Arrival
I’m now reaching the end of my fourth week working at the College of Health Sciences in Zanzibar. I arrived by ferry at midday on 18 October after a 2 hour journey on a calm sea,. The ferry was very comfortable, the sea azure with white beaches as the islands come into view. Zanzibar town, or Stone Town, or at least the ferry terminal end of it, is scruffy and the temperature was very high when we arrived, at about noon.
Approaching the harbour at Stone Town
In addition to several very aggressive porters, I was met by Suluhu Hamza¸ the College’s Chief Administrative Officer. He negotiated me to the top of the immigration queue and we were soon on our way in the College minibus, via the market to pick up a woman laden with shopping and the nursery to pick up two of Suluhu’s sons. The College is in Mbweni, about 7 km south of the town, near the airport.
After introductions to my boss Dr Kemal Bilal and his colleagues I had a welcome wash down in my temporary accommodation on the College campus before returning to the offices to be shown around by Rukia Bakar, the Chief Academic Officer.
The VSO Office in Dar es Salaam suggested I contact a British woman, Mary Hadley, who is working for the Zanzibar Ministry of Health, funded by Danida, the Danish development agency. She lives near the College. I rang her at about 4 o’clock and she said she was just about to drive past the College on her way home so she called in. She kindly took me to her house, which is on a beach and has views of the ocean from her terrace.
Beach next to Mary’s house
Mary also took me shopping: the local shops in Mbweni are rather limited but I bought bananas, yoghurt, milk and Weetabix, so breakfast at least was possible! Mary also lent me a bike which will make life a lot easier.
There is a frequent local bus – ‘daladala’ - into Stone Town, which takes a bit of getting used to: the ‘buses’ are small lorries with bench seats along the sides and a roof to keep the sun off the passengers. There is about 4 feet of headroom, you have to climb in stooping and then squash into a bench. The buses are usually crammed with 20 or so adults, packages and children. The saving grace is that, unlike in Dar es Salaam, standing is not allowed.
The College of Health Sciences
Health, like education, is a devolved responsibility of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar and the College is run by the Zanzibar Ministry of Health. A debate is going on about semi-autonomous status – The College is a corporate body but the Ministry employs and pays all the staff. It’s budget from the Ministry for other costs is unreliable. Recently the College introduced fees for students and this is providing a reasonably secure funding stream. The campus has buildings of varying ages in spacious grounds, with a mosque in the middle. The Omani Government of Oman funded the original College in the late 1980s and they are funding new teaching and accommodation that is now being built. The African Development Bank recently funded other new buildings. The College has wireless internet access and a computer centre with 32 workstations and more planned. Students generally have mobile ‘phones but not their own computers. This year there are six courses at Diploma level: nursing, clinical medicine, clinical dentistry, laboratory science, pharmaceutical science and environmental health.
Although there are over 900 students and 50 staff on site on weekdays with about 400 living on the campus, the cafeteria: a large kitchen area and dining room, has been unused for several years. The Ministry closed it after charges were introduced and students complained that prices were too high. One of my VSO colleagues, Brian, who works in VSO Tanzania’s Sustainable Livelihoods programme, is contacting local businesses to see whether there is interest in re-opening the facility. He visited with a colleague and took photographs and left a list of questions for us to answer about student requirements.
The College has a well that now has salt water so we need to use bottled water for drinking and cooking. The salt corrodes the plumbing and the shower in my accommodation does not work. Zanzibar is subject to daily power cuts, sometimes twice a day. This is due to a weak link with the mainland power supply – in late 2009/early 2010 during the hottest months there was no electricity for 3 months. This had a devastating effect on the economy. Most large businesses have emergency generators, as does the College, although it only powers the teaching areas and offices during working hours.
My accommodation
I moved into my permanent accommodation after a few days. It has two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. It also has a courtyard at the back and washing lines. The house had been vacant for a while, it has been re-painted and has new mosquito screens. For the first couple of days there were lots of giant ants, smaller creepie crawlies and giant brown beetles that were probably cockroaches. They appeared through the back door at about 7.30 every night. I’ve used a wonderfully effective, but probably deeply un-ecological, bug spray and this week have seen only one cockroach! Every morning I am still sweeping up pile of corpses of smaller beasts.
My accommodation at the College of Health Sciences
The house is much nearer the mosque than my temporary accommodation and I generally wake at 5 a.m. with the first call to prayer of the day! Apparently there is a rota of students for this task.
I moved into my office on Friday last week – I share with the head of nursing at the College a large room on the first floor which has a lovely sea view and air conditioning!
View from my office
Chakwa Bay and Pemba
I’ve been lucky to have had two trips out already. On the Saturday of my first week I joined a meeting of VSO volunteers in Zanzibar at a resort hotel on the eastern side of the island about 30 km from the College, at Chwaka beach. A minibus had been organised so getting there and back was straight forward. The drive to the resort hotel was interesting, through the countryside, palm trees, banana groves, a few cattle like those in India but smaller, but people live in very small, basic shacks that look vulnerable to the elements.
We had a relaxing afternoon, the resort hotel is really nice, open to air buildings, white sandy beach. I had my first cup of coffee since leaving London! The ocean was calm and the water incredibly warm. Lunch was barbecued fish and meat kebabs and octopus salad. Also pineapple which was very nice, with sweet biscuits. There is a particular sort of monkey unique to Zanzibar, Red Colobus monkeys, and we saw a large family of them in the trees (well you may need a magnifying glass!).
Colobus monkeys at Chwaka beach
My second trip was to Pemba, the neighbouring island, for a two day review of the Ministry of Health’s strategy for health with the ‘development partners’. At least half of the public health services in Zanzibar are funded by donors. Key partners are the US Government, Danida and the international partnership the Global Fund which runs the large HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria programmes.The proportion of Zanzibar Government spend devoted to health was 5% in 2010 and is set to fall. Next year the Government intends to introduce more ‘cost-sharing’, i.e. charges, for patients. The meeting was interesting and useful for my work but the highlight was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat in the 12 seater ‘plane on the way back – fabulous views!
Pemba Misali Sunset Beach
Last weekend and until Wednesday was the Eid-Ul-Haj celebrations - we had four days without power cuts! On Tuesday Prince Charles and Camilla visited Zanzibar as part of their visit to Tanzania to mark the 50th anniversary of independence. Along with other VSO volunteers I was invited to meet them at a reception in Stone Town. Most of the other people at the reception were Brits who live and work in Zanzibar in various private, public and NGO organisations. Charles and Camilla visited a number of VSO projects in Zanzibar and cut a cake to celebrate VSO’s 50 years in Tanzania.
On 8 December all the VSO volunteers in Tanzania are meeting in Dar es Salaam for the 50 year celebrations, after the annual two day meeting – I will report back!
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