Long time no blog... I've been back in town since Thanksgiving, but before that I was in Pete, near Jozani for about 3 weeks straight. Pete was great and the family I stayed with was wonderful. I ate delicious food, with lots and lots of fresh fruit (about 4 servings per meal!!) Pete has great mangoes - my favorite fruit, and I've never tasted such ripe perfect ones. There was no running water at the house so it was bucket showers for 3 weeks but that was fine. Most of the time there was power, and Ali even had a bike and a laptop that he let me use! That was great because for one thing I had nothing to do and for another I could work on my ISP during my field observations! I got pretty much the whole thing done while I was there, and I just finished it today!

2 of my friends and I are going to Paje today to spend a few days at the beach after we print our ISPs. Our academic director has some hookup for this great huge house where no one lives, so we can stay there for 8000 shillings a night each(about 7 bucks!) without food, no matter how many people are there. Paje is a somewhat touristy place on the east coast with a beautiful beach - I'm looking forward to a little relaxation.

The monkeys were great though! I spent 6 hours a day observing their behavior, and got to know pretty well where to find them and how to recognize their behaviors. The Jozani guides were great too, and really friendly - they're used to having researchers around. They, and my family, were pretty much the only human contact I had for the three weeks so I was grateful for the company! At the house I had a LOT of time to myself - I read 9 books in 3 weeks, did about 70 sudokus, played Solitaire on the laptop, and had time to write most of my paper. I also had no phone service in Pete so couldn't even talk on the phone! I didn't get too bored though - lots of entertaining myself!

Now we have less than 2 weeks left of the program! I can't believe how fast that snuck up on me. I will be really sad to leave the people here. I love most of the people on our program and we have a good time together. On Thanksgiving we even had an American feast! Every single person on our program cooked a dish, even the boys... so we had 15 things, including traditional Thanksgiving foods like pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, and stuffing, as well as some Zanzibari additions like nutella-custard-fruit pie, and my papaya/condensed milk custard with mango and banana. We invited Zanzibar friends and even gave a little speech about the origins of Thanksgiving (which our academic director translated into Swahili). There were 30 people there! It was quite the event, and a really nice way to enjoy the holiday, even in Tanzania!

The last couple of days have been pretty relaxed. I haven't been doing much since I was mostly done with ISP, but we've just been hanging out and doing work and have gone out a couple nights. On Friday we went to Livingstone's, the bar on the beach, and then to Dharma Lounge, where the 6 Americans or so in the house got a little too excited when they played Living on a Prayer and Summer of '69 - seemingly odd music choices for a club in Zanzibar? Last night we went to the reggae party that's every Saturday at another place in town. I'm trying to soak up all the Zanzibar-only opportunities I have before I go home!

One little recent Zanzibar lost in translation bit:
on the dessert menu at a restaurant in town, one of the most appealing items:
Ice cream with Leeches!
Yummy!! I think it was supposed to be lychee...
Almost as good as "All dishes served with rice or fresh flies"

I'm going to miss this place and all its ridiculousness.