit of a delay when we got off at the wrong bus stop, you’ll be glad to hear we all made it in one piece. After a big meal at Mecury’s in Stonetown (named after
Freddie Mecury who was born in Zanzibar) we got a good night’s sleep and headed north to Nungwi the next day.

Although the morning saw quite a lot of rain and consequently many worried faces, as soon as we set foot in beautiful Nungwi the sun was out and it stayed out the whole time we were there. With our villas literally on the beach, we enjoyed two days of lying on the beach, enjoying candlelit dinners and sipping on cocktails. Saturday night saw most of the group dance the night (and most of the morning) away at the full moon party in Kendwa. The next day Lizzie, Kaitlyn, Laura, Chloe and Josie went parasailing and the views were glorious!

We headed back to Stonetown on Monday morning for a few days of shopping and exploring the laneways. Hugh bought a lovely African outfit which we have barely seen him take off since. We got a slightly dodgy looking boat out to Prison Island where we got up close to some giant tortoises, where Kaitlyn got slightly overwhelmed and hugged many of the poor creatures.

There was some jumping off the pier into the crystal clear water to end the day. Most of the group left early Wednesday morning, while Kaitlyn, Lizzie, Chloe and Laura stayed on an extra couple of days. During this time we visited the Jozani National Park where we got to see some Red Colobus monkeys and climb through some mangroves. We also visited the east side of Zanzibar where we spent the afternoon at a luxury resort which was a slight change from camp! We were all excited to get back to Tanga and get back into project work.

The weekend we got back we were special guests at the local primary school graduation which was quite different to an Australian primary school graduation, featuring much more dancing and drumming, and to be honest was just better in general. It was nice to see some of the students we knew from the village up there receiving their graduation certificates, and we were treated to a meal at the school where we ate traditionally with our hands.

When we were in Zanzibar a new group arrived at camp to join in working on the houses and had finished rendering one of the houses while we were gone. We spent this week working together to render the second house, paint the finished house as well as keeping up English lessons. We are all getting far better at rendering, with Steven pushing through even with his heavily blistered feet.

Lauren was very excited to receive her package in the mail, but slightly less excited to find out that the nickname the villagers have given her means ‘turkey’ in Swahili. Today we had the honour of passing the finished house over to one of the mama’s who has been on her own for a while now. It was really touching seeing her move to her new house with her family and we wish them all the best.

We are very excited to head to Kenya tomorrow for two weeks of some different work and to go on safari!