Day ?? - Jan 15 (Thursday) Tanzania

We spent a week in Stone Town, and met a guy named Eddy (Mohamed), who was eager to find business now that high season has come to an end. We agreed to take a tour of Stone Town with him, and he was great. Saw the old slave markets, fabric market, fish market (night time with bbqed everything that ever swam), and fruit/spice markets. He's a good guy with three kids, one of whom had just come down with Malaria. He himself almost died of malaria 3 months back. It's a big problem in Zanzibar, and luckily we could help with the Malarone (preventative/treatment medication for malaria) we hadn't taken, plus some mosquito repellent. His daughter was playing with her friends again in 4 days, and it's because of this simple medication that saves lives!

His friend, Ali, also joined us and we ended up meeting up with them every day for dinner or lunch or a drink, etc. We gave him Malarone as well. Ali asked for some money to start a bank account ($15 USD). OK. Then he needed $50 for a passport. Hm.. Then we gave him the $5 he saved us by negotiating with the ferry office. Then he needed more because life is hard. I told him I'd love to help everyone in Zanzibar, but we're not money bags. It's disheartening to feel that that's how you appear after buying sodas and french fries for people every day for a week. I guess it was our own doing? He did buy us some spices (black pepper, pili pili - chili, and some spiced teas), which was really nice (he first asked what we use most when we cook). I guess desperation can make good people seem unappreciative. I was sad to leave on that note, regardless.

Eddy, on the other hand, was happy to accept the $20 we gave him for the tour, plus the Malarone (quite a lot), mosquito repellent, some airline socks, etc. He even bought us each a shirt. We gave him an extra $10 the day we left for showing us the old Sultan's baths and taking us to the ferry station from our hotel. He never asked for anything else, and was near tears when we said goodbye. He's 40 years old. He said he almost never meets tourists as nice as we were to him. He doesn't have an email address. We'll be staying in touch via postcard.

We came back to Dar es Salaam on the 13th (the day after the Zanzibarian Revolution holiday), and had to take care of some business. G needed more pages in his passport from the US Embassy, and we decided to change our flight out of Dar to Addis a few days sooner (from the 22nd to the 17th). Tanzania is great, but expensive. Dar is a port town, typically no more than a stopover, and here we are for 4 days. We'd love to do a safari, but have to wait until next trip ($150 minimum per person per day). Kenya will also be another trip.

We'll spend from Jan 17-23 in Addis, hanging out with G's uncle (who we barely saw when we were visiting Ethiopia...we were running around the north and east, and he seems to be busy every day, so we plan to catch up on this leg of the trip). Then we fly to Cairo for 2 nights and back to home sweet home...Newark Airport (:-P). Can't wait to be back in NYC. Though my father reminded me yesterday in an email of the subfreezing temperatures (after I was complaining about the extreme heat-even at night- here).

Here we have a couple boys we met on our first day here, in transit to Zanzibar. We met with them last night and went to Tom's house (in what he calls the "ghetto") and watched old school rap videos. He wanted to take us to the beach today, but we're going to do it tomorrow instead (small island off the coast of the mainland).

They're.....ALIVE!

Hello!

We're still alive and kicking and apologize about the lack of blog posts!

We spent one awesome month in Ethiopia and were well taken care of by G's family. Also...everything is so cheap! And the food is amazing of course. We miss it now.

We've been in Tanzania since Dec 27, Zanzibar since Dec 28. Spent Dec 30-6 in Kendwa beach up north. Had a great time and meeting lots of other travellers up there, and lots of locals in Stone Town.

Hope all is well with you, too!

xo
L and G