Caaaaan I get a BLOG roll please? BLOGBLOGBLOGBLOGBLOGBLOGBLOGBLOGBLOGBLOGLOGLOGBLOG
BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG!!!!!
And we're back. And we're sorry. But don't fear because BLOGstreet's back, ALRIGHT! It has been two moons, many suns, and almost no discernable diseases since we last wrote. We really have no excuse. So we thought we'd pick up where we left off... ZANZIBAR!
For the first time since we've been here, we had enough free time and energy to go out more than once a month. Some notable anecdotes included The Fall of 2009, followed by the Great Shoestring Incident also, curiously enough, of 2009. To properly explain the asthetics of this event, imagine a tree falling in the forest. Now imagine Molly Kane as that tree. In response to the much pondered and infrequently answered question- if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around, does it make a sound?, we would like to counter with another question: if a Molly Kane falls over in an African bar and an unfortunate number of people are around, does it make a sound? The answer, my friends, along with her ill-fated shoelaces, is now blowing in the wind.
As pathetic as it may seem, the catalyst of The Fall of 2009 had nothing to do with things normally found in a bar, but rather her blasphemous shoestrings. The whole incident resulted in the FIMA of Molly's recent months, or as she is more commonly known, Elan, helicoptering in to clean up the national disaster. After assessing the situation- aka staring at molly on the floor for about 30 straight minutes, Elan executed project "Help a Sista Out", tied Molly's shoelaces, and proceeded to airlift her out of harm's way.
Another incident occurred on a dark and stormy night. When one of the seven failed to return to the house, we knew..... THE LOVE PANTHER HAD STRUCK AGAIN. (cue flash of lightning and roll of thunder. hear my cry.) Blending in with the other mangy cats that roam the streets of Stone Town, slinking his way through chain link fences and shimmying up drain pipes, we found that the Love Panther had found a new litter of kittens: THE SIT ZANZIBAR STUDENTS. If you haven't figured out who the Love Panther is by now, we'll give you a hint. His other aliases include Raging Willikeestah, Beloved Bloodhound, Shithead, and Wilbo Baggins. After we did some sleuthing and found out about the latest attack of the Love Panther, we have since created a full screen production musical that we're pretty sure has Broadway potential. Its headlining hit goes a little something like this: "He's a loooove panther with a... BAD habit... a BAD habit for snuuuuugs.." The star of the musical, is of course, the love panther himself (WILL), clad in a full body unitard complete with ears and tail. Think a maybe racier and clearly superior version of CATS.... with one cast member.
On a different note, lucky for all involved, April Fools just happened to fall right in the middle of our stay in Zanzibar. Throughout the program, as we've mentioned about 100 times, we haven't had much free time on the trip, our schedule is always changing, and we're usually confused about what it is we're actually doing. Taking advantage of this confusion, Will, Sofi, and Elan plotted and wrote a fake CONFUSE-A-TRON schedule, complete with fake lectures titled "The Wazungu ('white people' in swahili) Massacre", "Tropical Yeti Culture", "The Sisterhood of Traveling Buibui", and "Talibanzibar- Are You Safe?". The schedule also included activities such as a bench carving workshop, "Mangrove Outreach", and about 7 harbor tours. While these were all seemingly implausible activities, the group simply took one look at the schedule, fell for it hook line and sinker, and proceeded to be pissed off for the next four days, thinking that their one free day had been taken away to go on their sixth harbor tour. When Will, Sofi, and Elan realized that they weren't going to get the joke, they made another even more ridiculous schedule, and handed it to them the next day. We can't remember exactly, but we think that the activity "Braid each other's pubic hair" from 4-4:30 gave them away, and the joke was over. The fact that they all believed the schedule in the first place is testament to how confused we have been for this whole entire trip.
Believe it or not, our best meal to date has been at a Chinese restaurant in Zanzibar. During the meal, we played murderer, a game kind of similar to mafia that involves a murderer who blinks at people to kill them, and then a trial with the townspeople with accusations and voting. We felt slightly guilty for the other terrified unsuspecting people and waiters at the restaurant when Beth Ann fell out of her chair while making choking noises, and Sofi's gagging face fell into her food. Elan and Molly were of course the first people to accuse anyone, and while they weren't busy prosecuting SEEMINGLY innocent townsfolk, they were conducting invisible orchestras with their chopsticks. For some reason (maybe our first taste of real MSG in two months?), this dinner was magical for all involved, and we still regularly sing its praises.
While in Zanzibar, we also visited a completely "green" and self-sustained island called Chumbe, where Molly barfed on a fish while snorkelling, we visited a rural area where we got to see and participate in a two hour long traditional dance complete with stray drunk audience member who could not resist the call of the stage, we saw a massive real dead shark being hacked to pieces and being sold, we visited a night market where we ate swahili pizza, we bought beaded bracelets from singing and hopping maasai men, and danced the night away in our mumus.
This still leaves a month that we have to catch you up on, but in the words of Beth Ann, "magic takes time."
Hope you enjoyed our zanziBLOG!
XOXO
Gossip Love Panther #9
