Something's Missing

So the next few days will be the start of the busy period. We are all working to make sure that we are ready for everybody and I'm confident that it will go smoothly. I have been relishing the challenge so far of being here and trying to make Imani go but have not been able to fully enjoy the small acheivements we have made so far. Something, or someone is missing!
It's 10 weeks since I said goodbye to Kristen and I have missed her terribly. Even though I have made friends here and enjoyed telling guests about our (crazy!) story, and the staff are not just staff now, I have a real friendship with some of them, but I have been so lonely at times. There are some things that I can only talk to Kristen about and not being able to have that release has been very hard at times. Even now we are close to being together again - she will arrive on the 24th August - I am still finding it hard not having her around. I think the staff must be so bored of me telling them how many hours it will be before she is here! I think they are looking forward to her arrival as well, I know that she will add a whole new dimension to Imani and make everybody smile, I know the staff will absolutely adore her, she will get on so well with them all and then if somebody needs to be pulled up on their work she can leave it to me! We have done more work on the garden this week and I think it should be looking great by the time she arrives, hopefully she won't want to change it all!
On another note I have decided to get fit - after all one reason I wanted to do something like this was so that I could run on the beach every day! So I have started running with Abass the gardener every day when he finishes at 3. He absolutely hammers me when we do sprints at the moment but I think in a month or two I'll be surprising him! We have also cleared a space at the very back of the garden which we will turn into a weights area - using trees as weights obviously! Sule the chef has also been inspired and I found him jumping over a chair in the outside the kitchen yesterday! And Tito has said he will use the Mazuezi(excercise) area as well. We will be the fittest team on the island!!!

Not enough hours in the day!

So in the week since I posted the first blogs, I have been getting busier, the number of clients is staying constant but I have so much to organise to be ready for August when we have many bookings, everything needs to be perfect! I have also been busy trying to organise paperwork such as spreadsheets, profit and loss sheets ect... Coupled with the fact that one of our waiters (we have 2) has been off visiting his sick father for almost 2 weeks and our head chef will be off sick for at least a month means it has been a bit hectic. It has felt a bit like running on a treadmill this week - not really going anywhere for so much effort! But talking with Tito we were looking at how far we've come in 2 months and that we ARE making progress all the time. We will have nice menus in a few weeks and have started putting together tours for guests - boat trips to the nearby islands for snorkelling and seeing huge tortoises, and also to see the dolphins on the south coast. Abu and his pet monkey cobra is organising these trips and then I have another great guy called Babu who is running the spice tours and trips to caves nearby where the old slave chambers used to be. We have a cocktail list now as well! My favourite is the Bububu Treasure which is lime muddled with passionfruit and then stirred with vanilla syrup and Johnnie Walker Black Label - sweet! Not that I've had the opportunity to sit down and have one yet! The most important thing though is that all the guests we have had have left happy and had a great time, so as long as this can continue I hope everything else will fall in to place! Anyway I need to rush to town again.....

Pole Pole (said 'polay polay')

SLOWLY SLOWLY IN SWAHILI

The morning of our opening party (3rd July) I was feeling really low, we had hardly had any guests and we were running out of cash, plus it was raining and the party was meant to be on the beach. It wasn't looking good! But like some sort of miracle the rain cleared by early afternoon and the sun was shining strongly. We had everything ready, the food, the drinks, the performers, but we were missing one thing. Customers. The show had supposed to start at 5.30, at quarter to six I turned to Tito (the manager) and said - well we'll just have to start the show and have a party for the staff! As I turned around I saw 20 english medical students, dressed up for a party breeze into a restaurant. Hi Simon!! I don't think I've ever been so happy to see customers in my whole life! Suddenly we were off, me and Tito got the show to start, John (the waiter) was running round giving everyone welcome drinks and suddenly there was an amazing buzz around the place. Suddenly the bar which had an empty quiet space was packed, people were queing 3 deep all ordering beers, wine, sodas - in my bar!! It was a strange experience, was this really happening?! It was another 10 minutes before the show started, and what a show. All the activity had on the beach had intrigued the locals and a huge circle of people stood around the perimeter of the beach, everyone mixing together. When the show started the atmosphere was fantastic, I couldn't have dreamt it better!! The sunset was amazing - it is where the blog picture is from and the show carried on after, with the help of some lights on the beach. Once the acrobats had finished the guests moved inside to the restaurant for the bbq and the drummers continued until late. When the guests all left at half eleven I was buzzing. They had all had a great time, raved about the food and entertainment, my belief came flooding back!

That was 2 weeks ago and since then we have had a steady stream of guests, people are coming from outside to the restaurant and bar and everyone so far is really enjoying it. The staff are responding really well which is even more satisfying and Kristen will be joining me in 5 weeks. I now genuinely believe that we can make this dream possible and stay here for a long time. The really hard work starts here...

The hardest goodbye

So I don't think I've ever been more scared in my entire life. What the f**k had we done?! I had been saying goodbye to friends and family over the previous weeks but I wasn't ready for this. I was going to paradise crying my eyes out like a little boy!!

I was having to leave Kristen behind in London and get the hotel up and running alone. For 3 months. We had guaranteed on selling our flat to generate a chunk of the cash we needed but that wasn't happening, the housing market picked the perfect time to crash to leave us in the sh*t! We hadn't been able to make all of our deposit payment and didn't even know if we had enough money to get the place up and running or even open. I had left behind a well paid job to risk everything that could turn to dust in a couple of months - we were absolutely stark raving mad!

But we were commited now. I had to get on that plane and I did. And when I arrived at Imani I had to focus on getting the place open and building the relationships with the staff, so I did.

Day by day we slowly started getting the place ready - repairing the restaurant floor, adding paths from the kitchen to restaurant, changing the garden to make it look nicer. Even the power cut - which happened on my second night here (welcome to zanzibar!) and lasted for a month - didn't stop us. By the time the power came back we were almost ready to look after guests (properly!)

Just the beginning indeed!

So what was the beginning? I suppose it was the night I came home from work and Kristen showed me the advert. She had waited a few days before showing me because she knew what would happen if she did. So she showed it me and that's why I'm sat in my office on the paradise island of Zanzibar starting my attempt at making Imani Beach Villa one of the best places to stay. Anywhere.
The advert was on businesses4sale.com and was advertising a small boutique hotel with garden, private beach and 8 rooms.
We had already talked about leaving London. We bought a flat last year and had it completely refurbished - we were told it would be 3/4 weeks. 4 months later we moved back in! We had a nice place but realised we wanted something more in life, we were fed up of our boring routine and working like mad to pay our bills. We had talked about going abroad, me running a business and Kristen doing anthroplogy. The advert was like a sign.
After a bit of excitment and discussion we decided to reply to the ad. We thought that maybe we wouldn't hear anything for weeks, if at all, maybe it had already been sold. The next day I recieved a reply. One of the previous co-owners lived in Venice and gave me his number in the e-mail so I called him straight away.
We were in Venice a week later. After meeting Bruce there we decided we had to go and see the place. 5 weeks later we did. In rainy season Zanzibar doesn't look like the postcards you see, it just looks like rain. Imani obviously needed some love as well - cars parking out the front where there was supposed to be a beach, but was just mud and rocks instead, and many small improvements that needed to be made. But we lost our minds and agreed to take it over! Looking back it was absolutely crazy, we had done hardly any research and seen a lot of the island and the business was obviously struggling and if we had used any common sense we would not have gone through with it. But powered on by a dream and hope in our hearts we decided - f**k it let's do it!! We returned to London with all the papers signed and 6 weeks later I was on a plane back to Zanzibar!!

Just the beginning

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