Stand on Zanzibar

We have spent the last week on Zanzibar, an island of the coast of Tanzania. And whilst it is a part of Tanzania, it is also a self governing province. It was also the site of the shortest war in history, lasting roughly half an hour – the time taken for the British to flatten the palace of the Sultan in order to gently encourage surrender.

The history basically is, Zanzibar was settled as a convenient base to trade with the mainland, but it didn’t achieve its importance until 1698 when the sultanate of Oman moved there – at some point eclipsing Lamu as the centre of Muslim power on the coast. From the 1830s, the buildings we now see in Stone Town started to be constructed as the island became the centre of the Arab slave trade. As it was constructed later than Lamu, the roads are much wider allowing cars to drive down them (which they do, fast) although much of the town has thankfully been pedestrianised. The real difference between Stone Town and Lamu is that people welcomed us in Lamu. In Stone Town we were welcomed… …into their shop.

Our plan was simple. To spend a few nights in Stone town before moving to the beach for a few more nights, and for once the plan came off without a hitch.

Stone Town is cool. Not only is it where Freddy Mercury was born, but it is a maze of twisting alleyways and totally unfamiliar architecture. For those who have never been to the Swahili coast, this means that we mazungu have no frame of reference and so spend our whole time lost. We had a very happy time wandering around listening to exaggerated tales of the slave trade. For example we saw the slave pits where underneath the market slaves were held before being sold (now the Anglican cathedral). Apparently here they were suffocated or starved to death… etc. This was after the traders had gone to all the trouble of bringing slaves from as far afield as the Congo, on expeditions sometimes lasting decades. I think not.

Stone Town also has a fantastic evening market type thing where there are many stalls selling food (consisting of fish kebabs, lobster, crab, pizza etc – all of it delicious). Of course, none of the stall workers do this to make money for themselves. No siree. They are far too altruistic for that. They get up at 6 am and fish all day. Then they prepare the food which they have just caught. After all this, they work until late at night before starting the process again. And the proceeds from their stalls? Why, they give it all to the local orphanage of course. This means one can feel good whilst gorging oneself on freshly unfrozen food.

Soon our time was up and we were off to the beach. We stayed in a hotel which was  almost a lodge, with a well stocked bar, three course dinners and a rather panicky American owner. 

Everything on Zanzibar is frighteningly expensive (at least where we were) with hotels easily double the cost of the mainland. This made the poverty gap much more striking with crude buildings, children cleaning themselves in the sea and groups out doing the Zanzibar equivalent of cockle picking (ie grabbing monster crabs and octopuses) nestled in between the super luxury beach hotels. A happy few days were spent wandering or cycling up the beach or swimming in the sea (and talking to an amazing Brit who, having studied the slave triangle at university was excited to be where it actually happened. Duh).

 

But a piece of advice for all visitors to Zanzibar – take your own ice cream. Despite hours of looking, we failed to find any. We didn’t even have any speedo clad Italians to laugh at and distract us from our pain.

The final highlight was the spice tour (they grow spices on Zanzibar). Here we wondered round a government plantation (essentially a jungle), sniffing crushed leaves and being serenaded by some crazy nutter up a palm tree. They did make us fetching palm accessories – which begged the question ‘why would you do that to someone?’

But before we knew it we were off, back to Nairobi, for our final week in Africa.

TAZARA – Tanzanian Zambian Railways

It was with sadness that we said goodbye to Zambia and the Arkkilas. Not only were we made to feel incredibly welcome, but leaving marked the beginning of the end. In two weeks we shall be home and complaining about the weather.

So what have we been up to? Not much really. Working, I have been swanning around doing accountancy type stuff. Jo on the other hand has been useful and has taught English to Sinikka, one of the new Finnish arrivals. Of course the highlight of each day was playing in the garden with Little Joanna (number 1 I think, but it might be number 2 – not sure). After the comments about someone not liking the mural, it is my sad duty to report that we have not had much luck taking photos of Joanna, just before the family snap, she fell over and hurt her hand. Well, you can judge for yourselves… And in case you are wondering the dog, Teddy, is terrifying and friendly. Once you start to stroke him you are afraid to stop.

“So what have you really been doing?”’ we hear you ask, and a very prescient question too. Well what we have really been doing is… … watching ‘Little House on the Prairie’, which for some reason I missed the first time around! Two things to say.
i)   Jo is still as soft as ever and cries in nearly every episode.
ii)   The littlest one is the most powerful argument I have yet seen against children. Gives me the heebie jeebies.
and iii) lucky there were no Indians living on the prairie ‘cause Mr Ingalls is too damn wholesome and nice to steal someone else’s land.

Sadly, our time came all to soon (before we even finished the first series of LHOTP!) and we found ourselves on the train to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (where we are now) . This is a mammoth two day journey, with restaurant cars and bars. There were even showers, but someone liked the look of the plumbing so they are non functional. Sadly this means that the toilets are none too hot either.

There are actually many similarities between TAZARA and British Rail. As mentioned, journeys take around two days (although here they are meant to). You also have to make part of your train journey by bus (again here that is expected as for some reason the train starts 2 hours out from Lusaka). Of course the accommodation is in a different league. We are travelling first class and have a cabin to ourselves, with food brought to us by our friendly waiter, the aforementioned toilets and showers as well as a bunch of irritatingly loud Japanese. You then move onto second class with six crammed into a cabin, but still with beds (and with squat toilets – if only we had that hygienic luxury here…) And then you are into third class with the poor and starving masses, steerage way – where the peons are crammed like sardines. And guess what, just like BR.

And what do the next few weeks hold for us? Well, we are off to the pristine island of Zanzibar. The intention, to relax and generally recover from our year of, err, relaxing.

So, bye bye Zambia, we shall miss you.