The neighborhood fruit bar

My newest Stone Town find about 5 minutes from my house is a storefront next to the Catholic Cathedral that looks like a dusty curio/spice shop, with carved frames, replicas of Zanzibari chests, and bins of different spices in bulk.

However, at the back of the store is the refrigerator with the real treasure - FRUIT! There are about 12 different kinds of freshly squeezed fruit juices in pitchers on the top shelf, and mugs of fruit salad on the bottom shelf. The juices are delicious and include mango, bongo (the fruit from a rubber tree), avocado, passion, date, custard apple, and others. The fruit salad itself is a big mug of cut up banana's, mango, cucumber, possibly papaya(?) then avocado juice, sometimes other juices, and then a spoonful of condensed milk is added to the top.

It sounds totally weird, but trust me, it's delicious. My favorite part is that this store is open until 11pm and if you go by in the evening there are usually people sitting on stools eating or drinking fruit and reading the newspaper and chatting. Since most Zanzibari's don't drink alcohol, the fruit juice bar has taken the place of the local pub! Here is a shot from the street during the day of the cathedral. I love how you can see the minarets from a mosque just a few metres away.

Cathedral and Minarets

Work is continuing to be interesting. This week we held a meeting with two obstetricians from Mnazi Mmoja, the government hospital on Unguja, a doctor working with Marie Stopes (a major international family planning organization), Daneida (the Dutch Aid organization who is the major funder here in Zanzibar - a few years ago there was some unrest following elections and they were the only group that didn't pull out), and the Ministry of Health. We presented the findings from the focus groups and had a discussion about the way forward. I think this meeting illustrates one of my favorite parts of public health research - it really doesn't do any good if it's not used - and so holding a stakeholders meeting in the middle of the research before we gear up for our next big data collection push was really helpful. The constraints/opportunities for family planning identified in the focus groups were generally consistent with what they had already experienced in their own practice but they appreciated having the data to support their beliefs. Also, the act of getting everyone in the same room and participating in the discussions together was a good step. I also took the opportunity to talk with the doctors about spending some time on the wards with them - both at the government hospital and the private clinic. I started this morning in the outpatient gynecology clinic at Mnazi Mmoja!

The backside of Mnazi Mmoja