Sunday, July 5

Ras Nungwi

Today we walked into Nungwi Village where the main occupations of the villagers are dhow building, fishing and making thatched roofs. We were the only tourists at the time in the village and they were surprised to discover that we'd walked there. Living conditions are very primitive (no electricity, no running water, a recent cholera epidemic ...) and the young boys were all playing soccer with blue plastic bags bound together to form a soccer ball. We were greeted warmly with "Jambo" and "Habari" (Hi; How are you) from all of the people as we passed them sitting outside their homes.	We saw a mashua and dhow being built with the mashua being the larger of the two boats constructed from mahogany. Then we visited a small turtle sanctuary where we saw some colorful tropical fish swimming with the large sea turtles.   Fishing was done in the early morning hours by women from the village. They caught the fish by pulling along nets in the waters of the Indian Ocean close to the shore. (See picture below)
Meals at Ras Nungwi have been wonderful ... lots of fresh fish and tasty soups. We're especially enjoying the fresh tropical fruits such as papaya, pineapple and small bananas. Since Zanzibar grows so many spices we've been treated to vegetable curry with coconut milk, stir fried noodles and vegetables, pumpkin ginger soup, and other dishes combining cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and the other island spices. Ras Nungwi is a remote beach village lodge where you are able to swim, snorkel, dive and relax in the sun by the Indian Ocean.
	Tomorrow we'll be taking the ferry from Stone Town to Dar Es Salaam and I'm hoping to be able to send this email. No luck so far as they operate with a mobile phone here (and it isn't working at the present time) and they said I'd need a land line to be able to possibly connect long enough to send an email. The mobile phones here actually don't work if the weather is cloudy or windy! To send an email in an emergency situation they have you write it on paper and they'll have someone drive for 2 hours to Stone Town (pictured on the left) where they'll type it for you before sending it.