Bagamoyo, located north of Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, is a peaceful, friendly, historical town on the east coast of Tanzania by the Indian Ocean. The school is located around 30 minutes on foot from the city’s center, in a rather quiet area.
Home to many schools and colleges, Bagamoyo has a young, artistic population and many art exhibits and live music events, with opportunities to meet travelers from other countries as well as weekend visitors from Dar es Salaam.
Visitors and volunteers enjoy quiet, relaxing beaches; a busy fish market and customs house, where goods from Zanzibar arrive in wooden dhows (sailing vessels); the Performing Arts College; the historical Cobblestone Ocean Road, lined with art exhibitions and historical buildings; open-air vegetable markets; a 3-block open-air flea market where used clothes and household items are sold every Monday; Kaole Ruins, the site of an ancient Kiswahili settlement just outside Bagamoyo that thrived from the 13th to the 17th century; football fields where local sports teams play; as well as restaurants, shops, banks, post office, and bus stand, etc.
There is also collection of landmarks, museums, and other sites that tell the painful story of Bagamoyo’s 19th century involvement in the trading of enslaved people. These include the Bagamoyo Museum, the location where enslaved people were shipped to Zanzibar (a major trading hub) and Koleji, also known as the Catholic Historical Museum.