Volunteer teaching in Zanzibar

Last May and June i spent 6 weeks in Zanzibar with 2 of my best friends everyday was like living a dream. We would wake up and watch the sunrise, the fisherman walking out to their boats and the seaweed farmers walking back to shore with kgs of seaweed. It was the most sureal experience i have ever had but it was incredible. I didn't want to leave. Our normal day would start at 7am we were provided breakfast by the wonderful and friendly chefs, then road our bikes to JTTI (Jambiani Tourism Training Institute) where we had been allocated groups to teach them english they ranged from no english at all to students that were studying the Martin Luther King Jr speech. At about 10:30 we would cycle to our allocated nursery their were 3 in total. I taught class 3 at Sirajetil and Ibrahim nursery the children were such a delight everyday and always full of beans. We would then return home at about 12pm for lunch and have a 2 hour break to prepare for our lessons the next day or going for a swim in the crystal clear waters. In the afternoon we would have some sort of manual labour we planted trees in the primary school, did a beach clean up and provided bins for the local community. In the evening we would have "Rainbow" which was the kids club or an adult evening class and the volunteers would alternate each day what they did. To finish off the day we could walk down the beach to the local bar were some of our students worked to have a drink (non-alocholic of course). The entire experience is something i will never ever forget the people you meet and things you see are make me want to go back in a heartbeat. We not only volunteered though we had the weekends off so were able to explore the island. We went to the very north of Zanzibar to Nungwi for a full moon party, visited Stone Town numerous amounts of time, got to snorkel off Prison Island which was indescribable it was so beautiful. There are so many highlights its hard to pick one but we were lucky enought to see 'Bikidude' who was so famous amongst the locals she is a very old woman who can play the drums and sing - she was a god to the locals. One of our students invited us to his village we left at 9am and got back at 6pm it was a day i will never forget the village he came from was beautiful. All the activites we were lucky enough to experience made the trip the wonderful and to see the smiles on all the villagers faces was amazing. I never once felt unsafe and the co-ordinators were wonderful. I would recommend this trip to anyone we had volunteers who were 18 up to 55 in our group. I would drop at a hat to go their again.