Uganda 11: June 14, 2004

Life in Kampala was very busy in May. Liz was preparing for the annual review of small grants projects and I had a score of visitors culminating in Treasury Under Secretary Taylor, whose party arrived (with three days notice) to attend the annual African Development Bank meeting. Combine Ugandan organization with ADB planning and you have the recipe for fun and more fun. President Museveni spoke at the main conference, which meant that no cell phones were allowed on the hotel premises. Well, we were coordinating Taylor's visit with that of Senator Landrieu, which meant that every 20 minutes I would have to sprint out of the resort to an Embassy van parked in a nearby field in order to speak to the control officer for Landrieu. I lost some weight that day.

To unwind from that hectic month and to gear up for more visitors, Liz and I got away for four days to Zanzibar. This being Africa, it took us about 12 hours to get there, but it was beautiful when we arrived. We flew from Entebbe to Nairobi to catch a second flight to Zanzibar. Unfortunately, it was cancelled, which meant a detour into downtown Nairobi for lunch during our four hour layover before our hop to Mombassa on the Kenyan coast. From Mombassa we caught a tiny little prop plane, which we dubbed "the flying matatu (minivan taxi)." I was a little concerned when we saw the pilot open the front window to hand something to a mechanic prior to departure, but Liz dealt with the flight with her customary stoicism, only asking 5 to 6 dozen questions about why the pilot was stretching and why was he looking out the window at the engine midflight. In any event, we landed in one piece.

Zanzibar is quite remarkable. Its a large island off the northern Tanzanian coast surrounded by a coral reef. The easy seas create beautiful, soft white sand beaches with clear, warm waters. Palm trees fringe the coast across the entire island. Over the years, Zanzibar has been ruled by Portugese kings, Arab sultans, British admirals and Black African socialists. The largely Muslim population is a mixture of Omani, Persian, Indian, and African. At one point, the Zanzibari sultans ruled the East African coast from Somalia to northern Mozambique and controlled a trading empire that sent goods and (sadly) slaves around the world. You can see the mixed heritage of Zanzibaris in their language -- Swahili -- which is a mixture of Bantu African languages and Arabic, their clothing -- almost all women cover their heads, though most wear brightly colored floral pattern dresses and headscarves, and their features -- sunny brown skin mixed with Middle-Eastern eyes.

Zanzibar was long famous for its exports of spices and many spice plantations remain. Walking the streets of Stonetown, its main city, you smell cloves, cinammon, cardomom, curry, turmeric, ginger, and black pepper. The food can be excellent and included fresh seafood (which we devoured after several months of chicken and beef), with tropical fruits and a variety of spices. Stonetown is a maze of narrow alleys, dotted with tourist shops, homes, mosques and the odd church. Little kids run out of intricately carved Arabic and Indian wooden doors into the street. Walking down to the port, we saw wooden dhows mingle in the water with rusty merchant vessels and modern motorboats. Young boys jumped off the pier into the water. Black vieled women walked down the street holding the hands of their brightly dressed little girls. Of course, it was extremely hot, so after a few hours we faded and needed to return to our resort.

We had a very relaxing four days, lounging about by the ocean, drinking dawas (vodka, honey, and lime) before dinners on the beach. The steady breeze kept things pretty cool (though it didn't drive away the mosquitos) and at night the stars sparkled overhead. For some reason, the resort really markets itself in Spain and many of our fellow guests spoke with a Castillan accent (except for the large group of Belgian travel agents) though there were a few other American families. It turns out the resort masseuse was Thai, so we got to practice our language skills a bit. We planned to go snorkeling (Zanzibar has some of the world's best diving, as well) but were too lazy to make it to the boat on time. Instead we napped -- though we did manage a run and a few long walks down the beach and a half-hour trip on a paddle boat. Liz almost made it the entire visit without checking her e-mail and if I recall correctly only used the cell phone to call her parents a few times a day.

On our way off the island, we stopped at Jozanii forest, populated by colobus monkeys, small black bodies, red tails, with white hair and whiskers. They're quite accustomed to humans and I got a good picture of one napping a few feet above me. Zanzibar has 18,000 hectares of mangrove swamp and we made a quick visit to see the dense vegetation and black crabs. Then it was off to our plane, a quick switch in Nairobi (we sat behind Miss Uganda on our way back to Entebbe), and we were home.