The Banana Biz Blitz
For those of you still interested in the how the banana craft business has been fairing these last few weeks, here's a brief and final update on that front.
My time with the women pretty much wrapped up before I went to Zanzibar, but I've still been around and visiting them to plan ahead for the future. The business is now in the hands of the women, Mr. Shija, and Robin.
I saw the Mama Machumba group for the last time on Tuesday of this week. There were some nice little speeches to officiate my parting, a happy photo shoot and a few sing-a-longs. On Monday, I saw the Mama Nazareth group. They're a separate group of women who we were introduced to in the first few weeks of February, but haven't really dealt with until now. We're involving them in the banana craft business, because its been going so well – there's enough demand to involve more women, which means more families can make money.
Basically, our plan for the future is this:
The Mama Machumba Group will continue selling crafts to Massai Wanderings Safaris. They will also been trained by a professional craftswoman on how to make banana fibre lunch boxes, to also sell to Massai Wanderings.
The Mama Nazareth Group – a group of 12 women – starting Monday are being trained in the creation of the same two products that Machumba have been making and selling: coasters and bracelets. Once the products are of high enough quality, they will be sold to Soko Adventure Safaris.
Robin performed the admirable feat of recruiting this large safari business (Soko) into our cabal, which means there's going to be even more demand for these banana craft products soon. For now, Mama Machumba Crafts will sell to both Massai Wanderings and Soko, but ideally both groups of women, in a few months time, will be selling to one business each.
And that's that. Evidently, things are getting a lot more complicated and ambitious – but Robin has a month left to try her best to ensure that it all goes smoothly. I'm confident she'll manage this well, and that the results will mean more economic stability for more people – around 17 women, in fact.
As for me, I'm done, and feel like I've left the business at a good time – when we have success under our belts and a promising future ahead.
Books I've read while in Africa
Paul - Alan Clayson
John - Alan Clayson
George - Alan Clayson
The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
Tarzan, King of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Remains of the Day – somebody Kazuo
American Gods – Neil Gaimon
Cat's Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
Disgrace – J.M. Coeztee
There were a couple more but I can't remember them right now.
In transit
I write from Amsterdam Schipol airport, and am flying to Toronto this afternoon. It's been a terrific experience, being in Africa, and one that has no doubt performed small but significant advancements upon my character.
Often I've heard from people that I would come back “a different person” and that the trip would “completely blow my mind” - and not just from people who have been to Africa. Being blunt, I don't think that the experience has had any sort of life-changing impact on me. If I came back a different person, then the guy who left Canada two months ago probably didn't have much tenacity to his personality in the first place. I'll allow myself the immodesty to suggest that I wasn't susceptible to total transformation because I've already done some growing up already. No matter how heavy it feels, two months is just a drop in the pond after 24 years. Still, as I've said before and tried to make clear in this blog – the ripple has been significant enough to make me feel like its been two months incredibly well spent.
I'm not sure if I'll ever come back to Africa. Though I've had a great time here, if I ever had enough money to travel again in the future, I'd go somewhere different – like South America, or east Asia. I was often being asked by Tanzanians I met and worked with while in Arusha, “When are you coming back?” It seems that most volunteers promise that they will return, but then, of course, don't bother. I tried to be honest with people, telling them that I didn't imagine I would ever come back. Though it is a beautiful and adventurous country, I didn't “fall in love” with Tanzania, or at least I don't think I did. Perhaps, if this trip revealed anything about me, it's that I dislike romanticized cliches placed in quotation marks.
Anyway, thanks for reading and see some of you soon in my heartland. For "home is where the heart is".
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Tanzania and Zanzibar mix-tape
I have a confession to make. The Africa thing was not my idea. I stole it from my friends. Brandon and Mike, who have both worked for Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) in Zambia and Sierra Leone, respectively, had evidently done this years before me. I'm just a copycat.
Continuing this thieving trend, I'm going to nick another idea that originated with Brandon and continued with Mike – a mixtape for the country I stayed in.
Mike and Brandon seemed to be exposed to a lot of second-hand music on radio and otherwise in their countries. I didn't hear as much in Tanzania (except a music video by a one-armed acrobatic worship singer called Jean something), so my list is mostly restricted just to stuff I've listened to on my iPod, with a few exceptions.
1. MIA – “Jimmy”
On the ferry over to Zanzibar, I was stuck in economy class watching some weird Bollywood musical about a dude called Jimmy who is scared to play electric guitar because his lover was electrocuted whilst using one, or something. Suddenly, this song pops through the speakers – albeit in original 1970s groove – and I realized that I knew it. Sure, it's annoying as hell, and requires skipping after about 30 seconds, but MIA's cover earns a position on this playlist because of that boat trip.
2. Matt Mays – “Travellin'”
I had this song on heavy rotation before heading off to Africa via KLM from Toronto, and it has continued to spin ever since. Technically, it's written from the wrong perspective – Matt Mays laments his girlfriend going away for too long – but the general theme of putting on your “travellin' shoes” and seeing a different side to the world is one that rings true with any cross-cultural endeavour.
3. Sam Roberts - “Lions of the Kalahari”
Cruising through the Serengeti plains with the wind blowing through my hair as I stood upright in an open-top Landrover, Sam Roberts' song about getting eaten by lions was in my head about eight times a day during my February safari. I may have sung it out loud a few times actually, as the wind was just loud enough to mask my beautiful crooning.
4. Queen - “Seaside Rendezvous”
“Seaside Rendezvous” is Queen's least-rocking song, and therefore not one of their best, but it had particular relevance to the Zanzibar leg of my trip. After my birthday dinner at Mercury's seaside restaurant, I lay in bed and listened to some Queen – and instantly knew that Freddie's camp little ditty deserved a place here.
5. Loudon Wainwright III - “Grey in LA”
Mr. Wainwright senior's ode to rainfall in a typically sunny place came into my head pretty much anytime in rained here in Tanzania – which happened quite often and increasingly so as time stretched closer to the long rain season. At the end of my trip, now, three other songs of Loudon's have also come to mind: “The Home Stretch”, “Expatriot” and “Your Mother and I” - the latter because I just heard that Kate McGarigle died.
6. Grizzly Bear - “Two Weeks”
In the spirit of the aforementioned “The Home Stretch” by Wainwright, “Two Weeks” kept popping into my head about a fortnight ago when I realized that I only had that much time remaining in my trip. It's also a great song to have in your head, so I let it stay there.
7. The Beatles - “I'll Follow the Sun”
After the grey comes the sun, and no one seems to know it better than the Beatles. This track, from Beatles for Sale, sounds a little out of place on an album full of poppy numbers like “Eight Days a Week” and “Rock n' Roll Music”. But its endearingly sweet lyrics and subconsciously catchy chorus foreshadow what the band would later be musically capable of. And it's about sun! Which there's lots of in Tanzania.
8. Hey Rosetta! - “A Thousand Suns”
Again, no real reason for this song's placement except that I listened to it almost daily and it's got some lyrics about sun. Moreover, a “thousand” suns, which is what it feels like is beating down on me most days in bright Tengeru.
9. Eddie Vedder - “Far Behind”
Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into The Wild is a wonderful companion to any adventure into a wild and crazy place. I listened to it on repeat before flying over to Africa, but the song that's stuck around longest on my iPod is “Far Behind”, a true ode to leaving everything and everyone you know back at home... for a little while, at least. I could have put “Big Hard Sun” in instead, but that might have been ultraviolet overload.
10. Doves - “Some Cities”
Driving by coach into Dar Es Salaam, Doves' industrial pounding provided good companionship to my transition from the wild north of Tanzania into the concrete jungle of Dar. Any Doves song is good for a road trip, really, there's something both epic and kinetic about their sound.
11. The Beatles - “Got To Get You Into My Life”
This funky number – also a McCartney track, naturally – was a song I listened to on the drive from my parent's house in Newmarket to Toronto airport. “I was alone, I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there,” goes the first line. “Sounds like you,” commented my mum. Respect.
12. Arkells - “Pullin' Punches”
“Pullin' Punches” has absolutely nothing to do with Tanzania, but it's definitely the song I've listened to the most while here. Hearing Hamilton's Arkells - one of the best live bands I've ever seen - is a nice reminder of one of my favourite things to do in Canada: go to gigs with my friends. If there's one song that's helped me to stay sane here, it's this one.
13. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - “Yaad-E-Nabi Gulshan Mehka”
Give this song a listen and you might think I'm a bit of a music snob for putting it in (or just a douche), but I listened to a fair bit of Nusrat while away in Zanzibar. His soothing Indian rhythms put me in the right frame of mind to appreciate the island's rich cosmopolitan atmosphere. There, that didn't sound snobbish at all.
14. K'Naan – “Wavin' Flag”
No respectable Africa playlist by a Canadian music fan can go without K'Naan. I was originally going to put “Somalia” here instead, because its lyrics about street kids and general hood life in Africa related sharply to my surroundings. But on the daladala the other day to Arusha, I heard “Wavin' Flag” on the radio – well, I heard a female voice singing a Coca Cola commercial to the exact same tune – and I knew it belonged on my playlist. It's a little surreal to hear the now world-famous melody over here on the other side of the planet – especially considering I got to interview K'Naan for my university paper in 2005. Also, if you didn't know already, this song is the official South Africa 2010 World Cup anthem, so you're going to hear it a lot come June.
Note: Can-con count = 6 out of 14.
Continuing this thieving trend, I'm going to nick another idea that originated with Brandon and continued with Mike – a mixtape for the country I stayed in.
Mike and Brandon seemed to be exposed to a lot of second-hand music on radio and otherwise in their countries. I didn't hear as much in Tanzania (except a music video by a one-armed acrobatic worship singer called Jean something), so my list is mostly restricted just to stuff I've listened to on my iPod, with a few exceptions.
1. MIA – “Jimmy”
On the ferry over to Zanzibar, I was stuck in economy class watching some weird Bollywood musical about a dude called Jimmy who is scared to play electric guitar because his lover was electrocuted whilst using one, or something. Suddenly, this song pops through the speakers – albeit in original 1970s groove – and I realized that I knew it. Sure, it's annoying as hell, and requires skipping after about 30 seconds, but MIA's cover earns a position on this playlist because of that boat trip.
2. Matt Mays – “Travellin'”
I had this song on heavy rotation before heading off to Africa via KLM from Toronto, and it has continued to spin ever since. Technically, it's written from the wrong perspective – Matt Mays laments his girlfriend going away for too long – but the general theme of putting on your “travellin' shoes” and seeing a different side to the world is one that rings true with any cross-cultural endeavour.
3. Sam Roberts - “Lions of the Kalahari”
Cruising through the Serengeti plains with the wind blowing through my hair as I stood upright in an open-top Landrover, Sam Roberts' song about getting eaten by lions was in my head about eight times a day during my February safari. I may have sung it out loud a few times actually, as the wind was just loud enough to mask my beautiful crooning.
4. Queen - “Seaside Rendezvous”
“Seaside Rendezvous” is Queen's least-rocking song, and therefore not one of their best, but it had particular relevance to the Zanzibar leg of my trip. After my birthday dinner at Mercury's seaside restaurant, I lay in bed and listened to some Queen – and instantly knew that Freddie's camp little ditty deserved a place here.
5. Loudon Wainwright III - “Grey in LA”
Mr. Wainwright senior's ode to rainfall in a typically sunny place came into my head pretty much anytime in rained here in Tanzania – which happened quite often and increasingly so as time stretched closer to the long rain season. At the end of my trip, now, three other songs of Loudon's have also come to mind: “The Home Stretch”, “Expatriot” and “Your Mother and I” - the latter because I just heard that Kate McGarigle died.
6. Grizzly Bear - “Two Weeks”
In the spirit of the aforementioned “The Home Stretch” by Wainwright, “Two Weeks” kept popping into my head about a fortnight ago when I realized that I only had that much time remaining in my trip. It's also a great song to have in your head, so I let it stay there.
7. The Beatles - “I'll Follow the Sun”
After the grey comes the sun, and no one seems to know it better than the Beatles. This track, from Beatles for Sale, sounds a little out of place on an album full of poppy numbers like “Eight Days a Week” and “Rock n' Roll Music”. But its endearingly sweet lyrics and subconsciously catchy chorus foreshadow what the band would later be musically capable of. And it's about sun! Which there's lots of in Tanzania.
8. Hey Rosetta! - “A Thousand Suns”
Again, no real reason for this song's placement except that I listened to it almost daily and it's got some lyrics about sun. Moreover, a “thousand” suns, which is what it feels like is beating down on me most days in bright Tengeru.
9. Eddie Vedder - “Far Behind”
Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into The Wild is a wonderful companion to any adventure into a wild and crazy place. I listened to it on repeat before flying over to Africa, but the song that's stuck around longest on my iPod is “Far Behind”, a true ode to leaving everything and everyone you know back at home... for a little while, at least. I could have put “Big Hard Sun” in instead, but that might have been ultraviolet overload.
10. Doves - “Some Cities”
Driving by coach into Dar Es Salaam, Doves' industrial pounding provided good companionship to my transition from the wild north of Tanzania into the concrete jungle of Dar. Any Doves song is good for a road trip, really, there's something both epic and kinetic about their sound.
11. The Beatles - “Got To Get You Into My Life”
This funky number – also a McCartney track, naturally – was a song I listened to on the drive from my parent's house in Newmarket to Toronto airport. “I was alone, I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there,” goes the first line. “Sounds like you,” commented my mum. Respect.
12. Arkells - “Pullin' Punches”
“Pullin' Punches” has absolutely nothing to do with Tanzania, but it's definitely the song I've listened to the most while here. Hearing Hamilton's Arkells - one of the best live bands I've ever seen - is a nice reminder of one of my favourite things to do in Canada: go to gigs with my friends. If there's one song that's helped me to stay sane here, it's this one.
13. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - “Yaad-E-Nabi Gulshan Mehka”
Give this song a listen and you might think I'm a bit of a music snob for putting it in (or just a douche), but I listened to a fair bit of Nusrat while away in Zanzibar. His soothing Indian rhythms put me in the right frame of mind to appreciate the island's rich cosmopolitan atmosphere. There, that didn't sound snobbish at all.
14. K'Naan – “Wavin' Flag”
No respectable Africa playlist by a Canadian music fan can go without K'Naan. I was originally going to put “Somalia” here instead, because its lyrics about street kids and general hood life in Africa related sharply to my surroundings. But on the daladala the other day to Arusha, I heard “Wavin' Flag” on the radio – well, I heard a female voice singing a Coca Cola commercial to the exact same tune – and I knew it belonged on my playlist. It's a little surreal to hear the now world-famous melody over here on the other side of the planet – especially considering I got to interview K'Naan for my university paper in 2005. Also, if you didn't know already, this song is the official South Africa 2010 World Cup anthem, so you're going to hear it a lot come June.
Note: Can-con count = 6 out of 14.
Zanzibar: What I did
Having in my last two posts discussed at length the semi-arduous journey and then the satisfying friendliness of Zanzibar's people, I'll proceed now to actually explain chronologically what I did while I was away on my adventure.
So, at Dar on Monday, after the Battle of Ubungo and a ten hour coach ride, I had a tasty little chicken curry soup thing at the adjoining restaurant to the Jambo Inn and then settled in for a night's rest. To continue the trend of aggravating financial dealings with taxi drivers and bus ticket salespeople, I was followed back to my room by the owner of the (also adjoining) internet cafe who informed me that I forgot to pay for my hour's worth of net time. Oops, I said, and gave him a 1,000 Tsh note. Wait a minute, I then said, and grabbed the note right back. Yes, in fact, I had paid. The man spoke little English, and didn't really understand me (and seemed to genuinely believe I hadn't paid). This ultimately resulted in me talking to the owner's security man, who politely asked me again if I had paid. I said I had, and we left the conversation at that. It was only a dollar.
Dar was boiling, but my room was freezing – thanks to the air-conditioner I tried leaving on all night long. This didn't help my cold too much. The next morning, after deciding to sleep in and skip the 7 a.m. ferry, I sauntered down to the ferry terminal and got confused between ticket touts and certified vendors before settling on a mild but not unsettling rip-off of a fare. Around the corner, I chilled in a shopping mall (that had an Apple store inside, oddly) for about an hour before grabbing a 10 a.m. boat over to Zanzibar.
Around two hours later, I emerged from Zanzibar's sea port, dragging faintly annoying touts in my wake. I'd made a friend on the trip over, an Indian girl called Sonya who spoke immaculate English, so we ditched the touts and grabbed lunch together in front of my hotel – the Clove. After this second Indian dish, we parted and made non-committal plans to see one another again on Thursday – my 24th birthday.
If you're wondering why so much Indian stuff is going on in Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar, I can try to explain. Basically, Tanzania has a fairly large Indian population – thanks to hundreds of years of immigration. Zanzibar was previously controlled by Indian sultans, and back when the slave trade was at its peak in East Africa, Stone Town was the continental capital for human trafficking.
Anyway, the Clove Hotel proved to be a fantastic base of operations for my stay in Zanzibar. I had a nice four-post bed all to myself, a warm shower, hearty breakfast and beautiful rooftop for views of the ocean and surrounding rustic urban sprawl. After settling in and unpacking, I went wandering around Stone Town – making sure, at least at first, to stick to the coastal periphery of the small city. I'd save the maze for later.
By the time I'd reached the end of my Rough Guide map, I'd only been walking for about ten or fifteen minutes, and was thus surprised by how small Stone Town seemed. Later, that central maze of alleyways would change such perception.
After an ice cream break at an Italian place called Amore Mio – with a beautiful seated view in front of the west-facing seafront – I burned time at a net cafe before settling into the Livingstone for a few happy hour beers and some menu research. The Livingstone is one of the better known restaurants in Stone Town. It's located within the former British Consulate, back in the good ol' days of the empire. Tables on the beach provided me with a view of an industrial boat being loaded up with cars and all sorts of bags. I had an unsatisfying crab claw dinner – which, being a crab claw dinner, you really expect to be delectable – but an otherwise fine evening watching the sun go down over acrobatic somersaulting teens playing on the beach in front of me.
The next day, I woke up early for my Clove breakfast and then got picked up from my hotel by the driver for the spice tour I had signed up for. After grabbing some other guests – a German couple, a Swedish woman and Aleem, the Scottish lad from Manchester University mentioned previously – we took off to a spice farm located about twenty minutes north of Stone Town.
I'd had many people tell me that, if I was going to Zanzibar, a spice tour was totally mandatory. If I didn't go on a spice tour, then I was truly missing out on a special experience. Now, I learned a few interesting things about spices, and got to smell a lot of nice-smelling doohickeys, but I didn't exactly have my mind blown to a million sniffable pieces. Still, it was nice to get out of Stone Town to experience a different side to Zanzibar – and, I ended up getting along well enough with Aleem to eat lunch with him on my birthday.
Before that, though, let's continue with the spice tour. After the farm, we went to a market stall and sampled a variety of tasty fruits, then went on to peek at some ancient Persian baths. They were OK. More interesting was the slave cave, a giant hole in the ground near the ocean that was once used to hide hundreds of slaves in. It was pitch black, giant millipedes crawled around my feet, and I imagine it must have been simply horrible to have been cramped down there with no food, water, or freedom.
After this depressing episode, more lighthearted affairs were in order, so we trekked to the beach nearby. I slipped into my swimming trunks and rushed eagerly towards the blue ocean. It was very warm, and very pleasant. I collected some sea shells and had a pee in the ocean. I didn't even need to go that bad, it just felt necessary.
Back in Stone Town, I went on my second culinary adventure – which turned out even worse than the first (the Livingstone). The outdoor seafood market at Forodhani Gardens, just a minute's walk from my hotel, was highly recommended in my guidebook. In spite of warnings from both Aleem and a Danish couple I had met, who told me not to go, I was continuing to put increasingly unnecessary faith in my Rough Guide. I spent 5000 Tsh on skewered lobster meat, and it was not any good at all. Two seafood meals in the seafood capital of Africa – and both of them fairly shit.
The next morning, I didn't feel so great – due to the bad lobster – so took it easy for a while. It was my birthday, after all, and I wanted to ensure I was feeling OK eventually. After sorting out a new ferry ticket stamp at the terminal – which proved as confusing as Dar's, owing to the fact that almost everyone was a tout – I answered birthday messages on Facebook and spoke to my mum, before eventually heading off to lunch with Aleem at Monsoon.
Best to avoid the seafood, thought I, and ordered a nice little steak that came surrounded by small appetizers like thick chickpea humus and cassava leaves. It was a very tasty birthday meal and I enjoyed Monsoon enough to return the next day for lunch.
After discussing what videogames we most looked forward to playing upon our return to the West (mine's Mass Effect 2. Or maybe Bioshock 2. Something 2), Aleem and I parted and pledged the usual Facebook friendship exchange.
I then decided to brave the maze of Stone Town all on my own (the previous day I had looked around for a bit with Aleem, who had been there for a month). After all, I was 24 now, and therefore old enough to look wistfully back upon teenage years. Surely that qualifies me for a solitary walk down some streets. Apparently, though, it doesn't grant me the ability to navigate said streets – as I spent the better part of a day looking for the Anglican Cathedral, which was built on the site of the city's once infamous slave market. Simply could not find it.
Following the social escapades of the maze that I summarized in my last blog, most of the day was over and it was time for dinner. Almost tempted to order food to the rooftop of my hotel (which is possible from the Indian place next door), I sided with another must-do recommendation – this time from a reputable source, my friend Brandon, who has spent time in parts of Africa as a volunteer Edward Norton lookalike.
So, my birthday dinner was pizza at Mercury's – the restaurant named after Zanzibar's most famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) son, Freddie Mercury. As Brandon noted to me, it's a little ironic to have a bar in Africa dedicated to a man who was openly gay and had aids. Neither of these things are popular in Africa – at least not in terms of legality (the former) or social acceptability (both). At the end of the day though, Freddie was a musical legend and that's all the bar seemed to think too. My pizza was called the Princess Salme and, for a feminist-themed feast, it was absolutely scrumptious. Sorry, just had to use a word that sounded a little gay.
So after another night spent watching the sun go down on Stone Town's gorgeous harbour – this time with a view of a group of locals playing beach soccer – I clocked in for my last night's rest at the Clove.
The next day, equipped with a better map, I set off to locate the elusive Anglican Cathedral, and find it I did. In the basement of a hostel on site is a pitch dark, scary chamber where slaves used to be kept, sometimes upwards of 75 people at a time, before being sold at the market. The cathedral was an interesting place also, as it housed a cross made from the wood of the tree under which the explorer/missionary/slave-trade-abolitionist Livingstone's heart is supposedly buried.
After the cathedral, I took off into Stone Town's eastern market streets, which I expect are rarely visited by many tourists, and got some surprised glances from shopkeepers and workers busying themselves on the streets. I was on a mission for a soccer jersey for Dar Es Salaam Simba. Sure, I wasn't in Dar, but I wasn't about to let that stop me. Unfortunately, it did, so I had to settle for a nice Zanzibar one instead. Not even sure if Zanzibar actually has a soccer team, though.
All that walking about - missionary work, if you will - had me fairly worn out, so I sat for a while in the renovated Forodhani Gardens, watching ferries and industrial ocean liners going about their daily duties. I returned to Monsoon for a long but affordable three-course lunch – as my ferry wasn't until 4 p.m. - and then moseyed on towards the ferry terminal. Snuck into first-class seating for the return ferry, for some necessary retribution against my ticket problems, and talked to some businessman from Bangalore about how marketing has two metaphorical sides, cooking a meal and presenting it, or something. We got into Dar and I shimmied past the hordes of taxi drivers itching to give me “good price my friend”, opting to walk back to the Jambo Inn instead.
Burger, fries, bed, shower, taxi, bus, home. A great trip that almost deserves an exclamation mark. Almost!
So, at Dar on Monday, after the Battle of Ubungo and a ten hour coach ride, I had a tasty little chicken curry soup thing at the adjoining restaurant to the Jambo Inn and then settled in for a night's rest. To continue the trend of aggravating financial dealings with taxi drivers and bus ticket salespeople, I was followed back to my room by the owner of the (also adjoining) internet cafe who informed me that I forgot to pay for my hour's worth of net time. Oops, I said, and gave him a 1,000 Tsh note. Wait a minute, I then said, and grabbed the note right back. Yes, in fact, I had paid. The man spoke little English, and didn't really understand me (and seemed to genuinely believe I hadn't paid). This ultimately resulted in me talking to the owner's security man, who politely asked me again if I had paid. I said I had, and we left the conversation at that. It was only a dollar.
Dar was boiling, but my room was freezing – thanks to the air-conditioner I tried leaving on all night long. This didn't help my cold too much. The next morning, after deciding to sleep in and skip the 7 a.m. ferry, I sauntered down to the ferry terminal and got confused between ticket touts and certified vendors before settling on a mild but not unsettling rip-off of a fare. Around the corner, I chilled in a shopping mall (that had an Apple store inside, oddly) for about an hour before grabbing a 10 a.m. boat over to Zanzibar.
Around two hours later, I emerged from Zanzibar's sea port, dragging faintly annoying touts in my wake. I'd made a friend on the trip over, an Indian girl called Sonya who spoke immaculate English, so we ditched the touts and grabbed lunch together in front of my hotel – the Clove. After this second Indian dish, we parted and made non-committal plans to see one another again on Thursday – my 24th birthday.
If you're wondering why so much Indian stuff is going on in Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar, I can try to explain. Basically, Tanzania has a fairly large Indian population – thanks to hundreds of years of immigration. Zanzibar was previously controlled by Indian sultans, and back when the slave trade was at its peak in East Africa, Stone Town was the continental capital for human trafficking.
Anyway, the Clove Hotel proved to be a fantastic base of operations for my stay in Zanzibar. I had a nice four-post bed all to myself, a warm shower, hearty breakfast and beautiful rooftop for views of the ocean and surrounding rustic urban sprawl. After settling in and unpacking, I went wandering around Stone Town – making sure, at least at first, to stick to the coastal periphery of the small city. I'd save the maze for later.
By the time I'd reached the end of my Rough Guide map, I'd only been walking for about ten or fifteen minutes, and was thus surprised by how small Stone Town seemed. Later, that central maze of alleyways would change such perception.
After an ice cream break at an Italian place called Amore Mio – with a beautiful seated view in front of the west-facing seafront – I burned time at a net cafe before settling into the Livingstone for a few happy hour beers and some menu research. The Livingstone is one of the better known restaurants in Stone Town. It's located within the former British Consulate, back in the good ol' days of the empire. Tables on the beach provided me with a view of an industrial boat being loaded up with cars and all sorts of bags. I had an unsatisfying crab claw dinner – which, being a crab claw dinner, you really expect to be delectable – but an otherwise fine evening watching the sun go down over acrobatic somersaulting teens playing on the beach in front of me.
The next day, I woke up early for my Clove breakfast and then got picked up from my hotel by the driver for the spice tour I had signed up for. After grabbing some other guests – a German couple, a Swedish woman and Aleem, the Scottish lad from Manchester University mentioned previously – we took off to a spice farm located about twenty minutes north of Stone Town.
I'd had many people tell me that, if I was going to Zanzibar, a spice tour was totally mandatory. If I didn't go on a spice tour, then I was truly missing out on a special experience. Now, I learned a few interesting things about spices, and got to smell a lot of nice-smelling doohickeys, but I didn't exactly have my mind blown to a million sniffable pieces. Still, it was nice to get out of Stone Town to experience a different side to Zanzibar – and, I ended up getting along well enough with Aleem to eat lunch with him on my birthday.
Before that, though, let's continue with the spice tour. After the farm, we went to a market stall and sampled a variety of tasty fruits, then went on to peek at some ancient Persian baths. They were OK. More interesting was the slave cave, a giant hole in the ground near the ocean that was once used to hide hundreds of slaves in. It was pitch black, giant millipedes crawled around my feet, and I imagine it must have been simply horrible to have been cramped down there with no food, water, or freedom.
After this depressing episode, more lighthearted affairs were in order, so we trekked to the beach nearby. I slipped into my swimming trunks and rushed eagerly towards the blue ocean. It was very warm, and very pleasant. I collected some sea shells and had a pee in the ocean. I didn't even need to go that bad, it just felt necessary.
Back in Stone Town, I went on my second culinary adventure – which turned out even worse than the first (the Livingstone). The outdoor seafood market at Forodhani Gardens, just a minute's walk from my hotel, was highly recommended in my guidebook. In spite of warnings from both Aleem and a Danish couple I had met, who told me not to go, I was continuing to put increasingly unnecessary faith in my Rough Guide. I spent 5000 Tsh on skewered lobster meat, and it was not any good at all. Two seafood meals in the seafood capital of Africa – and both of them fairly shit.
The next morning, I didn't feel so great – due to the bad lobster – so took it easy for a while. It was my birthday, after all, and I wanted to ensure I was feeling OK eventually. After sorting out a new ferry ticket stamp at the terminal – which proved as confusing as Dar's, owing to the fact that almost everyone was a tout – I answered birthday messages on Facebook and spoke to my mum, before eventually heading off to lunch with Aleem at Monsoon.
Best to avoid the seafood, thought I, and ordered a nice little steak that came surrounded by small appetizers like thick chickpea humus and cassava leaves. It was a very tasty birthday meal and I enjoyed Monsoon enough to return the next day for lunch.
After discussing what videogames we most looked forward to playing upon our return to the West (mine's Mass Effect 2. Or maybe Bioshock 2. Something 2), Aleem and I parted and pledged the usual Facebook friendship exchange.
I then decided to brave the maze of Stone Town all on my own (the previous day I had looked around for a bit with Aleem, who had been there for a month). After all, I was 24 now, and therefore old enough to look wistfully back upon teenage years. Surely that qualifies me for a solitary walk down some streets. Apparently, though, it doesn't grant me the ability to navigate said streets – as I spent the better part of a day looking for the Anglican Cathedral, which was built on the site of the city's once infamous slave market. Simply could not find it.
Following the social escapades of the maze that I summarized in my last blog, most of the day was over and it was time for dinner. Almost tempted to order food to the rooftop of my hotel (which is possible from the Indian place next door), I sided with another must-do recommendation – this time from a reputable source, my friend Brandon, who has spent time in parts of Africa as a volunteer Edward Norton lookalike.
So, my birthday dinner was pizza at Mercury's – the restaurant named after Zanzibar's most famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) son, Freddie Mercury. As Brandon noted to me, it's a little ironic to have a bar in Africa dedicated to a man who was openly gay and had aids. Neither of these things are popular in Africa – at least not in terms of legality (the former) or social acceptability (both). At the end of the day though, Freddie was a musical legend and that's all the bar seemed to think too. My pizza was called the Princess Salme and, for a feminist-themed feast, it was absolutely scrumptious. Sorry, just had to use a word that sounded a little gay.
So after another night spent watching the sun go down on Stone Town's gorgeous harbour – this time with a view of a group of locals playing beach soccer – I clocked in for my last night's rest at the Clove.
The next day, equipped with a better map, I set off to locate the elusive Anglican Cathedral, and find it I did. In the basement of a hostel on site is a pitch dark, scary chamber where slaves used to be kept, sometimes upwards of 75 people at a time, before being sold at the market. The cathedral was an interesting place also, as it housed a cross made from the wood of the tree under which the explorer/missionary/slave-trade-abolitionist Livingstone's heart is supposedly buried.
After the cathedral, I took off into Stone Town's eastern market streets, which I expect are rarely visited by many tourists, and got some surprised glances from shopkeepers and workers busying themselves on the streets. I was on a mission for a soccer jersey for Dar Es Salaam Simba. Sure, I wasn't in Dar, but I wasn't about to let that stop me. Unfortunately, it did, so I had to settle for a nice Zanzibar one instead. Not even sure if Zanzibar actually has a soccer team, though.
All that walking about - missionary work, if you will - had me fairly worn out, so I sat for a while in the renovated Forodhani Gardens, watching ferries and industrial ocean liners going about their daily duties. I returned to Monsoon for a long but affordable three-course lunch – as my ferry wasn't until 4 p.m. - and then moseyed on towards the ferry terminal. Snuck into first-class seating for the return ferry, for some necessary retribution against my ticket problems, and talked to some businessman from Bangalore about how marketing has two metaphorical sides, cooking a meal and presenting it, or something. We got into Dar and I shimmied past the hordes of taxi drivers itching to give me “good price my friend”, opting to walk back to the Jambo Inn instead.
Burger, fries, bed, shower, taxi, bus, home. A great trip that almost deserves an exclamation mark. Almost!
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