For the past 2 days I have been at Urua and Pete - two villages on the East Coast of Zanzibar, where most tourists go and where the beautiful coral reefs and beaches are. In Pete, we got to see the last Red Colobus Monkeys in the world at the Jozani National Forest, learned about traditional healing methods, and I got to farm cassava with my homestay father. Pretty cool attempt at trying to get conservation to help the local people, if not entirely effective.
In Uroa, we saw hotels taking away land from the local people , women seaweed farmers being exploited by multinational corperations, fishermen building amazing handmade boats called dhows, the most amazingly beautiful multicolored starfish and blowfish, a fresh fish market, and mangroves (amazing!) that are being killed by the rising tides that are a side effect of global warming. The people are so beautiful and intelligent - very very friendly and polite (even the small children), intelligent (most speak 3 languages, sail, fish, build amazing things by hand, and farm) and so so wealthy in natural resources - yet all of the benefits of these things so to outisiders - who are clearly continuing on the legacy of colonial exploitation in my opinion. Just because they are nice, our guides took us out swimming at a sand bar - so so beautiful. We also all got to sleep on the beach in front of the B & B we stayed at and ate fish fresh from the fish auction.
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2 comments:
yayy!! i spy you!
loves your blog.
Nadine - it's wonderful to see that a lower level of technological exploitation does not mean a lower level of intelligence and passion. I think the world in general (except in trashy fiction) thinks the "haves" of stuff have also the smarts. I think the more we have the more we dummy down and forget to process out how to create and how to do the work - metal and physical. Be well - be safe.
Jodi
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