I took the long bus ride back to Dar es salaam from Moshi and had some things to organise. I had to change my flight so that I could talk to the director of WSPA Africa to discuss the Colobus Trust and how they are illegally keeping captive monkeys and that they are kept in a state that is not designed for long term housing and yet they have been kept in these enclosures for over two years with varying degrees of care and neglect dependent on the volunteers present. And that the Trust wants to release them into the wild to a certain horrible death but won't euthanise which is clearly the more humane option. Here I go again. But it needs to be said.
So I luckily got to meet him on me second day in Dar and then left Dar on the 5th and went to Pemba to visit Chris for 10 days before Swahili Divers opened up again and then went back there for 3 weeks.
So I spent 10 days with Chris in his village and also had a few outings to Chake Chake, the main town on Pemba. Pemba was so green when I returned. It is so beautiful in July and having lived there for three and a half months, I felt like I was returning home. It was the only stability I had had in the past 10 months (since I often wanted to leave the Colobus Trust when I was there!). It is actually the second longest time I had lived anywhere since the end of 2003!
It was nice to spend some time with Chris and not be rushing from destination to destination. It was nice to just veg out a bit. It was a bit hard for me though being in a Muslim village and Chris wanting me to conform more than I was. I don't cope with following trends and doing what others do in my own culture let alone be totally not myself in another. But it was ok and I loved the village women. They were beautiful and painted me with henna and had a ball and then wanted to show me off all through the village. It was so much henna. They would usually only have that much for a wedding because it is quite expensive. And it also showed up well on my white skin.
They insisted on waiting to see Chris's response when he returned home from work and waited at his house over half an hour. Me with next to no Swahili and them with no English, it was funny. Then Chris got home and they were so excited to see how he liked it. Gorgeous people. So friendly.
We headed to Swahili Diver's on the 15th with Don, James and Mike (friend's Chris knew through Peace Corps). We cought the Dalla Dalla (transport on an enclosed truck) to Konde where the manager of Swahili Divers, Emma, was to pick us up. She had no idea I was coming back as it had been kept a secret. She figured when she saw a girl that the guys had found some aimless backpacker in Chake Chake. So it was funny to see her reaction. And Stuart, her partner is the dive instructor and didn't really have anyone to help him for the first few days of opening so he was happy to see me. It was good to be needed!
Got into the diving straight away with a full boat every day. Did 15 dives within the first week I was there. Then I was struck with wounds on my ankle from my booty chafing. I hadn't even stopped to check it and it got very infected from the tropical seas because it had become quite deep without me noticing (because I hadn't looked at it!). There were also a couple of ulcers on that same foot that had become infected. Then I got hit with a bad sinusy flu. So the following two weeks only gave me another 7 dives!
Soon enough the 5th July came about and I had to leave Pemba. I was to fly to Dar and then fly from Dar to Heathrow, London on the 6th July. Just in time to join Emma on a 13 day trip to Crete from the 9th. My final piece of travel before settling down to work. Which I had, by this time, seriously begun to miss.
