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| Seaweed Farming |
Jambiani beach in the southeast was our next port of call which was two dalla-dalla buses away from Kendwa. Planning to stay for a couple of nights, we ended up staying for about a week. We had a big balcony of our own outside our room and from there we could watch beach life continue in front of us. Similar to Nungwi where the beach would change with the tides, the turquoise blue water would disappear leaving huge stretches of beach revealing lots of lots seaweed beds as far as the eye could see. The small villages along this coast are famous for harvesting a certain type of seaweed on these tidal flats. As is typical for Africa, most of the work is done by women, and we would see them working day-in-day-out in the heat of the day at their seaweed beds. The seaweed grows in clumps tied to staked-out
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| Martin helping with the Seaweed Farming |
rows of string. Once they reach a certain stage of growth, it's harvested and piled into bags which the women carry on their heads. Apparently, the seaweed is sold privately and used world wide in toothpaste and cosmetics. One morning while we were exploring the seaweed beds we saw a woman struggling to lift a bag to her head. Next minute, Martin is helping her and then carrying a bag himself! He admitted it was quite heavy especially when there's still water in it!
The village behind the beach was large and we got to know the post office man, Mr Musa, and the shop where you could get chocolate for about $1 (it was just too tempting!), and the bread shop where wonderful fresh rolls were about 6 cents each! We rented bikes one day cycling 8 km (6miles) to a beach called Bwejuu (even more expensive than Jambiani), but I was overwhelmed by the heat reflecting off the tarmac road and was gasping for a 'baridee sanna' -
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| One Stone Restaurant
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very cold - coca cola by the time we got back to our deck. We also befriended some nice South Africans who had just taken over the management of a little place called Dhow Beach Resort about 6 doors down on the beach, and hung out there. We went for a sunset snorkel with them one evening. There weren't many fish about, but still nice to be in the beautiful water and in good company.
Walking along the beach one day a child's blackboard caught my eye. It had a list of fresh 'catch of the day'. It turned out that Ahmed's shack served up the biggest, cheapest and best calamari we'd had yet! What was funny, was that even though we ordered the exact same thing with either calamari or octopus, it always came out slightly different each time. We didn't care. It tasted amazing!
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| With Chef Ahmed at his restaurant |
Although it wasn't quite the pristine white sand of Kendwa, there was something about Jambiani beach that we liked. My Birthday was turning into more than birthday-week. It could turn into birthday-month. Bomba Sanna: Fantastic! * Mush
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| Seaweed Farming in the tidal flats |
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| With Suzandi and Therese at Dhow Beach Resort |
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