Off to the bush

This will be my last post for a month- our group is off for a month long safari out of all internet contact. We just finished an amazing week snorkeling and studying coral reef ecology. I'll post some details when I return to civilization.

Zanzibar Cathedral

Today is the third day of our free travel week. We have all been given 300 US dollars to travel on for eight days, including providing our own transportation to our next stop at Tanga on the Tanzanian mainland. The majority of students have broken up into smaller groups and are staying at various beach and party locations through out the island of Zanzibar. I wouldn't have minded spending a few days at a beach, but a whole week is more than I can handle (especially since the next week will be snorkeling and studying coral reef ecology every day). So I'm staying here in Stone Town, the main city on Zanzibar, at St. Monica's hostel. It's right next to the Anglican cathedral, which was built on the site of the former slave market. It's a nice place- I actually like it better than the more expensive place we stayed as a group. I just try not to think too much about the thousands of people who were bought, sold and died in grimy stone holding chambers directly underneath where my room is now.

The cathedral seems very odd to me. I'm not sure if it is even technically a Cathedral- I know that the seat of the Tanga Diocese (the mainland) is on the mainland, and also that there are very few Christians in Zanzibar. The overall population of the island is 90-98% Muslim, and the English service I attended had only 5 other worshippers - two of whom were readers and ushers. So if Zanzibar is a separate diocese, it must be a very small one.

The cathedral is also a tourist attraction. All day long, steady streams of Europeans and Americans arrive to pay 3 dollars to visit the church and the one underground cell that has been preserved. Before I moved to the hostel, I asked if I could go in the Cathedral- not as a tourist, but just to pray. The answer was a flat no- something that really disturbed me. I understand the need to regulate and maintain a historic site with heavy traffic- but my gut rebels at the thought of ever requiring people to pay for access to religion.

The inside of the church is very reflective of it’s origins- the stained glass windows, the wood carvings and inscriptions are all dedicated to recounting the history of the British crusade to end slavery. (British economic and naval pressure forced the Sultan of Zanzibar to close the slave markets around the 1870’s, at great financial loss both personally and to the Island economy) The altar was built on the exact site of the former whipping post, and near the pulpit there is a crucifix made from ‘wood from the tree under which David Livingstone died’. For an Anglican church, the de facto beautification of early missionaries and anti-slavery crusaders was unexpected.

My overall impression of the cathedral is that it was built not as a center of worship, but as a monument to moral achievement. I often hear talk about the effects of economic and occupational colonialism on the attitudes of locals peoples, but my impressions of the cathedral have led me to wonder if there is not also a major aspect of moral imperialism in world history.




This will be the last week that I have anything resembling regular email access, so if anyone wants to contact me, now is the time.

Midnight train

Our finals are done, and we have left Nairobi for good - at least until we pass through to fly home. They were moderately hard- I'm really not sure how I did onthe Swahili exam, but since the politics course is going to be graded on a curve and half the class claims to have understood next to nothing, I'm sure I'll befine for that class. We could have flown to Zanzibar, but as a group choose the much cooler option- taking the overnight train to Mombasa. The train left the station at around 7:30, and arrived in Mombasa the next day at 11:00. A longer journey, considering that even with bad roads it only took us 10 hours by bus. However, the unique opportunity was worth the time spent. The trains in East Africa, some of you (Kate) may be interested to know, are all on narrow gauge tracks. This means that the rails are closer together than they are in most Americansystems, but exactly the same as the ones that I got to walk when I worked at Disneyland.

I can't recall if I've ever even walked around an overnight train before,but I don't think I have. I think I would have remembered how incredibly small everything is. The corridor is just wide enough to allow two people my size to pass- anyone larger and you had to duck into a door way or have one person retreat to the end of the compartment. The compartments are two seats with fold down beds above them – maybe 8 feet by 8 feet total. I slept on a bottom bunk, but those on the top had straps across the opening to keep them from falling out when the train jerked or stopped! One thing that is probably different on an American train- the toilets were basically holes in the floor of the train. This kind of toilet is pretty standard in rural areas here. The difficulty going to the bathroom was, however, greatly increased by the bucking and swaying of the train.

We spent just one day and night in Mombasa and flew out the next morning to Zanzibar Island – a short flight, but the only direct route since the ferry closed. While we were there we visited the Portuguese Fort Jesus, and it blew my mind. Every thing that I have seen- in person or in pictures- in America is puny in comparison. Our wooden stockades seem to belong to a different category than this thick solid stone monstrosity – some of the walls must be 4 stories high. It withstood a multiyear siege by the Omanis – in the end it was being successfully defended by only nine men.

"Experiential Learning"

We've been back in Nairobi for more than a week now, but I haven't had much of a chance to write: mainly because of the amount of work we've been assigned. In the last week we've had daily Swahili homework, an essay on Islam in Lamu, 40-50 pages of reading a night, and due tomorrow, another essay on politics and 15 very difficult short answer questions. The Islam and Swahili courses are at an introductory level, but the politics course is probably 300 level.

The work load wouldn't be bad at all- if we were at LC. The difference is that here, we are in class for six hours a day, every day, and the commute time from our home stays is an hour each way. We have no internet or research facilities, and thus we have to hand write and recopy all work (something that is extremely difficult for me).
When we are at home for the maybe four hours a day we could do our homework, there is intense pressure to spend time with and learn from our host families- especially as we only have one more week with them.

I don't mean to complain too much- the material is all very interesting, and I'm enjoying being in Kenya. On the other hand, I was expecting a much less academically intense experience, and wasn't prepared for this. The trip was described by past students and promoted as 'experiential learning'- not academics in Africa.




Ps- if you're reading my blog and I haven't talked to you about it, could you leave me a comment to let me know? I want to make sure I got the address to everybody who wanted it.

Lamu

It's been two days, but here's more about Lamu. It is one of the few Swahili settlements that has been continuously inhabited for the last 800 years or so. The town is built mainly out of locally quarried coral rock (old coral reef that had petrified and been uplifted). On the oldest buildings, this means that the chunks of rock are cemented together and you can see the various textures and colors as you walk along the walls. Newer constructions use cinderblocks created from ground up coral rock, and it's interesting to see buildings with 4 stories, each added in a different building style.
The streets are paved stone and very narrow- you can usually reach out and almost touch both sides. Except for the main street one row in from the waterfront, none of the lanes are straight for more than a block. They wind around with no discernible pattern, but luckily it's not easy to get lost- the city's not so big that you can't reorient by heading back towards the water. The confusion seem inconvenient until you realize how much cooler the narrow lanes keep the city during the hot late mornings.
There are no cars in Lamu- they wouldn't fit on the streets. Transportation is by foot, donkey or boat. There are thousand of donkeys (on the whole of the island), so much so that Lamu is famous for it's donkey sanctuary which provides veterinary health services and cares for retired donkeys.
The best thing about Lamu is hard to describe. When I was taking pictures I felt the same way- nothing I took could really accurately capture the feel of the city. Maybe because it is much less influenced by tourist resorts, Lamu has a feel of community that was absent elsewhere on the coast. I loved that people on the street greeted us, even when they weren't trying to sell us things. Without cars and modern construction, it feels like a slice of Swahili culture that is struggling but still managing to survive the forces of modernization and globalization.

Back from the Coast

Today is our first day back in classes in Nairobi after our 9 day trip to the coast. The change of pace from mostly 'experiential learning' to classroom sessions is a bit of a shock- I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to having homework!

In brief, our itinerary at the coast consisted of
a 10 hour bus drive to the coast. The scenery was mildly interesting, but probably not worth the horrible roads.
A one night and morning stay in Mombasa: basically just long enough to go to the cloth market and buy ourselves kangas- the printed pieces of fabric worn as skirts and head/shoulder coverings.
A visit to a Islamic religious college (madrasa), and a farming homestead where 3 generations (~40-50 people) lived together and farmed their 10 acres.
An overnight stay in Malindi, unfortunately in the most touristy section of town, and a visit to the ruins of the 14th-17th century stone swahili town of Gede
And then 5 days in Lamu, an island city farther north up the Kenyan coast. Lamu was amazing. Except for the various upset stomachs that we all seemed to get while there, I wouldn't have minded staying there the whole nine days.
I've got to get back to class now, but I'll write more about Lamu tomorrow.


A note about pictures: because of limited time on the internet, I'm not going to be posting any of my pictures until I return to the States. Then you'll get a whole bunch at once, probably broken up into the different components of the trip.

Riruta Satellite

My host families house is in the suburb of Riruta Satellite, about 30 minutes from the city center on the 4w bus, which we also take to school. Most of the buses are not run by the government- various private companies run regular routes all over the city. Unfortunately, this means that there are no maps or schedules for the buses. Normallythe buses come in an almost constant stream, so schedules aren't an issue. The last two days, however, have been the start of the school year, and so many of the buses have been hired to drive the children to private boarding schools. Some are quite far away- my host brother went to school in Uganda.

The roads outside the city center are all dirt, which means they are in various states of disrepair. Right near my house they are particularly bad- potholes can be several feet deep and take up half the road! They are supposed to be fixed- there are even large piles of rocks waiting to be broken up and filled in the street (of course, the piles are right next to the holes, forcing anyone driving to go THROUGH the holes). The roads aren't straight, either. They curve all over the place like they've grown up organically instead of being laid down by any sort of plan.

Nearly all the space along the roads is taken by small market stalls. Every 200 feet or so the kinds of shops repeat- You never have to go far to find food! All the food at these markets is amazingly fresh and flavorful. I may have noted that before, but it still impresses me- everything they eat is farmer's market quality or better. I can't understand why anyone would buy their produce at the supermarkets when they have better options. Even the meat is super fresh. A friend's host father told her that if the meat had been refrigerated at all he wouldn't even think of buying it.







My new favorite quote, from the Kenyan newspaper in reference to the Larry Craig scandal; "After all, samesex marriage is as American as hiphop."