Prison Island

This past weekend I took a day trip to Prison Island (also known as Changuu Island, Tortoise Island or Quarantine Island) bringing my island hopping count to 3 islands in one week!

Background of "Prison Island":

Prison Island is a small island about 5km north-west of Stone Town. The island saw use as a prison for rebellious slaves in 1860s and also functioned as a coral mine. The British First Minister of Zanzibar, Lloyd Mathews, purchased the island in 1893 and constructed a prison complex there. No prisoners were ever housed on the island and instead it became a quarantine station for yellow fever cases. The British authorities were concerned by the risk of disease epidemics affecting Stone Town, then East Africa's main port. To combat this threat Changuu was turned into a quarantine island serving all of the British territories in East Africa. The old prison was converted into the facility's hospital and in 1923 the island was officially renamed Quarantine Island. Quarantine cases would be taken from the ships and monitored on the island for between one and two weeks before being allowed to progress with their journey.

Click here for more on the history of Prison Island

The Giant Tortoises:

More recently the island has become a government-owned tourist resort and houses a collection of endangered Aldabra Giant Tortoises which were originally a gift from the British governor of the Seychelles. In 1919 the British governor of the Seychelles sent a gift of four Aldabra Giant Tortoises to Prison Island These tortoises bred quickly and by 1955 there were approximately 200 tortoises. However people began to steal the tortoises for sale abroad as pets or for food and their numbers dropped rapidly. By 1988 there were around 100 tortoises, 50 in 1990 and just seven by 1996. A further 80 hatchlings were taken to the island in 1996 to increase the numbers but 40 of them vanished. The Zanzibar government, with assistance from the World Society for the Protection of Animals built a large compound for the protection of the animals and by 2000 numbers had recovered to 17 adults, 50 juveniles and 90 hatchlings. The species is now considered vulnerable and has been placed on the IUCN Red List by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. More tortoises, mainly juveniles, continue to be brought to the island from other locations for conservation. There is a dedicated foundation on the island which looks after the tortoises' welfare Visitors are able to observe and feed the tortoises

Click to enlarge and read about the tortoises

Lisa on "Prison Island":

Around 11am on Saturday, after bargaining with the Captain for a little while, we finally got to a decent price for a boat rental and set sail in a typical Zanzibar Dhow boat arriving on Prison Island about 30 minutes later.

View of the island from the Dhow

The main attractions of prison island are the giant tortoises that call it home, the beautiful beach and the amazing coral. The tortoises were definitely my favourite part, I was given some cabbage to feed them and one of the caretakers was showing me where to massage them and even tickle them! As you massage their neck they literally raise up like an elevator and if you tickle them on the bottom of their shell by the tail they start moving quickly...well, quickly for a tortoise! 

Feeding and massaging the 150 year old tortoise

I asked one of the caretakers how they know the age of the tortoises and he told me that they have a machine they use that measures their arm width and their body mass and from that information they can tell how old the tortoise is. He also told me that, apart from the males being larger than females you can tell them apart by the length of their tails.

The age of the tortoise is written on their back

The caretaker also showed me two separate, caged off areas of tortoises. One area was for the tiny new born tortoises and the other is for young, infant tortoises between the ages of 5 to 7 years.

Infant tortoises

We went on a "tortoise hunt" to find the oldest tortoise on the island, who is claimed to be 185 years old. We finally found him chilling by a tree in the shade. He enjoyed some cabbage and a nice neck massage, I'm sure he is treated very well in his old age!

Nice neck massage for the 185 year old tortoise...he deserved it!

Click here to read more about the Aldabra Giant Tortoise

After the tortoises, there is not much else to see on on the island so we just relaxed and enjoyed the view and the beach for a bit then headed back to Stone Town in our dhow. All in all, it was a nice day and I would recommend it to travelers coming through Zanzibar.

Prison Island in Pictures:

View of Stone Town from Prison Island

View of Prison Island from the pier

Mwaka Kogwa Festival

Today I went with ZANGOC to the Mwaka Kogwa Festival in Makunduchi, Zanzibar in the south district of the island (highlighted on the map). 

The Mwaka Kogwa is an old traditional festival which marks the arrival of the new year, or 'Nairuz' according to the Shiraz (Iran) calendar. Shirazis were the first foreigners to settle in Zanzibar and many aspects of their culture were absorbed by the Swahili people and were given a local context.

Today was the first day of the 4 day festival which is marked by an opening battle of ritual physical combat, traditionally using sticks and cudgels as weapons which have now been replaced by banana stems. The fight is governed by a number of loose rules which are normally observed by the participants without the need for a referee. When one combatant feels that he has had enough beating, he simply raises both of his hands and surrenders, or changes his weapon for a better one and continues fighting.

Matters become complicated when supporters of either side join in the fight, making it becomes difficult to find an unscathed banana palm in the area! It is traditionally believed that since everyone has had a chance to fight, or to vent any hard feelings, there would be no future conflicts in the town in the coming year. Past year's misunderstandings and disagreements are exorcised and the new year can be started with a clean slate and in harmony.

Participants warm up by running around the pitch

Note the "weapons" in hand...actually used to hit each other with (no jokes!)

I didn't get close enough to the actual fight to take photos, one: because of the crowd and two: for fear of being hit with a banana stem by accident...I'm sure it can't feel good!

So, by now I bet your wondering what the heck ZANGOC's role in this festival was! Well, as I mentioned in my previous blog about Pemba, ZANGOC is currently running VCT services in Unguja and Pemba funded through ICAP. ZANGOC was stationed at the festival to provide free HIV counseling and testing services which were open to anyone at the festival from 11am until 3pm. At the end of the day, ZANGOC had tested and provided post test counseling to 120 people, of which all 120 people tested negative for HIV. The post test counseling was provided to everyone who tested, regardless of positive or negative status. Since all of the tests were negative, the counselors provided clients with information on how to remain safe from HIV and also gave each client free condoms.

ZANGOC/ICAP banner

Banner explaining ZANGOC to the public: Utangulizi - Introduction, Dira - Vision, Dhamira - Mission,              Majukumu Makuu - Objectives

My First Business Trip - Pemba Island

It feels like I have come a long way with ZANGOC, and work, since I first arrived on the island back in March. One of my main job duties for ZANGOC was to create their new strategic plan and the end of June I accomplished that task by completing the first draft of the plan. The past 2 weeks I have been meeting with a few members from the Executive Committee and we have been going through the plan literally page by page to incorporate ZANGOC’s suggestions and inputs to make it “ZANGOC’s” strategic plan and not “Lisa’s” strategic plan!

Another one of my main tasks has been visiting with the, now 45, member organizations that are under the ZANGOC umbrella. From my visits with the members I have been collecting basic information in order to create a database of NGO members as well as to analyze the strengths and weakness of each organization so that YCI and other donors can address the gaps in organizational capacity. For example, human resource and financial management, IT and website design, proposal writing and resource mobilization and Monitoring and Evaluation.

Of ZANGOC’s 45 member organizations, 4 are based in Pemba which is the smaller island to the north east of Unguja which, together make up the Zanzibar Archipelago. 

Map of Pemba highlighting the 3 towns of ZANGOC operation: Chake, Wete and Micheweni

At the beginning of my time here I was really keen on going to Pemba to visit with the members and facilitate a workshop but after looking into costs, the idea was put on the back burner for a little while. In late May I attended a workshop for ZACP (Zanzibar AIDS Control Program) and met a man who is from Pemba, works for ZACP in Chake Chake (the main town in Pemba) and who is also on the ZANGOC Board of Trustees. After talking with him about ZANGOC and Pemba, he convinced me that I just must go to Pemba! So I drafted a short proposal and budget and submitted it to YCI and in June it was approved as my first business trip!

On Friday July 15, I jetted off to Pemba with the ZANGOC Deputy Executive Secretary, and a box of supplies for the Pemba sub-office. After a short, and very beautiful flight over the Indian Ocean, we arrived at the Chake Chake airport 30 minutes later. 

Beautiful coral

Airplane shot of the Cost of Pemba

We arrived Friday, late afternoon so I had just enough time to check into my hotel and go for a walk around town before the sun set. It was more like a stroll as Chake town is so small that if I walked at a normal pace I would have seen the whole town in about 20 minutes! Also, the shops close around 5:00pm so I wasn’t able to browse or do any market shopping. Topographically, Pemba is very different than Unguja. While Unguja is flat, Pemba is very hilly even with some small mountains in the background of Chake. It was a nice change though, I know Unguja is very green in terms of forestry but in Pemba you can definitely notice it a lot more. Especially when you drive up the windy roads you get an amazing view of the villages below surrounded by palm trees and just general beautiful nature, I feel like my pictures didn’t capture the essence of Pemba as much as I hoped...

On Friday evening after my walk, I came back to the Pemba Island Hotel where I was staying for the weekend, I had a nice calamari and pilau rice dinner then finished planning my workshop for Saturday morning.  On Saturday I woke up early and met my Pemba colleagues at the ZANGOC/WAMATA office in Chake. 

Outside of the WAMATA Office, Chake, Pemba

WAMATA is a regional NGO in Tanzania that works to help those who struggle with HIV and AIDS in Tanzania. In Pemba, WAMATA is a ZANGOC member organization and operates a VCT clinic that is supported by the ZANGOC/ICAP funded project. The topic of my workshop was project design and proposal writing and my participants consisted of 10 people, 2 people from each member organization: WAMATA, NOAC (North Pemba Organization for AIDS Control), PEYVO (Pemba Youth Voice Organization) and YOEPA (Youth Organization on Education for the Prevention of AIDS), and the ZANGOC sub-office. The workshop ran for 3 hours and I feel as though it was well received, the participants were active in group discussion and, although all of the information might not have been new knowledge, I feel as though each participant walked away with useful information on project design and proposal writing.

How to write and effective "S.M.A.R.T" Goal

My beautiful LFA on flip chart paper

Before I left for Pemba I met with Shaib, who is the YCI Volunteer Manager here in Unguja. Shaib is originally from Pemba and he still has a lot of family members there whom he gave me some contacts. On Saturday after my workshop I contacted Cholo, who is Shaib’s brother in law and who also is the manager of the hotel I stayed at. I was very grateful for his hospitality in showing me around Chake and taking me to meet Shaib’s mother and family then even inviting me to his own house to meet Shaib’s younger sister and their new 7 day old son!

The house of Shaib's mother!

The village is new and houses are still being constructed

Saturday morning I was invited to attend the first quarterly meeting of the ZANGOC/ICAP VCT funded project that is taking place in Pemba. The meeting was held at the Gombani soccer stadium in Chake. All important stakeholders in the VCT project were invited to present the results of their VCT centre from April to June 2011. Stakeholders included: ZANGOC, WAMATA, Micheweni VCT Centre, ZACP and ZAPHA+.

View of the Stadium entrance from the Conference hall

The objectives of the ZANGOC/ICAP project are to control the spread of new HIV infections by providing counselling, testing and education services to general and key populations (being IDUs-Injection Drug Users and MSM-Men who have Sex with Men). The results for the 3 ZANGOC VCT facilities are outlined below.

ZANGOC VCT Results Q1 REPORT	APRIL		MAY		JUNE		TOTAL
	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Micheweni	7	7	12	5	16	13	35	25
WAMATA (Chake)	6	5	25	25	7	6	38	36
ZANGOC (Wete)	32	19	43	30	52	48	127	97
			TOTAL TESTED IN Q1 by Gender				200	158
			TOTAL TESTED IN Q1				358

Of these 358 people who were tested in Q1, no positive HIV cases were reported. It was also reported that ZANGOC conducted one outreach activity consisting of 53 participants (42 male and 11 female). There was only one outreach activity conducted due to limited funds available for such an activity.

All in all, my first business trip was a success but I wish I had a few extra days to relax on the prestine beaches and visit the city of Wete, which I am told is a must. Perhaps it will be a must that I go back in October before I leave to sit in on the Q2 meeting!

ZANGOC VCT Results

Q1 REPORT

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

TOTAL

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

Micheweni

7

7

12

5

16

13

35

25

WAMATA (Chake)

6

5

25

25

7

6

38

36

ZANGOC (Wete)

32

19

43

30

52

48

127

97

TOTAL TESTED IN Q1 by Gender

200

158

TOTAL TESTED IN Q1

358

Life's weird "Coincidences"?

Besides truly enjoying the work that I do, I think the thing I love most is forging new friendships on a work and personal level. With that being said, leaving these friendships behind is one of the toughest aspects of living and working overseas. In Zanzibar, I feel like I have just begun to establish a strong network of friends, both local and expat, and it is really sad when someone’s contract comes to an end and you have to say your goodbyes. Don’t get me wrong I miss my family in friends in Toronto but my return ticket home guarantees that I will soon see them all again. What is not guaranteed is being able to see all the wonderful people I’ve become close with and worked with on this beautiful continent.

However, life is full of weird coincidences...or do these “coincidences” happen for a reason? I am still trying to decide! So perhaps if I am meant to meet my overseas friends again in the future, there is a good reason behind the coincidence. From working in International Development and having the opportunity to travel a lot, I have come to realize that the world is not as big as we think it is! Here are some my life’s weird coincidences thus far:

• In OAC I wanted to be an optometrist and then found out that I was terrible in advanced math so I changed all of my university applications to “Social Sciences.” Ottawa U asked me to specify and at the time I was taking a Global Issues course that I enjoyed so I chose International Development as my major. (it’s weird to think what my life would look like now if I was good at math!)
• After my courses at Kenyatta University ended in May 2007, I went on a safari in Kenya and Tanzania and met a Canadian girl, whom I did not know before the trip. In 2009 I was serving at Fionn MacCool’s on The Esplanade in Toronto and ended up serving the girl I met half way across the world.
• In June 2007, when I was getting ready to depart Zanzibar, I never would have thought that I would be back 4 years later, and in fact celebrating my birthday in the exact same spot in Nungwi, North Zanzibar.
• In February of this year I was close to having the opportunity to go back to Ghana for work. However, I was instead offered my current job in Zanzibar where I have finally figured my future career path in Monitoring and Evaluation.
• Last month I met up with a friend whom I studied with at University of Ottawa and traveled with to Nairobi in 2007 to finish our degrees at Kenyatta University. I had not seen this friend since we finished the program at KU 4 years ago, he is currently working in Arusha, Tanzania.
• Last week I received 2 random emails which turned out to be 2 great finds!

1.       A Canadian girl working in Stone Town. She found me from an email list serve and asked if I would like to meet up. Of course I said yes, turns out she is from Toronto so we have bonded over missing Toronto’s amazing food and a love for red wine and dancing!    –Sorry Ali, I have only replaced you temporarily!

2.      A Canadian girl from University of Ottawa who was given my email address from an old professor. She just finished the KU program that I did 4 years ago and is now in Stone Town traveling. We met up to discuss possible volunteer opportunities for the week that she is in town, now she is renting our spare room and teaching English with New Vision Class.

The realization of my life’s coincidences is what prompted me to write this blog. I know there are others that I am forgetting, but for now these are the major ones. I suppose this will also be an ongoing list!

Things I've learned

As I sit and write my midterm report for YCI, I can't help but think how my time here is just flying by. June has come and gone, yet it still seems like I just arrived in Zanzibar last week! Writing my midterm has made me reflect a lot over the past 3 months (as well as my time in Ghana) and I do feel as though I have accomplished a lot with work and in my personal life.

I have finally finished the first complete draft of the ZANGOC strategic plan which I feel is a weight lifted off my shoulders! Also, I have been expanding my circle of friends and dancing a lot which, as always, keeps me happy (and sane!) However, I must admit that I am finding myself missing Toronto these days, only because it's summer time and I miss playing baseball,cycling (without fear of dying!) and relaxing in the park with friends and cold beer!

At the half way point I want to reflect on some things I've learned since being on this continent for nearly 8 months now, minus the 6 weeks in February/March that I was freezing in Toronto!

1. It is impossible to keep your feet clean
2. Life is a strategic plan; you must have a vision, mission, values and goals!
3. I have a lot of trust in people
4. Sleeping under a bednet doesn't mean you won't be attacked by mosquitoes all night long
5. Mosquitoes exist for no other reason than to torment people
6. Thieves are cunning, sneaky and very quick
7. Germans are awesome and make great friends (and are everywhere...in large quantities!)
8. There are no road rules, except for honking 
9. Pedestrians DO NOT have the "right of way"
10. There is no limit on the number of people you can cram into a taxi (so far I've reached 8 people in a taxi in Koforidua and 5 people in a bajaji in Dar es Salaam)
11. Street food is always a good choice
12. Bargaining is great and really should be introduced into the Western world
13. The "muzungu" or "obruni" or whatever you want to call a foreigner is often left in the dark
14. Apparently the muzungu or obruni knows all...which is NOT true!
15. Smiles and laughter say a thousand words
16. It really is OK to strike a conversation with strangers on the daladala, trotro, mutatu, subway, bus or whatever mode of public transportation you use to get to work (ditch the ipod and give it a try!)
17. Hitch-hiking is not frowned upon and no one suspects the driver will attack you
18. Soccer really does run the world
19. Funerals are a huge party, and very fun
20. Celine Dion and Shania Twain are still popular here...and will forever be popular here 
21. Males START and FINISH the dance floor (much appreciated by me!)
22. You are always recognized and definitely stand out (get used to it!)
23. It's ok to talk to strangers, people just want to ask you questions
24. Stepping out of your comfort zone is a MUST
25. Hospitality really is an amazing quality
26. In order to get the right answers, you must ask the right question...sometimes this is a long process!
27. African "massages" ... don't let them fool you (aka: long bus rides on very bumpy roads)
28. When a policeman asks for a "Friendly" what he's really asking for is a bribe 
29. There is nothing more beautiful than the perfect sunset over the Indian Ocean
30.  TBD!

5 people + the driver in a Bajaji in Dar

Sunset in Nungwi, North Zanzibar

Forodhani Night Market, Stone Town

Steph and I dancing at a funeral in Koforidua, Ghana

Soccer stadium in Kumasi, Ghana

Dancing with some school kids in Koforidua, Ghana

I think this list will have to be ongoing as I am still here for another 3 and a half months! Please feel free to add anything you've learned while traveling/working overseas.