Hello Everyone- first i need to send out some shout- outs
Maureen- CONGRATULATIONS!!! I just read my comments!! I am so happy for you! I hope everything is going alright and you have been healthy and happy!!
Renee- thanks for the pics!! Ty is looking like the quite handsome gentleman!
Dale- Thank you for calling to wish me a Happy Thanskgiving! It was so nice to hear from you!
John Henry- I have now returned from working in Dar and I will be in Tanga for the next two weeks- I will be meeting with Mr Charles and getting things straight this week, talking to some tour guides here abt private coaster rental and safari expenses in order to get the budget- i apologize i have been so busy with other projects here. Could you email me the address of the Toledo Early Start school? I have a bunch of cards and letters to send them from the Toledo Sec. School here
NanaDan- i learned how to make ugali, coconut oil, palm oil, and lots of african dishes- ill try my new cooking skills out on you when i get bak :) thx for the email
Simon- I miss you
Ok!!!! So, below are numerous pictures of a survey and evaluation of the area known as Kizimkazi, located on the southern tip of Zanzibar. I went there to recruit local artists and musicians for an upcoming cultural enhancement festival and also to get the support for the festival from the village leaders- known as sheha's. I also did a survey and eval of the tourism industry in the area and speculation for the establishment of a permanent cultural enhancement center. I worked with two guys, Omar and Ally, who took me around all of the villages. You'll read more about them through the captions.
This was all done abt two months ago- since then I have been working on the music festival with this team in Kizimkazi at the Promised Land Beach Resort to set everything up- do promotions, artists contracts, seek sponsorship, business proposals, more evals, and in two weeks i will be returning to do another workshop with the two tour guides and an artists workshop to do the stage design for the festival and get everything straight for the children's programs ( kites made from recycled materials found in the village and boats made from plastic trash and also a recitation competition of the Q'uran! _kizimkazi is a predominantly Muslim village).
In the past few weeks I have been in Dar es Salaam doing the promotions and sponsorship for the music festival.
two weeks before that I successfully got 9 CASES OF BOOKS DONATED TO THE TOLEDO SECONDARY SCHOOL through the US Army guys that were here. we made it on local television then on National Television!! Can you believe it? You should have seen how excited the students and staff were! These books are a HUGE enhancement for the curriculum and its amazing. Since this date there have been three full pages full of students who have checked out these books to read in their own time! Im going to see what i can do to get a wood shelf donated to the school so the books can be kept where the students can see them- something like a library hopefully! You will see pics soon!!
Our last day of school is this tues- we are grading tests and filling out forms now and then we will have a holiday from then until Jan- so this next week in Tanga I will be working on the TIYO coming over and the medical mission and then I will be going to Kizimkazi and dar for more work
also in the past month I was up in a remote village of moshi- called Machame- doing a survey and eval on an initiative based group doing tree nurseries and conservation with Julius Shoo. I will upload those pics too. Simon told me of a great foot-pump water irrigation system in Morogoro so I would like to see abt getting that for the nursery and Simon has donated towards that so- THANK YOU SIMON...and I miss you. So I am going to weigh the options of this irrigation system or natural drip-irrigation to see which is more feasable and cheapest and easiest to maintain....
so- as you can see its been a bit busy for me. I am finding things I am very interested in, meeting extremely intelligent individuals and discovering lots of small ways in which i can contribute and use my education. please enjoy the pics! Let me know how you are and whats going on with you!
This is a sea creature we found while walking in the mangroves on an uninhabited island. It is called a "sungura" in swahili- which means rabbit. as you can see, it has tiny little antler things and big eyes, it is gooey and when u sit it upright- its belly is a light tan color and there is a defecation hole on its back- it defecates purple oozey liquid that looks like jelly- it looks like a tiny mythical dragon to me and i was so interested in it- i am going bak to find more so i can take better pictures, this is the type of thing i work on with Ally and Omar, we find creatures like this, then we look it up and find out info abt it so they can explain it on their next tour...
this is an average sunset at kizimkazi- yea, i know....
thats me standing on a dock which was just repaired. it was built 3 weeks prior to this pic. 5 days prior to this pic, there were strong winds and the entire thing was spilt down the middle- it was an embarrassment because this land was purchased by the govt and this was built for govt visitors so i went to tak a pic of the damage and it had been fixed already- which is extrmely rare in Tz. there is a bridge in Tanga - Mkwakwani bridge- that connects children in a village with a way to cross over to the school- this bridge has been collapsed for the entire duration of my stay in Tz and there are rusty nails hanging from it and two kids have been injured trying to cross it- yet nothing has been done to fix it- the local rotary club is now taking it on as a project!
This pic is for those of you have mushroom hunted in the past with me- i havent forgotten our adventures and i have been fungus-spotting and thinking of you
This is a painting done by the man you see below- Kizimkazi is full of talented artists- but there is no real art management or presentation- so most of this talent is wasted unless a tourist just happens to be walking in remote areas out in the village like me- but we were doing the survey and eval to find just such artists- so this artist was recruited to come to the festival also to set up a booth. Some artists do make it into the touristy areas to set up shop- but shops in tourists areas are EXTREMELY expensive and most artists cant even dream of affording supplies- let alone a shop of their own to display their talents Dad- i thought youd like this painting
This is the artist working on another painitng. This style of painitng is common throughout Zanzibar and many oceanic scenes are the norm- however, there is a new generation of artists branching out into abstract and different designs, but they are rare- its these types of rare artists we are looking for that are trying new things that we want to bring to the festival and the cultural enhancement center. keep in mind there are very few art institutes here, i only know of one in Bagamoyo presently- these people are self taught or apprentice and learn by watching others paint so much of the work is mimicked- which artists here are trying to do different things to break away- but tourists arent really interested in abstract art and buy more of the ocean views or Maasai art.
JUST MONKEYING AROUND!!!!
hand made baskets from palm leaves
the kikoi (read on for further explanation of kikoi)
colored palm fronds used fro different types of basket weaving
This is the guy who runs an art shop called "moto" which is just a small shop on the side of the road in the village- he makes all the kikois and he also hand weaves baskets, and mats, and puses, and various other arts and handicrafts- all from natural materials! We invited him to come along to the festival to set up a booth to display his works and sell!
This is a loom, it is this machine where the fibers are made into the kikoi that i am wearing in the picture below- kikois are very soft, nice material and they are individually hand crafted on such a loom! Its amazing to see the loom working. this one is run by foot pedal
This is me and a local woman from the village of kizimkazi- its Ally's mom actually- and here she is, teaching me how to make coil rope- what is coil rope you say? well, you know the hairy part of a mature.....hahah...coconut...yes, put it together, rub it between your hands and then string it taught wrappin both ends the opposite direction then quickly bundle more on the end of that and keep twisting, and repeat...all day, and at the end of the day you have a very strong, naturally made rope- I am designing the backdrop of the stage for the music festival and our program will be employing a lot of women to make a lot of this rope for the festival
This is Ally climbiing a coconut tree to show me how its done! Ally and Omar are two tour guides that I am training and working with in Kizimkazi, Zanzibar. They are very knowledgeable about their environment and surroundings- but they dont really have professional tours or the concepts of what tourists want, so I have been working on developing their tours and setting up programs with them and learning swahili and english words for all the things we see on tours! It's almost exactly what I was going to do with Tayodea.. Ally and Omar took me around kizimkazi and the surrounding villages of Pete, Munyoni, Muunia, Jambiani, Djimbani, and Makunduchi. I had to do a survey and evaluation of the area as a job and meet all the sheha's (local political leaders) in order to get their consent for the upcoming music festival which will be held in kizimkazi- in return for their excellent services- I talked with the owners of the resort I was working witrh in order to get them permanent jobs as tour guides directly for the resort!! So now they have a guaranteed source of income instead of just hoping for what they get when they compete with the other tour guides who hang around the bus stand all day and haggle tourists as soon as they get off the bus...so they are happy- and i was happy to work with them. I am going to back to do another workshop with them in 2 weeks!
This is Ally again- he is showing me how charcoal is made locally. very interesting process
This is an ant hive- all these red ants- which have a very powerful bite by the way- clump leaves together and secrete some sort of sticky liquid (think spider web) to hold these leaves together to form a dwelling- you see them all over in the forest here
This is me in one of the caves touching a rock formation- there is a legen to this rock formation. it is said that centuries ago, people went down in these caves to fetch fresh water but once they were inside- you couldnt call out to one another because if you turned around when called- you would turn to stone- and so this stone is said to be a lady with aforementioned fate! I am wearing a kikoi in this picture- it is like a long rectangular sheet and is for men, for women is the khanga which is brightly printed- ill post apicture of khangas later- i wear them often and theyre very nice and comfortable and people here really appreciate it when you dress in their style which is why i wore this on that day as we were meeting shehas later
This is me and some fine folks of the Tanga Rotary Club. We are in Pongwe, at a school for the blind, hanging mosquito nets. The Tanga Rotary was part of a project distributing and assembling the mosquito nets to area boarding schools and I was lucky enough to participate ;)
Ahhh...Bagamoyo boys! These are 2 artists from Bagamoyo- there is a group of about 20 guys that are all artists from Bagamoyo (where the only arts college exists in Tz) and theyr'e known by everybody in the arts industry here as the Bagamoyo Boys. I attended the 27th Annual Bagamoyo Arts Festival to recruit and evaluate the artists there for our project in Kizimkazi. This is Kitebo in front, he is a musician- he has been recorded and his songs are often on the radio here in Tz! Behind him is Lumelezi- who does painting and other types of art. Both of them work in a children's group that teaches drum making, drum playing and traditional dancing to area children. Hence, they are being employed at the Kizimkazi Culture Music Festival to head our children's program! So, next week I will be doing a training workshop with them, and Asha, who you will see in another post, to do the programs we want during the festival and also to help with stage design and the artwork to be displayed at the festival!
This is another picture for the greeting cards to send to Toledo,Oh. I thought this was very interesting because religion here is very important to EVERYBODY- regardless of which particular religion you practice, the fact that you MUST practice one, and dilligently, is something this culture really believes in. So, many people are Christian, many people are Muslim, and the rest are just considered "pagani" or pagan if you are someone that doesn't go to church or the mosque...witchcraft is also ever-prevalent here. I hear many many stories but have only witnessed a few instances of it. This is a pretty sensitive subject here- withcraft- and what is happening with albino killings on behalf of witchcraft rituals is extremely scary- but its another topic that I wish not to get too deep into- please read and research it though- its very interesting and may give you a perspective you havent thought about...ever
This is me reading and looking at some of the drawings done by the boys at the boy's orphanage.
Here I am stamping books that were donated to area schools- INCLUDING TOLEDO SECONDARY SCHOOL!!!!!!!! by the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and USAID- the stamp says "a gift from the american people" in english and in swahili...the books chosen were very nice and the students have enjoyed them so much!!
These are the boxes full of books that were donated...i took lots of pics of this because books are very VERY rare here, during the period of socialism all the book publishers were banned from Tz. the effects of this period are still seen here today...
This is a HUGE spider- this picture is taken in my room and i did not sleep for two nights because i didnt have anything big enough to hit this spider with that would impair it for long enough for me to find something else to kill it- honeslty- the heel of any shoe could not conquer this beast- i know it doesnt look all that big from the pic cuz theres nothing next to it to guage its sixe from, but if you think i could get that close...ohhh, it was terrifying...and embarassing. i was living at the boys orphanage at the time and i would wake the boys up early in the morning for exercise and they were told before i moved in they had better behave because i had army training...so, i couldnt exactly run from my room at night in fright from a spider...so id go to my room and just keep the lights on and tuck in my mosquito net and read and not let the spiderout of my sight. eventually i asked one of the boys to come check on something and i pointed out the spider and they used a broom to sweep it out and catch it and then they took it outside...
Here I am dancing with some of the boys at the orphanage before they take their showers and brush their teeth!
This pic is taken at the playground of the Tanga International School! I am with three boys from the orphanage, Omary on the far left, Nurdini in the red and blue and Eliyah on the right. the other boys are neighbor kids that play there too!
