Yes... TawnZaniA.... Tawney and Zani in Tanzania...
It happened.
In this video Tawney made for my birthday, it begins with our first night in Zanzibar so you can get a sense of what it was like for us.
But as you can see - if you watch the whole video - we are full on professionals at dealing with things when they are weird and rapey or uncomfortable.
We promptly moved to a beautiful resort-like hotel that was only $55 a night - but infinitely better with flower petals on the clean white sheets that were changed for us daily...
Unfortunately, on our second night I once again made the WORST call ever and convinced Tawney that she should eat at the dive bar we were playing pool at, because I loved the people there and didn't want it to stop... and Tawney promptly got violently ill and was basically sick the entire time we were there.
At least we had a clean bed and toilet?...
I stayed with her for the first day of her sickness - letting the dive center know that I wouldn't be coming that day - and instead stayed home to take care of Tawney and to study Spanish since I had a Spanish midterm the day I got back from this trip. But of course, I forgot my spanish book at home - and had brought hte wrong binder.
After a day of doing nothing (which was actually pretty nice)... I decided to go dive because it was all I could think about. I got to the dive center in the morning and was told that I had to buddy up with a beautiful Spaniard. Tough luck for me! We spent the entire boat ride practicing Spanish - since my Spanish was about as good as his English we were a perfect team. He was a dive master in training - so he was my guide and we had the most incredible dives - laughing underwater until we were nearly drowning and playing charades 80 feet below the surface. It was magical.
The Dive Masters in Training became my vacation best friends and we played all week long... staying up until 5am lying on the beach listening to Spanish jazz after we closed down the local bar which had poisoned Tawney, but served up a mean Stoney and rum - (Stoney is the delicious ginger ale that comes in a beer bottle and mixed with rum is outrageous - i drank about 20 a night)... Gilad, who we loving dubbed Gelato had a guitar and we went to serenade Tawney in her sick bed one night...
Every evening was an adventure with my new friends...
I went diving again on my last day and was once again buddied up with Jose Luis - who I now loved so much. He and I both had an instant connection to one another - which had only happened to me once before when I met Mikey Mowgli at burning man in 2009.
I don't know what these connections mean... but Carl Jung says in the intro of his book Memories, Dreams, Reflections,
"Other people are established inalienably in my memories only if their names were entered in the scrolls of my destiny from the beginning, so that encountering them was at the same time a kind of recollection."
This is how I feel.
I don't know why or how I have known this Spanish dive master before, but I knew him... I have known him.
The week was purely magical - I saw two shooting stars - estrellas fugaces - and did four dives in the crystal clear reefs off of Zanzibar... I experienced Africa for the first time and will never forget the experience - because from the moment go, it seems, I was never NOT going to be there.
It was always written upon the scrolls of my destiny that I was going to Nungwi, Zanzibar to that particular dive center to meet these particular people and dive those particular dives.
How beautiful synchronicity is.
I believe I will go back to Africa once I am a doctor and do aid work there. If it's written....
It happened.
How we ended up in Nungwi, Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania is the craziest part about this whole trip. It was total synchronicity and complete surrender - allowing myself to be guided to this place.
On the beach in the Maldives I had thought that I wanted to go to Mozambique because Shayne and I had always talked about going there and I knew it was beautiful and would be a good place to scuba dive I thought...
Upon returning to San Diego I was put in touch with the travel agent who would be making my arrangements for the Africa trip. Tawney would be in Kenya for 5 weeks prior to my arrival and so she could conceivably meet me anywhere. The travel agent told me that all i needed to provide was an airport - wherever I wanted to go. So, of course, I pulled out my parents' old globe and spun it around dragging my finger across the embossed topography just like I have done since I was a kid...
I know that I love to be near the equator - I mean I lived at Latitude zero for a period of time in the Telos Islands in Indonesia - and the Maldives had been pretty darn close.
I saw that Tanzania was actually closer to the equator than Mozambique so on a whim, I just looked for airports in Tanzania and found two - one near Kilimanjaro and one near the beach called Dar Es Salaam... So I got my ticket to Dar.
I was told that it was crucial that I booked my first night's accommodation because my flight got in at 4am and it was not safe to be alone at night in Dar - especially as a woman - especially as a white, blonde woman.
I have traveled far and wide alone and have never particularly felt afraid or threatened as a woman - no more than I have in downtown LA or New York City or London anyway.
I wasn't scared, but I started to look online to see if there as a cheap place for me to stay in Dar... I let my search be 50 miles I think - just because I thought I wouldn't want to miss out on somewhere that was a little further out of town if it was amazing.
Hotel after hotel looked sad and dilapidated, crumbling and typical developing world accommodation in a big city. Suddenly I cam across a picture that looked tropical - i clicked in and found that it was in Zanzibar - an island that was just right off the coast of Tanzania.
I really had no idea where Zanzibar was when I booked my flight to Tanzania... I don't know where I thought it was but not there.
I began to search photos of Zanzibar and found that it was stunning - tropical, white sands - all the things that make my heart go boom.
A shock went through my body as the idea came to me and a typed in "Scuba diving, Zanzibar"... only to find that Zanzibar was a scuba diving haven.
I searched around and came across a scuba and yoga center called "Divine Diving"
...and thus... Tawney and I set our coordinates for Nungwi, Zanzibar - the northern tip of the island where we could dive and practice yoga and drink while waist deep in crystal blue water and laugh and be in AFRICA!
I emailed the center and told them I was coming and asked if they knew of any very cheap accommodation that we could stay at - backpackers vibe. I was recommended a place that was only $20 US a night for both of us.
PERFECT!
In the weeks leading up to the trip, Tawney expressed concern about the place that I was taking us to stay - there was nothing on trip advisor and it seemed sketchy to her... Me being me was laissez-faire about it and said - Ah - if it's bad we will swap rooms or move somewhere else.
We arrived in the dark to the creepiest, rape-iest place in the world and basically cried ourselves to sleep... We were mostly crying from laughing so hard, but it was actually pretty bad.
In this video Tawney made for my birthday, it begins with our first night in Zanzibar so you can get a sense of what it was like for us.
But as you can see - if you watch the whole video - we are full on professionals at dealing with things when they are weird and rapey or uncomfortable.
We promptly moved to a beautiful resort-like hotel that was only $55 a night - but infinitely better with flower petals on the clean white sheets that were changed for us daily...
We were in heaven.
Unfortunately, on our second night I once again made the WORST call ever and convinced Tawney that she should eat at the dive bar we were playing pool at, because I loved the people there and didn't want it to stop... and Tawney promptly got violently ill and was basically sick the entire time we were there.
At least we had a clean bed and toilet?...
I stayed with her for the first day of her sickness - letting the dive center know that I wouldn't be coming that day - and instead stayed home to take care of Tawney and to study Spanish since I had a Spanish midterm the day I got back from this trip. But of course, I forgot my spanish book at home - and had brought hte wrong binder.
After a day of doing nothing (which was actually pretty nice)... I decided to go dive because it was all I could think about. I got to the dive center in the morning and was told that I had to buddy up with a beautiful Spaniard. Tough luck for me! We spent the entire boat ride practicing Spanish - since my Spanish was about as good as his English we were a perfect team. He was a dive master in training - so he was my guide and we had the most incredible dives - laughing underwater until we were nearly drowning and playing charades 80 feet below the surface. It was magical.
The Dive Masters in Training became my vacation best friends and we played all week long... staying up until 5am lying on the beach listening to Spanish jazz after we closed down the local bar which had poisoned Tawney, but served up a mean Stoney and rum - (Stoney is the delicious ginger ale that comes in a beer bottle and mixed with rum is outrageous - i drank about 20 a night)... Gilad, who we loving dubbed Gelato had a guitar and we went to serenade Tawney in her sick bed one night...Every evening was an adventure with my new friends...
I went diving again on my last day and was once again buddied up with Jose Luis - who I now loved so much. He and I both had an instant connection to one another - which had only happened to me once before when I met Mikey Mowgli at burning man in 2009.
I don't know what these connections mean... but Carl Jung says in the intro of his book Memories, Dreams, Reflections,
"Other people are established inalienably in my memories only if their names were entered in the scrolls of my destiny from the beginning, so that encountering them was at the same time a kind of recollection."
This is how I feel.
I don't know why or how I have known this Spanish dive master before, but I knew him... I have known him.
The week was purely magical - I saw two shooting stars - estrellas fugaces - and did four dives in the crystal clear reefs off of Zanzibar... I experienced Africa for the first time and will never forget the experience - because from the moment go, it seems, I was never NOT going to be there.
It was always written upon the scrolls of my destiny that I was going to Nungwi, Zanzibar to that particular dive center to meet these particular people and dive those particular dives.
How beautiful synchronicity is.
I believe I will go back to Africa once I am a doctor and do aid work there. If it's written....
A video from tawney.....
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