Dhow Sailing, Zanzibar

Well hello there, for the second time this year! Sounds strange?! Yeah, to me too! I don't know if saying 'we better get used to it' is a bit far-fetched at this moment though :P But for as long as it lasts... hope you enjoy it!

I don't participate as often as I used to in the forum's swaps/tags/round robins, but sometimes I do end up catching a good spot, and that is how I ended up getting my first ever written and stamped card from Zanzibar! (I don't get new countries that often any longer, but when I do, it sure is a gem! ;-)

The card shows a dhow sailing (in the Indian Ocean, I guess) - word of the day: dhow - generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with lateen sails used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Historians are divided as to whether the dhow was invented by Arabs or Indians. (It is not like historians could ever agree on anything....)
They are primarily used to carry heavy items, like fruit, fresh water or merchandise.

Now, if to anyone this stamp saying Tanzania comes as a disappointment, it shouldn't, since Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania and even though it has its own Government, postage stamps are a different issue. If you do have a read about Zanzibar's history of postage stamps though, it does get a bit confusing, being that it used Indian stamps in the 19th century and then later it fell into the hands of the British Empire. So the bottom line, in this year and this century, I couldn't have possibly received a Zanzibar card with a Zanzibar stamp, but the cool thing is that even on the Tanzanian stamps, they do show some Zanzibar-related things, so that counts :D

This stamp is from a set of 4 Tourism stamps issued in 2010, showing Zanzibar attractions - here you can see the Red Colobus Monkey.

Thanks a million to Olia for this card! It is actually really cool to be able to visit a country like Zanzibar :)