Kaskazi and Kusi — The Two Winds That Shape Our Year

First-time visitors to Zanzibar quickly pick up two words they have never heard before. Kaskazi and Kusi. For us they are as familiar by now as the four seasons back home used to be.

Kaskazi is the wind from the northeast, roughly December through March. It brings calmer seas, warmer air, and that almost glassy water surface that snorkellers and less confident swimmers love. This is also when the villa fills up fastest, the ocean looks more inviting, and the weather forgives more mistakes.

Kusi comes from the southeast, roughly June through October. The wind is stronger, the air drier and cooler, the sea rougher. Anyone heading to Paje or straight to us in Jambiani to kitesurf is waiting for exactly these months. For us as a business, Kusi means more wind around the house, more sand blowing through the doors, and guests reaching for a light jacket in the evening instead of sunscreen.

I schedule staffing, maintenance, even small renovations at the villa around when Kaskazi ends and Kusi begins, not around a calendar year in the usual sense.

The transitions in between, in April and November, bring what are known as the rainy seasons, the short one in November, the long one in April and May. That is when Zanzibar is at its quietest, its greenest, and, for us, its most honest, seen without the backdrop of picture-perfect weather.

Anyone booking LITTLE POMPEJI Villa in Jambiani should know there is no wrong time of year to come, only a different version of Zanzibar. Kaskazi shows its calm, warm side. Kusi shows its wild, windy one. Both belong to the island exactly as it really is.