Okay, so I’ve gotten terribly behind in blogging, so this is my attempt to bring things back up to speed. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I may write just a bit and if you’re interested in more, let me know. The second week of December was pretty hectic, as I was trying to complete revisions on a journal article, as well as my work responsibilities of drafting a multi-year strategy. After quite a few long days, I sent off near final versions for review for both of these massive writing projects and decided to treat myself to a day trip to the island of Zanzibar, two hours away from Dar es Salaam by boat. I took the first ferry there and the last one back and spent my time wandering through the labyrinth of streets in the old part of the port city, known as Stone Town. Zanzibar is now the ZAN part of Tanzania, but it has its own unique history of rule by sultans, the Portuguese, the Omanis, and has a distinct character as a major point along the trade route of East Africa. The population is nearly entirely Muslim, and has a more conservative culture than the mainland. Here are a few of the pictures from my visit there. Of course I had to stop by the bustling market to check out the spices and take a look at the rice, which is a staple on Zanzibar. The next one shows a large over 200 year old Catholic church in the foreground, and a minaret from a mosque in the background. Then there’s one of the famous ornate wooden doors from Stone Town. And inside the Zanzibar museum, there was this reconstruction of a traditional boat, which actually doesn’t use any metal nails at all. All in all, it was a pleasant day of exploring the island.
Okay, so I’ve gotten terribly behind in blogging, so this is my attempt to bring things back up to speed. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I may write just a bit and if you’re interested in more, let me know. The second week of December was pretty hectic, as I was trying to complete revisions on a journal article, as well as my work responsibilities of drafting a multi-year strategy. After quite a few long days, I sent off near final versions for review for both of these massive writing projects and decided to treat myself to a day trip to the island of Zanzibar, two hours away from Dar es Salaam by boat. I took the first ferry there and the last one back and spent my time wandering through the labyrinth of streets in the old part of the port city, known as Stone Town. Zanzibar is now the ZAN part of Tanzania, but it has its own unique history of rule by sultans, the Portuguese, the Omanis, and has a distinct character as a major point along the trade route of East Africa. The population is nearly entirely Muslim, and has a more conservative culture than the mainland. Here are a few of the pictures from my visit there. Of course I had to stop by the bustling market to check out the spices and take a look at the rice, which is a staple on Zanzibar. The next one shows a large over 200 year old Catholic church in the foreground, and a minaret from a mosque in the background. Then there’s one of the famous ornate wooden doors from Stone Town. And inside the Zanzibar museum, there was this reconstruction of a traditional boat, which actually doesn’t use any metal nails at all. All in all, it was a pleasant day of exploring the island.
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