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A
treehouse lodge on a Robinson Crusoe island, amidst crumbling ruins
overgrown by strangler figs and frangipani trees, surrounded by a
spectacular marine national park, but also a project to sustain the
local population and environment - this is Chole Mjini, on the
southernmost archipelago, Mafia, in Tanzania.
How
to get there
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The
dhow approaching Chole |
The court of Chole Mjini |
We arrived on Mafia Airport near the town of Kilondoni around noon. But
our transport was nowhere to be seen - seems the guy had kind of
disappeared a few days ago. Well, fully relaxed after a few days
in Sand Rivers,
we did what everybody else did: sit, wait, and watch the
doings of the airport officials, Kilondonians and their chicken. No
problem at all, and after a while Anne, the host of Chole Mjini
appeared out of nowhere with a car and her shoppings, to take care of
us. We were packed into the car, to bump for half an hour along
beautifully green meadows, little villages, through the Marine National
Park entrance and to the eastern shore of Mafia main island where our
ferry waited. Well, the ferry is a dhow, an old but solid wooden
sailing boat - and no pier to be seen. Anyway, this is what we
expected, and luckily the sailors took care of our bags while we waded
to the dhow. The boatride across a channel to Chole took ca. 20
minutes, and soon we could see the first treehouses.
The dhow landed on a shallow sandbench near Chole's main square with
soccer field, and we jumped into the water to wade over - the water
being hip-high. A group of ladies sat in the shade of an old market
hall, selling cool soft drinks, while the old men just sat under
frangipani trees, waiting and watching the soccer game. We followed a
sandy path past the ruins of a church, a jail and a merchant's house in
the forest, to find the entrance to a less-crumbling ruin under a huge
red-flowering tree. This was Chole Mjini.
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The
Chole Mjini Lodge
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Main
house |
Our
treehouse No. 1 |
The ruins enclose a court with old fig trees, but behind it are
the long-awaited treehouses. The main house sits to the right on
ground, offering sitting and a big table on ground floor, and a bar
upstairs - no walls, everything is open-air. From the bar you can see
the sea behind the island's mangrove belt, and suspicious thatching in
baobab trees nearby: the treehouses. Well, the nearest guesthouse is
built on ground. The other 6 "rooms" are the treehouses that lured us
here. They are scattered so that you don't really notice them until you
stand in front of one. The garden is very well kept, with little ground
birds and chicken scurrying around.
We had treehouse No. 1. It is built on stilts around a huge baobab
tree, just above the waterline. The whole structure is built from wood
planks, ropes and reed, and is open on three sides. Coming up the
stairs, you enter the thatched platform where the bed with mosquito
net, a trunk and an open cupboard to store stuff, a little table and a
basin to wash are located. It opens up to a balcony shared with the
baobab, with a bench and a view over the canopy of the mangroves. No
sea to be seen, but a great place to read during the afternoon and watch the
fruit bats and birds when the sun sets...
On the platform, there is the basin to wash (though the soap might have
mice teeth marks), and you get a bucket for a chamber pot at night.
However, WC and shower are on the ground. The WC is a little cabin with
a long-drop composting toilet. The real feature is the shower: It is an
intimate little bamboo garden enclosed by bamboo walls, with
a
concrete basin inlaid with a mosaic. And, well, the preparation to
take a hot shower includes lighting a jar of kerosene and push it under
the hot-water pipe, and then mix the water until its temperature is
bearable. Ingeniously efficient.
The room, the shower and the shower
mechanism of our treehouse |
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Being the only guests for most of our stay, we explored the other
treehouses as well. The groundhouse No. 6 is the most luxurious, with
Zanzibari-style beds, and sunken bathtubs, but still surrounded by a
thatched wood-rope openair structure. It is too close to the main
house, however. Not all of the other treehouses actually had a tree,
and we considered ours the one with the most authentic treehouse
feeling. The others were more sophisticated though, with second platforms
accessible by ladders, with daybeds (or kid beds), with bigger
balconies or views to the small beach, the sea and on to Mafia (No. 4).
We took most meals in the main house - and we were surprised by the
quality and variety of the food prepared by the local chef. It felt the
most authentic during our trip, with lots of local fish, rice, spices,
vegetables and fruit - most of it from Chole or Mafia. Lunch and dinner
were usually taken together with the the hosts Jean and Anne, and their
kids Didi and Maya. It felt really like home. Twice during our stay, we
were treated to a candlelight dinner in the old ruins -
very romantic!
There is no electricity in the guest rooms, but you get petroleum lamps
or torches. However, cameras and stuff can be charged from a generator
at the dive base. This is also the communication hub, with radio to the
mainland. The whole lodge is guarded day and night - whenever we left,
a young man would come and read a book on the steps of our treehouse
and guard it, to only retreat when we came back. You might wish to
bring literature for him :-)
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The
community
Upon our arrival in Chole, we noticed a group of women selling cold
soft drinks out of a fridge. We soon learnt that this was an initiative
of the local women comittee, to make some money for their families. But
Anne also told us that, at first, this small business had been far from
profitable, because the women didn't know that they should sell the
drinks at a price higher than their buying price - so they first had to
be trained in the essentials of business life and book-keeping!
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Future
general Ali, future teacher? |
The
bike of a Chole Mjini worker |
The Chole Project was started by the de Villiers and Emerson Skeens, of
Zanzibar, in 1993, as an approach to bring a truly social and
sustainable form of tourism to this so far untouched island. Based on anthropological
research, and with the help of many volunteers of various professions,
the locals were trained to build the lodge, to run the daily business
with tourists, but also to staff the school, hospital, kindergarden and
business councils that were funded by proceeds from the lodge and
sponsors. The UK-based charity The Tribes Foundation
supports Chole with funds for schooling and the clinic - with a
donation of GB£ 10 per month one student can be sent to secondary
school!
The clinic is supposed to be one of the best in the region,
with even people from the mainland attending it. And the school
produced two doctors recently, while in the previous generation, most
pupils didn't go beyond primary education. About 100 of the 250 adults
on the island get the bigger part of their income from the hotel - but
on the other hand, the island's economy comes to a halt each year when
the hotel is closed during the rainy season, only to re-boost when the new
guests arrive.
If I compare the life at Chole with what I learnt from letters of my
Worldvision godchildren in Chad
and Mocambique, then Chole must have
made a huge step in the past 10 years.
AfricanTravelResource provides a document by Jean de Villiers
which gives much more backgroud about the project.
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