When I visited Zanzibar a few years ago one of my favorite parts of the trip entailed hiring a boat to take us out to Changu (Prison) Island. There's not that much to do there, mainly because a resort has taken over a big chunk of the island. You can kick around a nice little beach if you'd like, and my students on this definitely loved that. However, to me the best part of the island is paying a visit to a little colony of giant tortoises. On my last visit the old tortoise was pretty banged up and recovering from a tree falling on him. He seemed sort of puny, as we'd say in Indiana, and his shell was damaged. Since he was 179 years old at the time my fear was that his days were numbered. I am very happy to report that not only has he reached 183 years old, but he is very spry and gets around better than I do. There's hope for me yet.
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| I was telling the students not to get too excited because the tortoises mainly just grudgingly stood up, grunted, passed a particularly noxious cabbage-infused cloud, took two steps, and then collapsed for a nap. Clearly, I sold my old friend short because he was motoring. |
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