I have malaria...

April fools! I'm fine... But unfortunately, two of my dear friends on our trip have been sick all morning. Here, if something bad happens to someone you say, “Pole sana.” They have both gotten that many times today, I'm sure. That was a mean april fool's joke. Sorry, mom and dad.

Once again it has been a long time since I have written, but I'd like to think that's because we have been doing so many exciting things that there hasn't been any time for frivolous blog writing. In reality, it might just be because we have been out in the wild rain forests of Zanzibar where there are no computers, let alone internet. :)

The forests were so amazing. The first one, Ngezi, has been protected for decades and is home to dozens of endemic species. It was really cool to walk around with a guide who, after pointing out a tree or a nut or bird, would say, “That does not exist anywhere else in the world.” The same thing happened again in Jozani Forest (which is actually a National Park). In Jozani, there is a population of 5000 Red Colobus Monkeys, and based on how frequently you see them, it seems unfathomable that they are endangered, let alone scarce in this world. It makes me wonder what these jungle and bush territories must have been like before all of these animals were endangered. I can only imagine the Lion King times 10.

One night several friends and I went out looking for the endemic Pemba Flying Fox, thinking that we had a pretty good chance of seeing it. We didn't see any, and had nearly given up because the sun was setting and apparently it's really dark at night on islands with no electricity. But as soon as we got to the top of a hill, we looked up and saw thousands of these massive flying foxes right above us. It was so surreal. They really look like miniature batmans, and their winds are slightly translucent so you could see the bright colors of the vibrant zanzibar sunsets through the wings. Unbelievable.

We also spent a few days learning about all kinds of agriculture on Pemba Island. It's really funny to think about how many products I use without giving any thought to where they might come from. For instance, we drove past this huge plantation of trees, where all of the trees had diagonal, circular slashes through the trunks, white goo oozing out, and, small, half coconut cups tied to the trees collecting the white goo. If you went up to the tree and doused your hand in the white glue, it came out with a texture strangely similar to Elmer's Glue. It turns out that's how rubber is harvested. We drove for miles, and along the road there were rubber pieces, about the size of washcloths, hanging on lines to sundry. It was really cool.

We also visited several local cooperative farms. It's really funny to me that in the US cooperatives seem so counter-culture, because here, just like in Latin America, coops just make so much sense and could almost be considered the norm. Why not share capital costs- at one of the farms they were so proud of the fact that because they worked together they were able to purchase an oxcart to bring their produce to the market. It's really cool to see what they grow- huge bunches of bananas (think at least 100 to a stalk), eggplant, beans, tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, papayas, and a lot of crazy looking things that are completely foreign to me. :) I really loved seeing how things are run here- crops are grown with drip irrigation, and a big farm is only 2 hectares. Animals are tethered to what seems like twigs stuck into the ground, and all the poultry prefer to stay on the roofs of buildings. In some ways it seems so different, but in other ways, it's very much the same as farms in the US.

I have definitely been continuing to make a lot of new friends. Everywhere we go we attract so much attention, it's pretty unbelievable. I don't feel like I've gone anywhere in the past 2 moths without being watched at every moment. Despite all this attention, I'm still in a state of disbelief about how much people here will call you. For instance, if you don't answer your phone, the person who just called you will keep calling until you do. If this means calling every two minutes on the minute for one and a half hours, that doesn't stop them. If you leave your phone for 20 minutes, you might have 10 missed calls from the same person. I have almost stopped answering any calls because it drives me nuts! The most puzzling thing to me, though, is right after you answer, many people will immediately hang up and call them because phones are expensive. So someone might call you 17 times consecutively, and if you decide to answer the 17th time they will immediately hang up when they hear your voice. It's so ridiculous.

Because calling is so expensive/ridiculous, I usually text message people. I like to write in Swahili, and many of the people like to write back in English. It's SO funny to read what they say, though. Let me give you soe examples of text messages that I have received:
 “Yester day u sent 2me 4 where they kept me from worrying but, 2day u sent 2me 100 msg where kept me from fear”
 “gond night.and don't let the bed bugs bite you too”
 “how'ere you my frand. evening to day it coming big ran fall”
 “Hallo! do you araived? I need to ask you soe question. are you have boy frand? Plaes answer my quest”
 “I wish I could came there to hug out with you. have a nice dream. take care of you”
I think they're funny to me because most of them are so genuinely trying to be sweet, but saying predominantly nonsense. :)

Well, I should probably get off the computer. But I hope that everyone is well. Nathaniel and Haley I got your postcards- thank you, they were so great! I'm going to be on this island for another week, and then I've decided that for my month long independent project I'm going to go back to the other island to learn how to distill essential oils from all of the spices that are produced here- clove, lemongrass, cinnamon, eucalyptus, vanilla, ylang ylang, jasmine, etc etc. Love you. Baadaye.