Where did all the classes go?

I, for one, have no idea. My Bantu Language Structures class was supposed to meet this morning at eight, and I showed up but no one else did. And then it was supposed to meet today at four, and no one showed up again. So I'm on the internet. Haya.

We went to Zanzibar this weekend for Eid-ul-Fitr (it's the end of Ramadan, which translated into a big party since Zanzibar is 99% Muslim). Zanzibar is my favorite place, and I think for the first time I achieved some kind of zen-like state, induced by the purchase of a tiny marble elephant. I'm not sure how to explain that.

The weather was gorgeous and about 20 of us ferried over (about an hour and a half boat ride, now throw uppers this time!) early Friday morning and spent the day absorbing Zanzibari culture. Stonetown is a virtual labryinth of sorts and you can spend all day wandering around the tiny streets haggling with shop owners. I bought a ton of jewelry and scarves and spent about three hours in this amazing antique shop. We ate on the waterfront (I emerged with the correct number of eyelids this time), spent Saturday on the beach, and partied with the locals until 4 am Sunday morning.

BUT we got our stuff jacked twice. Hannah, Elizabeth, and I were waking along the waterfront in broad daylight, in a crowd, on Saturday afternoon and a 16-year-old-ish boy ran up and pushed me really hard and nabbed Hannah's purse. He was probably still pretty new at it, because Hannah held on for dear life and he only got away with her purse strap - and only for a little while. As soon as she realized what was happening, she started screaming, "MWIZI, MWIZI" and I got really caught up in the excitement and started hopping around and screaming and pointing, "MWIZI, MWIZI!" and about fifteen Zanzibari men emerged from out of nowhere and took off after him. One came back with the purse strap and all the bystanders were SO mad at him, apologizing profusely and making sure that we didn't think all Zanzibari people were like that. We didn't see the boy again, and the fact that vigilante justice is still the norm here makes that a little bit disconcerting. I'm just not going to ask questions.

Then, as we were coming home from the club on Sunday morning, we stumbled across this pizza shop. I was clapping my hands and jumping and squealing at this beautiful beacon of hope in the middle of a barren wasteland of rice and beans, and we ordered and sat around a table on the patio. For some reason the clerk wouldn't take our money immediately, so we had about fourteen bucks sitting on the table, which was dumb on our part, admittedly. Some teenage boy came by and made a big show of high fiving everyone and acting really nice, and then he simply snatched up the money and took off sprinting. We were all confused because I'm fortunately still not disillusioned enough to believe that anyone who is nice is probably stealing from me, but when we realized what happened it was pretty upsetting.

Tanzania, I understand that you're incredibly impoverished, but the instances of petty thievery are too much to handle sometimes. Having to be constantly on guard is exhausting, and every time it happens I'm a little more embittered, which I hate because I really don't want those few terrible experiences to taint my whole trip. I'm grateful that violent crime isn't so ingrained into the culture here like it is in America, but the complete lack of respect for personal property is really disheartening.

That being said, I had an awesome weekend. I really, really needed it because with classes starting (still, after five weeks, "starting") and these few but hurtful instances of being targeted for whatever reason, the weekend helped me get back on my game. I'm still struggling with whether or not to stay for the year, but I really do like it. I'm growing, at the very least.