Water in Zanzibar

We are on Zanzibar now (Sunday January 15) in a village called Nungwi on the northern tip of Zanzibar Island, and we have lived here since Wednesday 4 January.

So the thing about living in Africa is that it is extremely hot which means we need to drink water all the time. We flew for eight hours from Turkey to Dar Es Salaam where we took a ferry to the biggest town on Zanzibar called Stonetown (hereafter called “town”) where we arrived on Wednesday around 9:30. We had to arrange many things at the Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) and around the town before we could travel to our temporary apartment at our Swedish supervisor’s home in Nungwi, which is almost 2 hours drive from Stonetown, and get the first rest after our journey. This is when we first felt the strong need to drink water and we always carry around many bottles of water from now on. Because of the strong heat we are constantly sweating and our clothes and sheets are always dirty. Every night there is a power cut that happens all around Zanzibar to save electricity. When this happens at night and the fans in the bedrooms stop it is impossible to sleep and we sweat even more. To make the dehydration worse, all of us have had diarrhea. This is frustrating because it makes the work with our project harder. Below is a picture from our second day in Zanzibar of us having drinks while disinfecting our worst wounds, wearing the first hats we could find to protect us from the sun.

In Africa there is also a water shortage, which we have to deal with in our everyday life here. We cannot drink the tap water and it is not available at all times. Therefore we have to save it when we have it, which we do in a big bucket in our shower room. We wash ourselves and our clothes with a scoop from the bucket and often flush the toilet with the same water. It is inconvenient, but we hope we will get used to it.

Another thing about water in Zanzibar is of course the reason why we are here, to do marine biological research in the ocean which means we are going to spend many hours under water. The first night in Nungwi was short, we did not get the rest we needed and instead woke up early to have a planning meeting with our supervisor Lina about our research project. We moved out of her apartment four days ago and she left for Sweden shortly afterwards, which meant we had to maximize our time with Lina right from the start. We were physically exhausted and suffering from the culture chock and really did not want to start working immediately, but already on Thursday afternoon we went snorkeling in the seagrass meadow, starting to learn the species. We have snorkeled almost every day, trying to refine our method for the fieldwork, but we have also spent some of our time running errands in town. These visits to town are frustrating, because they always involve us having to ask the people at IMS to do things for us. The mentality of the people here is far different from anything us Europeans are used to. The fundi at IMS, the carpenter who is hired to make whatever field equipment the researchers might need, was supposed to make a number of items for us that we would pick up on Monday so we could do our first sampling test in field early on Tuesday morning when the tide was good. The only thing he had accomplished on Monday was scribbling on a paper a list of how much money he wanted for the work and telling us that the material for our plastic sampling corers was going to be very expensive. We then had to go to town to buy material ourselves, and the equipment was not ready until Wednesday. This meant we could not try them out with our supervisor but we went out in the field on Tuesday anyways because we had already rented a boat with a skipper. The fieldwork was further hindered by our diseases and the skipper who was two hours late which meant we missed the sampling at high tide. We discovered big problems with the field methods which we might have to change completely.

The last four days, however, things on Zanzibar have become better. On Wednesday we were happily surprised to find our ordered field equipment, though late, made ready by the fundi in town. This meant we had time to buy several handy items in town, among other things a machete for about 1 Euro to take seagrass samples with, which Floriaan was very happy about. In the afternoon we moved out of Lina’s apartment and into new rooms right on the beach where we work. It’s an awesome place where the touristy resorts are not visible and the rooms belong to a turtle conservation pond which means we can cuddle turtles whenever we want. The place is situated a short but very nice walk along the beach from our favorite restaurant, where we have enjoyed fresh seafood and cocktails with a view of the sunset four nights in a row. The only down side is that we have to walk back from the restaurant through the dusty, poor and dark village of Nungwi. Usually this is no problem, there are plenty of people in the street and children playing around, but last night on the last stretch home, two teenagers tried to snatch Elisa’s bag. Luckily the bag broke and the contents (a phone and some mosquito repellent) fell out and the thieves only had a broken bag as a prize.

This might all sound pretty negative, but it doesn’t take away the fact that this place is breathtakingly beautiful and we think that our stay here is a very good experience and we are learning a lot.