Event

The Event was held the 21st of April and everything went as planned. There was around 30 people who attended. We had a very enjoyable evening and it was great fun. We experienced some small problems with the technical part, but I managed to solve them, eventually. We ate some Zanzibar-food, which was very tasty!

I'll see if I can get hold of some pictures of the evening to upload here.

Event

The following week we are planning to have an Event. We are selling tickets to this Event for those who are interested.

We will cook traditional Zanzibar meals, show films and pictures, and as well have full report on our trip in Africa. We have yet to decide an exact date or time, but are working on it. Preliminary the event will be held the 21st April, Wednesday, in the auditorium of Richard Steffen Upper Secondary School in Visby.

Hopefully everything will proceed as planned and we will have a big audience.

All our Sponsors are invited, no tickets needed.

Day 5, Project Zanzibar

Last day of the week.. On the morning we said farewell to the other project group. We shared email, phone-numbers and other means of communication.

On the afternoon, before we left Stone Town, we went to an orphanage to give them clothes and toys which we had with us from Sweden. This was greatly appreciated by the owners and as well the children. Here are some pictures.

Day 4, Project Zanzibar

Today we had planned for a trip, for purpose of study, to "Prison Island". It's a small island just outside of Stone Town. On this island there was a sort of zoo with only giant tortoises. One of the oldest was 175 years old. We stayed on the island for several hours and ate lunch we had with us.

The island has a longer history and it's purpose has been changed numerous times. It's first purpose was to be used as confinement for refractory slaves. After this a prison was built in 1893, which still stands and thereof it's nickname Prison Island. It has also been used as a hospital for mortal and infectious diseases.

As a completion of the week we were invited to a traditional Zanzibar dinner. The project group of Zanzibar had cooked it. The dinner consisted of many different types of food and to name a few.. squid, ugali, bread, fruit, fish, and pasties. We had a very nice evening together.

Day 3, Project Zanzibar

Today was our last presentation and this time it were younger pupils. We had our contact Sheha Amin translate some of the more difficult words. Today we had to hand out everything we had left, which was quite much. We had bad luck with the timing, because in the middle of our presentation the other classes in the school had a break. This made it very hard for us to be heard through all the noise. This was also the last day we had our cleanliness campaign.

After our lunch it was time for the last culture part. Dancing! We learnt an old African dance and we taught them a Gotlandic polka. They learnt very quickly. We also danced some other dances and in the end, many many kids and people had come to watch. This was very fun! A lot of kids showed up from the nearby streets and started dancing as well.

Day 2, Project Zanzibar

This day started with a man down, since Olle caught a cold and therefore stayed at the hotel during our activities throughout the day. This day we had our presentation at another school, in the middle of Stone Town. We had the same procedure as yesterday. Today one of the groups had all answers correct on our Quiz! This made us very happy and we knew that they really had learnt what we were trying to learn them.

The cleanliness campaign went as planned and we took a new route today. Collected paper and plastic and handed out the brochures. Due to an extreme heat (35-40 degrees Celsius) at noon we couldn't have the campaign as long as we wanted.

The heat during these days was so immense that even the Africans got heat rashes.

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This afternoon it was time for soccer. It was the most fun we've had during the whole week, and it was highly appreciated by everyone. We teamed up with the project group of Zanzibar and played versus some boys that already were at the field (The women are not allowed to play, because of the religion). We had 4 soccer-balls with us and a lot of shoes which they were tremendously happy for receiving. They were very good at soccer, which was to be expected because most of them played every day.

Day 1, Project Zanzibar

From left, Gustav, Clara, Catrin, Sandra, Olle and Jimmy (me).

Upon arrival on Zanzibar, we met our contact, Sheha Amin, who drove us to the hotel from the airport. The following day we first met with the project group that we would spend our whole week with. Their project group was chosen from Forodhani school (I think) and we were meant to bond with them during the week.

This is a few members of the project group of Zanzibar.

Our first presentation was to be held at Forodhani school.

Forodhani School

Because we had heard from our contact about the lack of electricity in the schools we had in advance printed our PowerPoint in A3 format. We also plasticized one copy which we used every presentation. We also gave the schools a copy of our presentation and PowerPoint. Now they at least have the option to teach other pupils about the global warming issue. What amazed us was that when we asked the question "Has anyone heard of Global Warming?", there was no answer. No one had heard of the expression which we hear about almost every day here in Sweden. I'm not sure if all of the teachers even knew what it was. Now we can safely say that a lot more kids on Zanzibar know about Global warming, because they could evidently answer correct answers on our Quiz.

Presentation

Our listeners

After the presentation we gave them some of the things we had with us to the trip. (I can safely say that we had over 100 kg stuff that we gave away.) They were extremely happy for anything they got and we tried to organize it so that everyone received the same amount of things. This was hard because we had no clue how many pupils there were in each class or how easily we could get hold on all the things that was packed in our bags. An average of pupils per class I would estimate to about 35-40. Imagine the classrooms with 35-40 pupils with one teacher in a room with no glass in the windows or doors that can be closed... and multiply it with 10, and you have a school on Zanzibar. The noise was extremely high, which made it hard for us to be heard. We had to talk very slowly and with a high volume.

On the afternoons we had our "Cleanliness Campaign". We and the other project group went out on the streets of Stone Town, with plastic bags and plastic gloves, and collected paper/plastic. There was too much litter for us to make a big difference, although we were a fair number of people. The idea is to make us seen by the inhabitants and try to make them understand that we need to clean their city. We wished to make them feel ashamed that we had to come there and clean their town. One thing that I noticed which bugged me, was all the organic waste that was thrown on the streets. It could easily have been used for a good and easily made compost.

Adjacent to the cleanliness campaign we handed out brochures about recycling. One copy in Swahili (native language) and one in English. This was highly appreciated and everyone wanted one. We had a lot of questions every day from people when they saw us and we were drawn into various discussions about the environment, which was very interesting.

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After our cleanliness campaign we had our second part of the project, Culture. The first day we had Gotlandic Games. The idea with the culture-part is that we should spend time with the other project group and bond with them. We had very fun with each other, every day. I have made a movie-clip of the afternoon, which can be found on YouTube.