Zanzibar!!...etc

Hello all!  I hope everyone's having a fun and relaxing spring break.  We are more than half way through our time here in Rwanda.  Here's what we've been up to in March so far...

The 6th graders from Kigali International School came up to stay one night for a field trip and a hike in the mountains near us.  Bethany and Merritt enjoyed the company of some kids closer to their age.  These students have families who live in Kigali because they are with foreign embassies, business or missions, so they were from everywhere....Holland, Madagascar, other parts of Africa and Europe.  They were like "city kids" coming to the country for a weekend, so they played games on our field and had an evening bonfire.

Below, Brian and Merritt have been working on their soccer skills and all the kids get plenty of exercise in daily soccer matches around here. James (below) and the other Rwandan students are great at "futbol" and the campus manager, Andy, played for the Ugandan national team....so they are getting some great instruction and competition!   

On March 9, we jumped on the bus of our favorite driver, Kanuma, and headed to Kigali for a few hours before going to the airport for a Zanzibar vacation.  I try to keep my camera ready, because you just never know what you might see going down the street in Kigali....this beats all I've see thus far....

We've all been looking forward to a real tex-mex lunch at Meze Fresh (a concept similar to Chipotle and owned by a young man from California). Full, happy campers as we head to the airport!

Finally on our way to Zanzibar, an island off the east coast of Africa that's a part of Tanzania (which in Africa is pronounced Tan-zane-ee-uh).  There are dozens of languages spoken in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, but the most common is Swahili (as in "hakuna matata", from The Lion King).  This island was historically a major port for the Arab slave trade and also for growing and trading exotic spices.  It is now 97% Muslim, so it is an unusual place....part resort, part impoverished east Africa, part Arab/Muslim.

We stayed in a European style beach villa on the east coast that was built by a Belgian family.

The villa had a great staff that helped take care of us and fortunately we had a great chef!  I would have had a hard time preparing meals otherwise, since there's not a local "grocery store" and there's no such thing as prepared foods....no sliced bread or ready-made lunch meat, etc. We did have some great fresh-caught fish!

On the east coast of Zanzibar is the beautiful, warm waters of the Indian Ocean.  The tide here gets very low and very high on about a 6 hour cycle and a sandbar appears a hundred or so yards out.  All the little specs in the water in the lower picture are African Muslim women who wade out into the shallow water (in their full  Muslim attire) and spend several hours tending to kelp (seaweed) farms.  They have the kelp strung on a small line between two stakes (sticks) in about 8 rows.  When the kelp is ready. they drag in the kelp on the lines or pickup loose pieces in large bags, then it is hung out to dry.  If I understood correctly, the dried kelp is sold to industry....I was told that the ground kelp is used in making fine china in Asia??

Below is a picture at low tide of a traditional "Dhow" that is a wooden boat (most have a sail) used by local fisherman and has historically been used by Arab traders.

Lots of down time to relax, play in the pool and throw the football on the beach...

Headed out to snorkel on a nearby reef...

We celebrated Merritt's 11th and Palmer's 16th birthday while in Zanzibar.  The cake wasn't quite the same, but we were able to get ice cream and Hershey's chocolate syrup, which is a luxury we don't have in Rwanda.  The candles in the cake were actually more like "roman candles", so that was quite exciting!

On our last day we headed into historic Stone Town before going to the airport.  On the drive across the island you could see that much of the island is still very much like other poor rural areas of east Africa.

I knew it would be a hot day in Stone Town and I couldn't locate a single establishment for lunch that had air conditioning, but on TripAdvisor I read about a restaurant called "Tower Top" on the roof of one of  the nicer hotels in town that overlooked the city.  It was shady, breezy, served pizza and we were the only ones there....so it hit the spot!

Zanzibar is known for it's ornately carved wooden doors and we saw many examples...

In the pictures below you can see the narrow streets of Stone Town and the contrast here....some old, poor, dilapidated parts of this city and then a few nicer streets and resorts sprinkled here and there... In the very bottom picture you can see fancy yachts and little wooden dhows moored in the same harbor.

It was fun, but we were all glad to be heading back to the hills of Rwanda...

Upon returning to Musanze, we had guests staying on campus from Kigali for a couple of days.  We were so glad to make friends with Bonita and Eric (last names are too complicated for me here!), along with their four daughters.  Eric is a Rwandan who grew up in Burundi and Bonita grew up in Uganda.  They met in Kigali after the war and stayed there.  Eric works for Purpose Driven Ministries (Rick Warren) in Rwanda.  He's an incredible and humble man who is doing great work with churches and families in this country.

Bethany had some fun girl time with the four daughters (here they are watching the movie, Soul Surfer, on the computer) and the littlest one (age 4) was so entertaining and she grew attached to Merritt and kept him busy!

Goodbye for now from our crazy crew!