A ceremonious weekend

This weekend was very busy and productive for me and it was kicked off by a great Indian dinner in town on Friday evening.

On Wednesday of last week I received mail at ZANGOC from one of its member organizations ZAO (Zanzibar Anti-Poverty Organization). The vision of ZAO is “better and improved living for youth in Zanzibar in all aspects of life, in rural and urban areas.” The mission of ZAO is “involving youth in activities and to facilitate these activities toward better living situations, individually and for the community.” The Executive Director of the organization, Mr. Ali, invited me to attend a ceremony Saturday morning in a district of Zanzibar called Chumbuni. The ceremony was held by ZAO and its purpose was to give awards and recognition to the students who had passed from form three to form four with excellent marks on their final exams. ZAO gave recognition to these students as a way to encourage them to keep up the good work and stay in school for as long as they can, which acts towards achieving their vision statement.

So at 9:30am on Saturday I walked into the school and was greeted by Mr. Ali who then directed me to the head table which I should have expected but forgot that I was the “muzungu” and people would want to hear from me! With this being said, they had also inserted me into the ceremony schedule to “say a few words”! Having been put in this situation multiple times while working overseas, I have become much better at making things up on the spot! I really don’t even remember what I said but I think I spoke for about 5 minutes around the basis of obtaining a good education which is the key to success (or something like that!) The rest of the ceremony was in Swahili and having sat through a fair amount of meetings in Swahili already, I am also getting better at pretending I know what the heck they’re talking about while trying not to nod off!

The ceremony ended and I had a quick interview with a reporter who was asking me what I do for ZAO which was kind of awkward as I had to re-explain that I didn’t actually work FOR ZAO but rather for ZANGOC and then had to explain again what ZANGOC does and how they work with ZAO. However, this I’m not even quite sure of just yet as ZAO is a recent member of ZANGOC, and also because ZANGOC doesn’t really know what their members do which is part of the problem and a huge task that I am undertaking starting next week! 

Anyways, we left the Chumbuni district around 11:30am and I thought that I would be home soon but Saidi ended up taking me to visit the Sultan’s Palace ruins since we were in that area. It was a really interesting tour and nice to learn the history of the Island. The first Sultan of Zanzibar came from Oman in the 18^th century and had this particular palace constructed as his “weekend getaway” and also where his concubines lived. The ruins were cool to see and they even have a reconstructed part of the palace so you can see what it actually looked like when it was still a standing structure. I also learned that the last Sultan of Zanzibar (whose reign ended in the late 1960’s) is still alive and currently living in London! 

Sultan's Palace Ruins

Reconstruction of part of the ruins

One of the Sultan's 7 concubine's bed chambers

After this ruins visit we ventured to Stone Town and Saidi took me to the Palace Museum to further my education of Zanizbar’s history! This palace was being used as government offices until 1994 when it was turned into a museum. At the end of it all, it was a very fun and educational day for me but I had to top it off with happy hour at Livingstone’s followed by seafood at the fish market!

The Sultan's first bedroom before he upgraded to a bigger room!

"King" sized bed (note the crown on top!)

The "love seat"!

The Sultan's Graveyard in Stone Town

Tombstone of the first Sultan of Zanzibar

Sunday was equally as interesting. On Friday I had a meeting with Mohammed at ZANGOC and he invited me to the village he is from in the Central District called Mchangani. The purpose of the invite was for me to see his NGO and to attend the ceremony of the start up of a new NGO in the village. However, we went early enough and visited the house of Mohammed’s brother and we ate cassava cooked in coconut milk with fish, it was really tasty! We headed to the ceremony around 4 and again, I found out that I was supposed to speak on behalf of ZANGOC and welcome the new NGO to the membership. This time I thought I’d spice things up a little so I did my entire speech in Swahili! Granted it wasn’t as long as my educational rant from the previous day but I am now able to say the following about myself in Swahili:

My name is Lisa, I am from Canada and I work at ZANGOC. I will be here in Zanizbar for seven months. I work at ZANGOC doing capacity building with the members of the organization. Thank you very much, you are very welcome at ZANGOC.

This (I hope!) translates into:

Gina langu Lisa, natoka Canada, na fanya kasi na ZANGOC. Nita kaa hapa Zanzibar kwa muda wa miezi saba. Na fanya kasi na ZANGOC ya kujenga uwezo wa jumuiya wana chama. Asante sana, karibu sana ZANGOC.

After the final speech by the guest of honor there was drumming and dancing which, of course I joined in on! This, coupled with the smiling faces of all the girls dancing with me made me very happy! A wonderful conclusion to a wonderful weekend!

Setting up for the Ceremony

Singing an opening poem

The guest of honor signs the constitution

Closing Ceremony dancing!

More dancing

Say "cheese"!