Happy Siku kuu! Eid is here... finally. On the dala dala back from Zala Park today I saw kids eating lollipops on the street, people eating and drinking from water bottles. What a relief. The most exciting thing was music playing everywhere. It's all very refreshing after a month of going without. I couldn't wait to ditch the headscarf.

I spent yesterday in Zala Park, just outside of Jozani forest. I got a one-on-one explanation of the animals with my now-bff, Ramadhan. He let me hold all the snakes and lizards and turtles (including one terrapin- yay Maryland), and told me about their diet and habitats and how they come to have them at the park. They put me up in a small guesthouse with no electricity and fed me lunch (rice and chuzi - a fish dish with tomato sauce and potatoes), dinner ("pancakes," chai, and chuzi), and breakfast (bread, cake, cookies, chai and chuzi). This morning when I didn't want fish for breakfast, Ramadhan proclaimed "You eat so little! Does chuzi hurt your stomach?"

Ramadhan hung out with me in the house for most of the day when we weren't checking out the animals or going on a nature walk. He asked me whether I like to vote, and he wanted to talk American politics. It's interesting that here in Zanibar, far away from the US, many people know more about the American election and candidates than many Americans do. Most Zanzibaris are Obama supporters, and are eager to talk about him with Americans.

The dala dala ride back to Stone Town was interesting. I got to sit in the front, which makes for a much more comfortable ride than in the back. We got stopped at some police checkpoint and the driver of the dala dala was arguing with the policeman for a while. I thought they were arguing about the number of people on the dala dala, but then the driver opened my seat, got out some tools, and made some adjustments on the vehicle for about 15 minutes. It took about 2 hours for me to get back to Stone Town, a distance that would probably normally take about 40 minutes by car.

I know everyone says this when they come to Africa, but it really is true. People here run on a different schedule - aka Africa time. Everyone is late, and people say that what they are doing is much more important than what you will be doing later. Punctuality is not a valued trait here. It's kind of refreshing, but at other times I feel like I'm never going to get anything done because everything moves pole pole (slowly slowly).