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May 17, 2005

Zanzibar Time (Part II of II: Nungwi)

Nungwi, Zanzibar

Friday, April 29 to Tuesday, May 17, 2005:

In General

On Friday morning I took a shared minivan up to Nungwi on the northern-most tip of the island. A small, tranquil village of thatched-roof huts situated on pristine white beaches overlooking the clear, aquamarine sea, Nungwi is a decidedly relaxed place, particularly so after experiencing the comparative bustle of Stone Town. With only a couple of dirt roads and paths, Nungwi offers visitors a collection of budget bungalows and several pricier secluded resorts, a handful of family-run restaurants, and the odd souvenir shop, plus a couple of internet cafes. Other than that, there isn't much to see or do there but bake on the beach and go scuba diving.

I checked into a room at a budget series of huts called "Jambo Brothers," which had its own small stretch of beach and a gazebo with picnic tables and hammocks in it for reading and eating breakfast. It also provided excellent views of the sun setting in the west below the pink and violet waters, often eclipsed by the shark fin-like triangular sails of dhows floating slowly past. For $10 a night, I had a room with a decent bed, functional mosquito netting (important) and its own bathroom. The place was busy with numerous backpackers, mainly from the U.K., Australia and Germany. I fell in with several groups of travellers and met a number of people during my time there, including some Canadian volunteers working in Kenya and Tanzania, some British volunteers working in Uganda and (catch a trend here?) some Peace Corps volunteers taking a temporary break from working in Honduras (near La Ceiba). Attached to Jambo Brothers' small, thatched roof reception building was "East Africa Watersports," a small German/South African run dive shop. Upon checking in, I stopped there to get information on dive trips to Mnemba Atoll, the supposed top site in Zanzibar, situated on the east side of the island near the point where the continental shelf of Africa ends and the waters plunge off into the depths (allowing for sightings of large pelagics including sharks). I didn't plan to dive any of the reefs on the north or west side of the island, assuming they would be similar to those you can see out of Stone Town. I also didn't expect that I would want to stay in a place as quiet as Nungwi, despite its scenery and atmosphere, for more than 3 or 4 days. However, as it turned out, things changed.

I wound up spending the rest of my time in Zanzibar in Nungwi --- a little less than 3 weeks. Once I was settled in I found it a very difficult place to leave. I spent 10 days completing my PADI Rescue Diver and Emergency First Response courses at a dive shop about 3.5 kilometers south down the beach in an even quieter little town called Kendwa. I did some regular diving as well, and had plenty of time to read on the beach or at one of the two main restaurants overlooking the water (each with large wooden balconies on stilts supporting them above the sand and rocks below). There was also a decent semi-open air bar with hammocks and couches, not to mention two pet monkeys running around on leashes and generally giving me creepy stares as I sipped my beer (the owner constantly explains to those who think keeping the monkeys is cruel that they had been found injured and nursed back to health and that they could not be reintroduced into the wild because their colonies would not accept them again).

Few Places, Many Cats

As mentioned, apart from a few restaurants and bars, there weren't many other places to go in Nungwi, apart from the beach. For lack of choice (although it really didn't bother me), I ate 90% of my meals in Nungwi at just two restaurants: a place called "Fat Fish" and a better place with a smaller menu called "Paradise." Both served fresh fish and seafood dishes as well as burgers and pizza, but Paradise put an Indian and sometimes an oriental twist on their food and was surprisingly good. At night, Fat Fish had a DJ playing everything from techno to lame 80s music to local traditional music. The monkey bar ("Bwana Willie's") was jammed with travellers and locals alike, sipping on Tanzania's very good brands of rather uncreatively named beer ("Kilimajaro," "Tusker," "Safari," "Serengeti"...). There was also another popular bar on the beach named "Cholo's," which resembled a hut constructed around the bows of two old wooden boats. Otherwise there were a few local bars where you could go to shoot pool, but nothing else. As far as other places to eat, the only worthwhile place was a food stand run by a man with his own grill selling skewers of meat kebabs, potatos and fish (plus fish heads) for about the equivalent of 20 cents each. The problem with eating there was that it was near a bar where the local drug dealers liked to hang out --- they weren't among the friendlier people on the island.

Eating at any restaurant in Nungwi involves becoming extremely popular with the resident cats --- there are many of them, some not more than 7 or 8 weeks old. As soon as your food comes out, you can expect 2 to 3 cats to materialize out of thin air and meow shrilly at your feet until you feed them. Of course, once you feed them they feel comfortable jumping up onto your lap and then the table. They provide a bit of entertainment but I was constantly leaving the table coated in a thin layer of fur.

The Roaming Nerd

Somewhat neurotically, I've been hauling a ridiculous amount of books about since I reached South Africa, receiving some stares and amused comments. I can't find places to trade or sell the books I've already read and loathe the idea of simply leaving them behind, so I now have a small library with me which I have to lug around separately in two large, bulging plastic bags. In Nungwi I managed to polish off a few smaller classics I had never gotten around to reading or which I had read as far back as high school with little recollection now as to what they were about. They include "The Great Gatsby," and "The Sun Also Rises," as well as Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair." I also read "The Rachel Papers" by Martin Amis and another collection of Jorge Louis Borges' short stories which I picked up during my time in Argentina. Were it not for how busy the Rescue Diver course kept me, I probably would have gone through the other 8 or so unread novels I was carrying around (in addition to the ones I had already finished).

Rescue Diver and EFR Courses

My first two dives out of Nungwi were with "Sensation Divers," an outfit that posts signs everywhere and seems to be the "Globo-Gym" of the various north Zanzibar dive shops. My trip out to Mnemba Atoll provided views of large schools of tropical fish, numerous green turtles, and large, colorful coral formations, but none of the pelagic fish I was hoping for. When I returned, the instructor who was working at the desk asked me if I would be interested in beginning my Rescue Diver course there. I had been thinking about doing this already, so I told him I would think it over. I then stopped by East Africa Watersports (www.diving-zanzibar.com/) to see how their prices compared and get a sense for which place (if any of them) seemed right.

I think it was the twisted sense of humor of the East Africa Watersports owners, Eileen and Mikhail, that convinced me to sign on with them, although I did take a few days and sign up with a dive with them first before making my choice. Mikhail (from Germany) has a sarcastic and warped personality, and seems to have willfully contracted a creative form of Tourette's syndrome, as he is constantly uttering imaginative profanity after imaginative profanity, without seeming even to realize it (if they awarded a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize for literary and sometimes even poetic uses of four-letter words, Mikhail would be world-famous). When I later mentioned that I had considered signing up for my course with Sensation Divers he scowled and uttered something along the lines of, "Yah! Zat vould be a very good decizion... if you VANTED TO F#$%ING DIE!" It turns out that Sensation Divers had a poor reputation for safety owing to a very serious accident that had occurred several years earlier.

Although I had signed on with East Africa Watersports, I wound up taking my course down the beach in Kendwa with a company called "Scuba Do" (www.scuba-do-zanzibar.com/Diving.htm). East Africa had an arrangement in the low season with Scuba Do through which Scuba Do did most of the certification courses. The arrangement meant that I had to take a short boat trip or 25 minute walk down the beach at low tide each morning and come back again in the evening, but this was hardly a hassle.

The Rescue Diver course (including EFR) normally takes about 5 days, but mine took 10 ("Are they slow or are you stupid?" asked Eileen dryly). The instructors were busy teaching numerous new open water students and leading regular dives. In addition, the only instructor who could teach the prerequisite Emergency First Response course, Christian (the owner), had to spend the first few days of my course in Dar es Salaam working on the assembly of a boat there. However, far from making me sit around and wait, the other instructors, Tammy (Christian's partner) and Jon (an Australian who had just started working there on the first day of my course), allowed me to come with them on dives for no extra cost and practice certain skills which I would then repeat when Christian came back.

When the course did finally begin in earnest, it was challenging but fun, not to mention much more thorough and involved than the minimum requirements set by PADI. The EFR course involved learning to provide CPR and basic first aid treatment (in general, not just in a diving context), with most of the skills practiced on an adrogynous rubber mannequin named "Annie." The Rescue Diver course then applied that knowledge to providing those skills in diving situations, while teaching various skills needed to deal with locating, recovering and treating victims, accident prevention, equipment malfunction and self rescue. My final exercise involved several mock rescue scenarios that required me to swim out to a (pretending) unconscious diver and tow him to safety while administering CPR and simultaneously removing his and my own equipment to facilitate a shore or boat exit from the water.

In the end the course was well worth the extra time and I thought Christian, Tammy and Jon were among the best instructors I have met. Although I think Christian has an unhealthy attachment to his androgynous Annie doll, as exhibited by jealous accusations that I was trying to steal her away from him.

James Taylor Hates Me

I complained in the last entry that Stone Town is heavy on papasi/tout hassle. Not so for Nungwi, although it did turn out to have one very memorable character, namely one loud-mouthed alcoholic wanna-be-gigolo who goes by the name of James Taylor (no joke). Far from trying to shower the people he loves with love, this James Taylor would shower visitors to Nungwi with unwanted fake-friendly attention that would usually culminate in hitting them up for beer or getting them to sign up for an over-priced snorkeling trip with a connection of his (for a commission). Displaying the indefatigable, overbearing confidence characteristic of the self-delusional, James Taylor would latch onto new arrivals at Jambo Brothers and other Nungwi hostels with gusto, bellowing "You are most welcome to Nungwi!" in an officious, booming voice, baffling the unsuspecting and leading them to assume that he was somehow affiliated with the ownership/management, when he most certainly was not. Then he would latch on, following them around and offering various things for which he would receive a commission. Considering himself handy with the ladies, he would interject himself into groups of women on the beach until they generally grew uncomfortable enough to pack up their things and move on.

The problem with James Taylor (one of many problems, actually, but among the greatest) was that he never knew when to quit. Perhaps because he was often too drunk to remember when he had made his many pitches to somebody and been declined before --- but probably just because of his cocksure, steamroller personality --- he would try to strike up a conversation with you and follow you around just about every single time he saw you. Whenever I saw his smiling face, I just had to make myself scowl back and turn my head to keep him from walking on after me. After a while, this seemed to work. But one day when I was in a hurry to make it to East Africa Watersports for a dive, he stepped out from a group of people, stood in my way, and stated/asked (in a tone of voice suited only to proclamations): "Yes, you are welcome! Do you know a man from Russia who is named Vladimir Putin?" I didn't know what the point of this was, but didn't care to find out. I was late and he was drunk.

"No," I said, and kept walking.

"No?" he asked. "Excuse me! Excuse me!" As I rounded the corner, he then said, "It is extremely rude to walk from somebody! We cannot all be white you know!"

That did it. I wasn't surprised to hear James Taylor play the racist card on me, since he had already done it to the Canadian volunteers (working in Kenya and Tanzania!) and one of the Peace Corps volunteers. Basically, if he didn't like you, he called you a racist. I spun around and yelled at him in front of about 15 other people: "How dare you call me racist! I just don't like YOU! You're the racist for thinking its anything else." Or something to that effect. I then rounded the corner, where Eileen and Mikhail asked me what the shouting was about. I told them.

"Zat f&$#ing guy!" began Mikhail, before unleashing a torrent of additional things I can't repeat here.

From then on James Taylor would give me an icy knowing smirk whenever he saw me and silently pass me by. How sweet it was to be hated by him.

Travel Fatigue and Malaria-Med Weirdness

Well into "Month 7" of my travels, I realized during my time on Zanzibar that I was caught in the throws of a semi-travel fatigued funk. Part of the funk manifested itself in my lack of enthusiasm for the prospect of a Serengeti safari or Kilimanjaro climb on the mainland, two activities I had been quite excited about when originally planning my trip. During my stay in Nungwi, however, my thoughts on these excursions was along the lines of "Animals; Mountains; Big Fat Deal." I wasn't having a bad time in Nungwi --- far from it. However, my ability to generate any real excitement about leaving and going anywhere else was at an all-time low. During my last week in Nungwi, I realized that I was indeed going to write off my trip to the Tanzanian mainland and look for flights directly to Egypt. However (in an effort to absolve myself of some of the blame) I suspect that part of my mood had to do with the larium I was taking for malaria. Strong stuff, I was eager to be off of it and done with strange dreams in which my hands turned into killer crabs and tried to attack me (rather like in a scene from the original "Evil Dead" movie). Moreover, I was eager to be done with the risk of malaria, period. It seemed that some traveller on Zanzibar was coming down with it for the first time every third day or so. (At one point a German girl woke up nearly everybody in Jambo Brothers at 4 AM, delirious and panicked, running a 104 degree fever. I say "nearly everybody," because I slept through it like a log, probably dreaming that my appendages had turned into killer crustaceans.)

"I Don't Understand English: Can You Speak Up?!"

About a week before leaving Zanzibar, I met "KC," a lobbyist of sorts from Washington, D.C. (originally from South Carolina). Four months into a seven month sabbatical, she had come to Tanzania from Asia and was heading to Egypt next. We were both planning on going there at about the same time, so we decided to look into buying tickets and heading that way together. Intelligent, outgoing and very sincere and good-natured, KC was decent, pleasant company for the most part. She certainly wasn't as irritable as I was, being quite naturally upbeat. So far, so good, right? Yes, but the problem was that I wasn't feeling particularly well-suited to traveling with somebody else and found, after a short while, that I was regretting the decision to do so. The reason? KC was extraordinarily nice but possessed an innocent and unknowing ability to annoy the living bejesus out of me. Or, perhaps more accurately, I was grouchy and possessed an extraordinary ability to be annoyed by just about anybody.

Whatever the case, I only realized the extent of my capacity for insanity in KC's presence after our plane tickets to Cairo had been purchased. So things were more or less locked up until we got to Egypt. After that, I figured we would travel for a few days together, most likely only in Cairo, and then go on our ways. Her time in Egypt was limited to about a week, while I had planned on spending two to three weeks there or more. I figured that I could remain patient and amiable for a short span of time. I wasn't ready to go so far as to say "let's not travel together anymore." I didn't hate KC and she didn't deserve it. On the contrary, I liked her. It was just that I was overcome with a peculiar desire to throttle her senseless on certain select occasions. There was a certain happily naive innocence about her that made me scratch my head and wonder what planet she was from.

Ahem. There was also this one little thing she did:

KC had met two Spanish travelers, Allen and Vera, during her time on the Tanzanian mainland. They came to Nungwi a couple of days before we left and, because Allen didn't speak too much English (and, moreover, did a lot of diving), I had a chance to brush up on my Spanish with him. I was relieved to find that I hadn't forgotten as much as I'd feared since leaving South America some 7-8 weeks earlier. In fact, it seemed that certain things had gelled over time (verb conjugation), although I had lost a little vocabulary. But it was only with Allen and Vera present that KC managed to set my nerves ablaze with one certain thing she would do... That thing was talking excrutiatingly slowly and loudly to Allen, as if speaking to a deaf and possibly senile octogenarian. While I understand that the intention was to better permit Allen to interpret her English, the fact of the matter was that Allen knew certain English words (which he could understand when spoken at a regular speed and decibal level) and didn't know certain words (which he still wasn't going to understand when spoken twice as loudly and three times more slowly). Listening to the wildly exaggerated over-annunciation of each word was torture and might have led Allen to suspect that something was wrong with KC or that KC thought that something was wrong with him, or (probably) both. I know I should grow up and not dwell on it, but I have to say it here: Each time I overheard KC try to communicate with Allen, a little piece of my sanity went up in flames:

(Note that the exclamation points after each syllable reflect not only excitement (!!!!!) but a full stop and nearly second-long pause)

KC: "SOOOO!
ALL-
EN!
HOW!
WAS!
YOUR!
DIVE!
INGGGGGG!
TO!
DAY???!!!!!"

Allen: "Yes, umm, good, very nice, you know, lot of nice fishes and, how you say, corales?"

KC: "AHH!
YES!
CORALES!
CORE-
ALL!
I!
AM!
GLAD!
TO!
HEAR!
ITTTT!

One can gather from the above that Allen, while less than fully fluent, knows enough English to survive a basic conversation. However, perhaps to make him feel more at ease, KC decided to use her 100 or so words of Spanish vocabulary in conversations with both Allen and Vera in an effort to make herself more
SYM!
PAT!
ICK!
OH!

For example...

KC: "SOOOO!
ALL-
EN!
WHEN!
YOU!
ARE!
IN!
SPAIN!
DO!
YOU!
GET!
TO!
DO!
MUCHO!
DIVE!
ING????!!!!!!!!"

She didn't just do this with Allen, either --- she spoke slowly and loudly to just about any person she suspected did not speak English as their first language. I witnessed this at a dinner with the Spanish, two French women and two Italians. Everybody there spoke English fluently, but for one of the Italians and Allen. Yet she spoke to every person there
AN!
AWE!
FULL!
LOTT!
LIKE!
THISSSSS!!!!!!!

Was I right to be just short of mortified? In general? On behalf of American travellers everywhere? I don't know. I suspect I'm being a bit unfair. In any event, when she wasn't doing this sort of thing, KC was good company. I'm glad I didn't choke her or yell or say something inappropriate. But there were times when the steam must have been billowing visibly out of my ears.

And me? I'm delightful to travel with. No problems from me whatsoever.

Posted by Joshua on May 17, 2005 12:31 PM
Category: Zanzibar
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