Island idyll beckons
A former Minster School pupil is leaving Britain to follow her dream of living on a paradise island.
Miss Kristen Harvey (27) originally of Kirklington Road, Southwell, will teach and help to run a hotel villa on Zanzibar.
She will run the Imani Beach Villa with her partner, Mr Simon Bennett (25) of Cornwall.
Mr Bennett will go out to Zanzibar, an island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, this month and Miss Harvey will join him later in the summer after finishing her current job teaching a reception class at Walthamstow Montessori School.
She has obtained a job teaching a reception class at an international school in Zanzibar starting in September.
The couple will live in the villa, which will be closed to guests during the rainy season in April and May.
Miss Harvey first visited Zanzibar in 1999 during her gap year when she taught in Uganda.
She said: “I saw in the new millennium at a beautiful spot on the north part of the island.
“Since then I have continued to live and travel in Africa, but hadn’t been back to Zanzibar until this year.”
Miss Harvey, who has also spent time living in the Sudan, met Mr Bennett when she was studying social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
He was studying maths at University College London.
They found the business on the internet and first travelled to Venice to meet the previous owners, who are Italian, before visiting the villa in Zanzibar.
“We have been lucky to find the most perfect little hotel villa, right on the beach, but set in a beautiful garden also,” said Miss Harvey.
The villa can sleep up to 15 people and is ideally suited for group hire, especially for families, as some rooms have adjoining doors.
Miss Harvey said they were also looking at tailoring a package for weddings, to take advantage of the idyllic setting.
All rooms start at £25 per person per night and have en-suite facilities and air conditioning.
Miss Harvey said they were looking forward to a complete change of lifestyle and learning Swahili, the language spoken in Zanzibar.
“It really is a case of living the dream for us and we hope we will be very happy there,” she said.
For more information about Imani Beach Villa visit www.imani-zanzibar.com
