A Day Running the Villa

No day at LITTLE POMPEJI Villa looks like the one before it. That is exactly what sets seven rooms apart from a large resort with fixed routines for every situation.

The morning usually starts before the guests are up. A quick walk around the property, a look at the pool, a look at the generator, because with Zanzibar's power grid you can never quite be sure the night went smoothly. Breakfast follows, no fixed time, no buffet, à la carte instead, guest by guest, which means more work for our team but creates exactly the closeness we want.

Between meals, the real day-to-day business happens. A request for the sandbank excursion, a room that already needs preparing for next week, a tap that suddenly starts dripping. None of it is on a schedule, it all just happens, usually at the same time.

My wife and I share these tasks without a clear line between hers and mine. One moment I am talking to the cook about the fish for dinner, the next she is sitting with a guest who has questions about excursions. From my years as a training manager at Swiss Federal Railways I know how important clear processes are. Here in Jambiani I learn every day how much you still have to improvise anyway.

Late afternoon quiets down, guests are by the pool or off toward the beach, and that is when there is finally time for the things that pile up otherwise. Confirming bookings, calling a supplier, or writing the next blog post.

The evening belongs to the guests again, dinner, short conversations by the pool or in the lounge over a game of darts. Sometimes a question that has nothing to do with Zanzibar at all. When the last light in the garden goes out, the feeling is often that the day was shorter than it should have been, and that tomorrow will look completely different again.