Teacher for a day (or two)

In the time I’ve been in Tanzania, innumerable, young, black children have walked past me and thrown a very polite “Good Morning, Teacher” my way. Their politeness and their assumption that I am a teacher always make me smile. This week, I almost deserved that greeting, as I became a teacher of sorts.

Roughly six weeks ago, I was meant to travel to Stone Town to give a two-day course to the Zanzibar Legal Services Centre (the “ZLSC”) on how to write the human rights report. For some reason or another, the training date fell through. After a fair amount of to-ing and fro-ing, it was decided on Wednesday that I would spend this weekend doing the training in Pemba.

Zanzibar is made up of a number of islands located off the coast of Tanzania. The largest inhabited island (and most popular) is Unguja, which is home to Stone Town. The next biggest island is Pemba. Pemba is fairly underdeveloped, its economy is dominated by agriculture and its power goes out on a regular basis. I stayed in its capital city, Chake Chake. Chake Chake is a one cow town and the cow is in pretty bad shape. Rumour has it that the Zanzibarian government funnels very little money to Pemba because it is a stronghold of the opposition party, the Civic United Front. The ruling party and the CUF are still arguing about whether the 2005 general elections were free and fair. You could say there was some animosity between the parties.

There are two ways to get Pemba: (1) take the once-daily 12-seater plane, or (2) hitch a ride on the somewhat random fishing boats going from Unguja to Pemba. I took the flight option. The flight gives you a bird eye’s view of beautiful beaches and underwater islands reaching for the sun. On my arrival in Pemba, I was greeted by a quick “Miss Sela” and whisked away by an eager taxi driver who the ZLSC had sent to pick me up. I was pretty glad that the ZLSC had arranged transportation for me, as there wasn’t another taxi in sight and, according to my guide book, it was unlikely that one would come along.

On Saturday morning, I looked around at a table of eight serious faces and we started our two day session of unpacking the process for writing the Human Rights Report. For the past three years, the ZLSC has researched and written the Zanzibar portion of the Human Rights Report. However, their portion of the report has been heavily criticized for a variety of reasons. The purpose of this training was to assist the ZLSC in getting a handle on different research methods, how to organize material, the importance of citing sources, what type of information should be included in the Human Rights Report, and the basic principles of good report writing. We also did a fairly exhaustive brain storming session on what information should be included in this year’s report specifically. Hopefully, the training and the “guide” I wrote will help build the ZLSC’s capacity to write this year’s report and future reports. There was a fair amount of discussion and Q&A throughout the training, which I think is a good sign. I enjoyed facilitating the training, although I found it somewhat tiring. I am not used to being on the other side of the teacher-student fence and the Pemba heat was intense. In Grade Six, I was told by a teacher that girls don’t sweat, they glow. She had obviously never been to Pemba when it was 37 degrees with 85% humidity. It was hot and the fan was fighting an uphill battle.

I really enjoyed meeting the lawyers of the ZLSC and the ZLSC did an awesome job of hosting me. They arranged my accommodation for me and one of the ZLSC lawyers, Aziz, had me over to his house for dinner just about every night. These dinners gave me the opportunity to try authentic Zanzibarian food, like dagaar (sp?)(1-2 cm fish, deep fried and eaten whole), chicken and coconut stew, and haluu (a gelatinous substance flavoured with spices, like cinnamon and cloves). I have to admit, my portion of dagaar was accompanied by big swallows of water. It was a little fishy for my taste. Aziz also took me out for a night on the town, which in Pemba means hitting up the local army mess where you can eat meat kebabs and dance under the starlit sky. As 95% of the Pemba population is Muslim, the army mess is also one of the very few places in Chake Chake where you can get a beer. It was a great place to spend a Saturday night.

I've added some pics that can accessed through the link "Pemba in Pictures".