Zanzibar

Zanzibar, Stone Town

Zanzibar is full of myth and lore. Once the center of an Arab Kingdom, legends abound. As one of the Spice Islands, many traders passed through and spread their stories. Zanzibar seems to stand for the exotic.

While the history is vivid, Zanzibar today is a different place. Nearly entirely Muslim, it is very conservative. Within Stone Town, the women dress in black, covered head to toe, many with berkas to cover the face. But the tiny alleys, the bustling markets, the spices, the smells, the sounds, and the tropical climate all remain.

There are few real roads within Stone Town. Single cars could not pass through most of the alleys. The buildings are built close together, and the alleys wind there way along. Rarely can you see more that fifty meters (150 feet) ahead. The story goes that the town was built this way due to Muslim customs. The women are not to be seen in public, so the street level buildings have few windows. Upstairs is where the women live, and there they have windows, balconies, and even a few bridge ways that allow them to visit with each other, invisible from the street below. Indeed, our room is on the second floor, and the air is full of sound.

The friendliness and smiles of Zanzibar are legendary. We quickly learn "Jambo. Hibari. Nzuri, asanta" (Hello. How are you. Good, thanks.). People greet each other on the streets with big smiles. Yes they are very conservative, but are also very friendly.

Zanzibar is the name for a chain of islands. Informally, it also refers to the largest island and also to the main town on the island. Zanzibar town consist of two parts. Most tourists do not stray out of Stone Town, on the ocean. Just across Creek Street is Ng'ambo, where we see no other tourists. In Stone Town, tourists find cafes, scuba diving centers, and artists selling the famous Makonde wood carvings and other artwork. In Ng'ambo, the open air market is a procession of tiny stalls on a dirt road. One stall overflows with wood carvers making bed frames, and then comes a stall with mattresses, and then wooden dressers. The market progresses on through fish, meat, vegetables, spices, shirts, slacks, shoes, and even hardware. Each vendor has just a table or shack with a dirt floor, and is selling a few items. Many of the clothes are clearly the discards or odd lots from the Western world. We see T-shirts for the LA Lakers, Chicago Bulls, and others. We also see such oddities as people wearing T-shirts with the logos for small-time events of yesteryear in small town America. I remember seeing one of some youth or sports association meeting in Oregon in 1998. It is odd seeing so much clothing with themes so foreign to the wearers, in this desolate Muslim corner of the world.

The Ng'ambo streets are dusty, and the houses are just shacks made from sticks, mud and corrugated steel. They offer little protection from the elements except shade, but that is all that is needed (except the mosquitoes). One boy greets us and stops to chat for a while. He talks about his house and family for a bit, and then grows reticent, so we move on.

In Stone Town, we awake each morning before sunrise to the Muslim call to prayer. There are several mosques nearby, with the prayers broadcast over loudspeakers. They are rather melodic. But we are near several mosques, and they appear to be in competition. The melodic prayers become raucous as they blare in discord. It is too bad; we enjoyed listening to the Lutheran prayer services in Dar, and would also enjoy the sounds of the Muslim service here in Stone Town.

Zanzibar is well known for the artistic wood carvers. The Makonde tribe carves the black wooden statues that you have associated with Africa. They have considerable symbolism and meaning, generally of the Ujamaa theme, meaning the tree of life or family. Another wood carving tradition is wooden doors. Even simple domiciles have large, carved doors. The fancy places have quite elaborate and massive doors. The carving is coarse and massive.

In the evening we walk around, not paying too much attention to where we are. It is easy to get around, because in fact you are always lost. When we decide it is time to head back, we just point the compass east until we reach Creek Street and then find our way home from there. Alternatively, we point west and find the ocean. As we wander, we find street corners with a dozen men standing around a television piled up on crates, watching the football (soccer) game. On another night, they are watching the basketball championships (USA lost!). On other corners, men play games, such as karem. They flick one checker (like a cue ball) on a smooth board, trying to hit another checker into the pocket. They invite us to join. We don't play, but we watch. Two spectators wander off, and we find them later as one is shaving the other's head as an impromptu barber on the side of the street.

We want to hear authentic music and dance, so spring for a dinner show at the fancy resort. The flyer promises authentic Zanzibari music. It turns out to be a bust. Instead of Zanzibari music, we hear old American tunes played on an accordion and violin, accompanied with drums and vocals. Later we learn that actually Zanzibari music absorbed these European instruments during colonial times, and traditional music is now played this way. But we still doubt that Country Road is an old Zanzibari tune.

The next night, we meet some other travelers who also want to hear some African music and dance. We head for a different resort this time. To our surprise, as we begin our dinner and the musicians arrive, they are the same group! We enjoy the dinner, and have a quiet laugh to ourselves. Later, we pass a bar with what we are looking for. We join in time for the last dance and drumming.

We take a diving and snorkeling trip. Just off Stone Town are several dive sites (Bawi Island and Pange reef). The dive shop is fully PADI certified and we have a pleasant chat with the dive master the night before. We feel pretty comfortable, even though we then walk past the boat: it looks very rickety indeed! But the trip turns out to be great; the water is clear, and the reef full of fish, corals, and sponges. Since the reefs are shallow, there are several people on the boat who just snorkel and several others who dive. That works well for us, so we are together on the boat and for lunch, though Rod goes with the scuba divers and Fran with the snorkelers.

Stone Town is nice and quaint, but we are ready for pure relaxation on the beach. Off to Bwejuu…

Zanzibar, Bwejuu

It seems that beach time is becoming a common thread through our travels. And we haven't yet made it to Goa (India), Bali (Indonesia), New Zealand, or the Great Barrier Reef. Ah, it is such a rough life...

Bwejuu is just a 1-2 hour bus ride across the island to the east side. Along the ride are several villages and small settlements. Even on just one island, cultural differences are evident. The women's dress in Stone Town is head to toe black garb, with at least head covering if not a full berka. As we drive east, the berka disappears, and then the head scarf becomes colorful. Later, the clothing itself becomes very colorful and highly patterned. On the eastern coast, the dress is still very conservative, covering head to toe, but the scarf is not always present, the cloth is very colorful, and the styles of the clothing have some variety.

The east coast has a variety of holiday destinations. Some are full scale resorts with all of the amenities. Others are party scenes. We pick the quiet and solitude (surprised?).

The Bwejuu village is poorer than dirt. Locals depend completely on the sea, with little farming. The homes are just huts made from sticks and mud, and many are in disrepair. Occasionally, there are much grander places, the homes of the landowners or the hotels for tourists. We pick a quiet, inexpensive bungalow.

A coral reef lies offshore about one half mile, with the lagoon just 1-2 meters deep. The beach is very fine coral sand --it seems like talc powder. It even gets oozy when it is wet, and then just blows away when it is dry. When the tide is out, locals wade out nearly to the reef to fish with nets, or to pick up tasty morsels. We are here during the lowest tide of the month, and see women fishing with nets in groups of 3-4, wading up to their waists in full dresses. The men go out further toward the reef, individually or in pairs.

We spend a week, and watch other travelers come and go. Mostly we watch the sunrise and sunset, and walk the beach. We resume the yoga and meditation. Unfortunately, we both also have bouts with digestive bugs, and Rod alternates chills and fevers. But we face nothing too serious, and the only real problem remains Fran's shoulder, which she injured at the Great Wall and it still has not healed properly.

One day Rod joins another traveler to swim out to the reef at high tide. Unfortunately, the other traveler is a lifeguard on leave of absence, who wants to swim to get back into shape before returning home. After two hours of pounding through the surf, he still looks quite fresh while Rod drags himself back to the bungalow! But the swim was well worth it, as the reef is shallow enough for just swimming around looking at all of the corals and fish.

Rod talks a while with the manager at the bungalows, Horace Marwa. He was an accountant at a plantation on the mainland a while back, and with a steady job and income started a large family of four children (now eleven through one and a half). But the plantation closed down and his job disappeared. Now he is drifting from job to job, and quite pessimistic about the future. He joins the ranks of the underemployed.

In Zanzibar, body painting is quite popular. Especially when getting married, a bride will have extensive painting. A local woman offers to paint Fran. The next day, Fran agrees, mostly to get a chance to ask the woman her story. Her name is Nali. Unfortunately her English is not too good, so Fran ends up with more body paint and less story. But still it is a pleasant afternoon, while Nali paints and her two children play nearby. One joins Rod, who is doing yoga, and repeatedly extorts that each exercise is "easy". Ah to be young! The toes were so much closer then!

The days go by gently. Other than the stomach bugs, we have a very pleasant stay. When Rod's fever doesn't break after two days, we return to Dar for a malaria test (which was negative). The fever disappears and we continue on our way.