Baadaye Zanzibar! Arusha...nakuja

The last few days have been a mix of good at bad. On the bad side we have:

1. I’m leaving Zanzibar tomorrow. I’ll miss it here…Fee, his family, the slow-paced lifestyle I’ve gotten too used to…and my favorite Zanzibari food, MIXI (apparently they don’t have it on the mainland).
2. I wiped my face in wet bird shit that I didn’t realize was on my sleeve. Brooke suggested it was probably left by Fish Market…as a sign that he’s alive. (Fish Market is the bird that Fee and I attempted to save after it had broken its wing…but then it mysteriously disappeared the next day. And yes, its name was Fish Market).
3. I was sick with a mysterious stomach ailment for the last week.
4. I finally went to a doctor, got wrongly diagnosed with food poisoning and was forced into getting an injection of some mysterious medicine in my butt.
5. I watched in silence and disgust as a group of men tied a heavy rope to the feet of a live crow they had caught. They held on to the other end of the rope, threw the crow into the air and harshly yanked it back to the ground once it started flying. They erupted in hysterics when the poor crow hit the dirt…and then repeated the whole thing. Maybe soon I’ll know enough Swahili to actually say something to them next time.

And on the good side we have:
1. I get to go to Arusha and study big animals and the politics of national parks in Tanzania! I’m excited to do something a little productive with my life again…plus it will be nice to have conversations with people who speak English fluently.
2. I’m not sick anymore! Although I refuse to believe it was the butt shot that cured me…but who knows.
3. I think I’ve finally learned the names of all of Fee’s relatives. I literally wrote out a family tree of his relatives who live in his house and on the same block and had Fee quiz me. There are 25. On this block. Not including all the relatives in other parts of Zanzibar.
4. Fee’s littlest nieces have gotten so used to a white person in the house that they now only cry if I get within touching distance of them.
5. I managed to work up enough energy to exercise in this heat a few times…by going running on the beach. It turns out, running on sand is wayyyy more exhausting than I thought. Luckily there is a beautiful ocean to jump into after!
6. We spent the weekend in Kendwa where I got to play some beach volleyball and Fee showed off his dance skills at the hotel’s weekly Saturday night party. There was also an amazinggg acrobatics show that night…see the picture. Plus the beach at Kendwa was glorious…minus a few naked Italians (not super appropriate in a Muslim country).
7. I’ve been trying to combat my laziness and get out and explore the island…maybe I missed something in the last four months. Turns out I did! I visited the Natural History Museum, went to the GIANT secondhand clothing market (there were some gems there that I would have snatched up in an instant (leopard print spandex, anyone?)…if only I had extra room in my luggage), explored a new beach in Bububu, and finally went to the House of Wonders Museum. The view from the top of the House of Wonders is incredible!