With sand between my toes and the sun at my back, I saw him coming and scanned the beach for an escape route. Still feeling raw and emotionally beaten up from the pain and injustice I witnessed in Rwanda, I craved SILENCE. I didn’t feel up for the sales pitch I knew was coming.

“Jambo….Hello…” he called out in a combination of heavily accented English and Swahili, “lady – where you from?”

For a moment, I wondered if I could feign deafness, but instead I called out “Canada” over my shoulder and kept up my steady saunter through the slippery white sand.

A moment later, I could smell him at my side – salt, sand, and sweat blending together into the natural cologne of the tropics.

“They call me Mr. Languages,” he said. His chest puffed up with pride. “I speak a little English, Italiano, Francais, and Swahili. You need anything, I can get it for you.”

I nodded and kept walking.

“What do you need? You need fruit? I can do that. A bicycle so you can ride out to the lagoon? I give you good price lady…”

And so it continued… I smiled (hopefully not patronizingly). No, I didn’t need fruit. Or a bicycle. My beautiful little budget guesthouse on the beach, The Palm Beach Inn, already had fruit, bicycle rentals, and gorgeous sun rises.

He persisted. “Mr. Languages is very busy when the tourists come. So busy – selling fruit, renting bicycles, taking guests on tours of the village.” He paused to look out into the aquamarine sea, “But, now in rainy season – it’s very slow. I take rest because it’s hard to earn money.”

“I’m sure.” I said. As the only guest in the hotel for a few days, I could imagine how hard it must be to earn a living during low season.

“Now – Zanzibar is Half Paradise,” he said with not a trace of bitterness in his voice. “Life is hard for many people, but then tourists come and spend money and it’s Paradise again.”

I thought of his words in the days to come – Half Paradise – even in one of the most beautiful places in the world, so many people struggle to overcome poverty and make a better life for themselves and their families.

One of the reasons I chose to include Zanzibar in this trip is because I think selecting the right destinations for the future Fresh Chapter Foundation international volunteer trips is critical. Yes, I believe cancer survivors will find healing through international service, but I also believe survivors should feel excited about where in the world they get to write their post-cancer stories. I believe that adventure and beauty are important elements to helping survivors feel excited about life again.

While in Zanzibar, I had opportunity to visit African Impact and spend a day on their volunteer projects. It was a privilege to find an organization with sustainable volunteer practices that provides tangible opportunities for local adults to improve their chances at a better life.  To learn more about my day with African Impact and their wonderful programs across Africa, click here to read my guest post about Volunteering in Paradise.

I’ll leave you with a few more pictures of one of my new favourite places on earth: