Post-Zanzibar freestyle

First of all, your little messages from home mean so much to me. I apologize if I don't get around to writing back to you individually. I've realized what a strong sense of home I have and how deep my connections are to friends and family. It's not home sickness, but just deep home love. The other day I needed to de-stress so I curled up on my bed in the dark and just just listened to a whole bunch of Kanye, and then some dave, buffalo springfield, avett brothers. It brought back so many solid memories of home. It so important for me to stay rooted on this trip, because even the people who are my homebase on this trip are people I only met a month ago! (They're great, though.) When I awoke from my Mr. West-composed reverie and heard the loud radio from the house two feet away, kids running outside laughing, my homestay mother in the kitchen yelling loud in swahili, women outside the back door washing clothes, I was like, "Where am I?" It took a moment for it to come back to me, but then I remembered: Stonetown, Zanzibar, a state without sovereignty. (I still wonder if "The Good Life" will or will not be stuck in my head all the way through May.)

If I could only describe Zanzibar in one word, it would be SWEAT. Sweaty arms, sweaty toes, sweaty head, sweaty clothes. I am, therefore I sweat. I don't even know the temperature. A numerical reading of the temperature doesn't seem to exist since it never changes: it's either normal (extremely freaking hot) or hotter. The only respite (I don't even know what that means) is my daily cold shower. Hot water faucets don't exist here. They're about as hard to imagine as the concept of snow. I guess the days when my clothes are soaked in sweat are better then the days when they're drenched in sweat, but usually they're clothes I've worn for the past five days so it doesn't matter a whole lot. Let's just say I'm have some very romantic visions of New Zealand that involve me wearing a cozy fleece with cold crisp foggy air chilling my face.

What is it with white people and the beach? I really think mzungus were just not made for the tropics. Do you really want to go to pristine white beaches with torquoise blue ocean water and burn you're eyes out while simultaneously exposing your body's largest organ to direct UV rays and end up with skin red hot like a chili pepper. I guess I'm mainly speaking about myself, but all I'm saying, is that one beach day and another snorkel session was enough for me. I need me some bay area fog.

Speaking of which. We just traveled from Z'bar back to the mainland in quite an epic fashion: on the front of a ferry, the wind in our face, the vast blue ocean surrounding and quickly sliding under us, riding the swells up and down, the way our stomach does a roller coaster. I felt kinda bad for those who get sea sickness, but it was definitely one of my highlights. At one point, I thought on was sailing in on the bay, yay area that is.

Well, I didn't even get to my last two weeks in Zanibar, my first homestay, swahili culture, the dhow/Indian Ocean network, sweat, Islamic identity, Arab dress, khangas, mangroves, coconut trees, coconut farms, chipati, dancing, sweat, mzungus, monkeys (they are actually cool, really cool), tropical archetypes, culturally, economically, and environmentally destructive tourism as a result of neoliberalization, political oppression, the importance of families, the call to prayer, the crooked alleys of an unplanned stone city, sweat, dalla-dallas (the local buses), hindi music videos on TV, trying to speak swahili, learning to hand wash my clothes, the rising cost of living, the loss of culture and identity, the 60%unemployement rate in stonetown.

I continue to ask myself "why am I here?" Yes, I'm having a great trip, I'm learning a lot, I'm seeing many new things, meeting new people, etc, etc, etc. But why am I here? I'm still trying to figure this one out. E yesterday shared with me her internal struggle. Her essential message was, "Lesson learned. I think I'm going to pack up and go home to my farm - practice localization and sustainability. How can I ever live these values we're learning by traveling around the world, burning gas, "learning" from all these people struggling to make a livelyhood..." Of course, it goes deeper than that, but that is the gist. How are we any different than other American tourists? When I was in a village called Pete 45 minutes outside of Stonetown, I felt this immense, thick stone wall. I was able to easily pass through, either way, at will to visit this tiny village of 600 on the island of Zanibar. I was welcomed with kindness and hospitality for a whole day. But where is the reciprocity and mutuality. I gave markers tothe children of the family I stayed with, but that's nothing beyond a minor gesture. I cannot show them a similar time in my home, because of that immense stone wall. It is not necessarily that they want to come to America. What kind of assumption is that? But I met a man who was interested. But it wasn't really a possibility for him, staring directly into this big stone wall. People who tell you that globalization is breaking down walls only tell you part of the story.

On our ferry ride we pased fishermen in small wooden handmade outriggers. There's a good chance they'd been there for the last 35 years of their life, everyday, just to maintain their livelihood. Who are we to be on this ferry, mimicing leonardo dicaprio and kate winslet, motoring back to the mainland?