Ready for Kristen?!

So it's been 2 weeks since I last managed to post anything on here - it has been a bit hectic. The first of those weeks we were very full and then the last week we have been not so busy in terms of guests but we have seen progress in other areas. We have started to have more enquiries for future bookings and are already looking almost full around new year. My new menus arrived from Edu, a colleague I used to work with in London who has his own design business. They look fantastic but it will take me a week to prepare all of the inserts. We finally got our sign up today as well after endless days of varnishing, painting, re-varnishing and so on, now I just need somebody to turn up and say 'we would have just kept driving but then we saw your beautiful sign and decided to come down and see you'! and I'll be happy. I'll also be collecting 2000 flyers tomorrow to promote our thursday night of drumming/dancing and bbq and the hotel in general so we'll have to do some strategic advertising in the next few weeks to make sure they work.
Not before we have a holiday though. Well when I say holiday I mean go away for one night! Kristen arrives on Sunday, so we'll have a bbq for all the staff and guests to celebrate and then I'll let her orientate herself before taking her away for a night on Tuesday. Then from thursday it'll be all systems go again!
Amazingly we have managed to finish everything I wanted for her arrival - well we'll be putting the finishing touches in the next two days, but it WILL be ready. I can't wait to see her face when she sees all the changes we've made!

It has been very difficult being apart for so long but now we are almost together again I can look at the time I've spent here alone with fond memories, how we worked so well together in adversity and the different challenges we've overcome. From having no electricity to almost no money in the tin! But also the laughter I've shared with the staff and guests so far, and I feel really proud of myself for what I have achieved. We still have a long way to go before we can feel like the business will survive but we have made our first steps and every time we make any progress with anything it makes me feel that more confident that we can pull off what seemed the impossible when I arrived here. Whatever happens here I have learnt alot in the last three months and have had an incredible experience, and knowing that I have given myself a shot at making my dream come true is a truly wonderful feeling. One of my favourite sayings is 'in life you regret the things you didn't do rather than what you did' and I feel that so much. Even though this was an incredible gamble I now know I made the right choice.

Our first full house :o)

What a week! We had our first honeymooners stay and am pleased to say that they left very happy :o) I was sad to see Daniel and Paulina leave today but they may be back in a few weeks! If they can make it after their safari on the mainland they will come for a couple of nights to meet Kristen! It makes it feel not so long till she's here if I think guests I've had will come back and meet her!
We had our first days when we were full as well, mainly because we had a nice school group come and take 9 beds, and they all enjoyed the regular Thursday performance - they all went mental when the snake came out - but they weren't quite as scared as I was when I saw the dancers come into the restaurant with big fires on their heads! I thought the whole restaurant was going to go up in flames!! Fortunately it didn't and we live to fight another day. The sign is almost ready as well and I am sure that we will have it up by monday or tuesday, and we are also doing a bit more work on the garden which I am very excited about for some reason!!
Everyone who was here last night left this morning but we had another couple come today who will be here for 6 nights and then we had another couple turn up randomly, so we have 4 tonight with another 3 arriving tomorrow, speaking of which I have to go - I'm waiter tonight!

A sign

So a week or so ago our sign at the top of road was taken down after a dispute between some people (It's complicated!) which means since then anybody driving past would have had no idea we are here - great for business! To be honest I didn't really like the previous sign and it was looking a little old so it forced me into organising a new one. I wanted a nice wooden one that looked authentically zanzibarian so I went with Tito to find a man who could make us a sign! We first went to a timber yard and after the process of saying hello to everyone four or five times one of the guys started to take us down the road to where they were making some boats. It seemed we had found our man! We spent nearly an hour discussing what the sign should be like - down to fine details of size of spaces between letters, words, size of letters, style of border, size of border so on and so on. I don't know why but it was one of my most enjoyable experiences since I arrived here, we were talking and laughing about different ideas and I felt so comfortable.
At one point I looked around and thought about how here I was in Africa sat on the side of the road with these local men, chatting and laughing, people walking by were looking as they were wondering what this young mzungu was doing sitting in the dirt laughing with the boat builders! At one point one of our gaurds clement walked passed, we called out to him and he came and joined us for a while - adding his thoughts to the mix as well! I thought about how my Dad or most of my family would have no idea about what I was doing at that moment, and would not be able to really imagine even if I described it to them. I thought about how my mum could never have imagined me being in such a scenario when she passed away, and would have been so amazed and interested to hear about it.
It was special for me, I wasn't a mzungu chatting and laughing with the boat builders, we were just men, going about our lives and it didn't feel strange to be there, it was normal. It sounds strange but I had an amazing feeling come over me about how life is so amazing, how my life is so amazing and how special an adventure we have started.
The sign should be ready in a week and even though I don't really have an idea of what it will look like I'm sure it will be great, I wanted it to have a zanzibarian style and so any imperfections will be just that and add to the character!! As long as they don't mess up the phone number that is! Oh and if it brings us more guests that would be great as well!