December 16 – Stone Town, The Old Fort

5:00am. Call to prayer. We can hear the recitation sounding over Stone Town from a nearby Mosque. Most of the people of Zanzibar are Muslim. This will be our ‘wake up’ every morning we’ve been told. Will and I find our nightlights and read. We are wide-awake. Brian gets up and seems recovered. Yeah! I knew it. Breakfast of fresh fruit and local jam and bread on the terrace. Will and Bill head for scuba lessons. Kristin, Brian and I hit the streets. We gaze at doors. Stone Town is famous for them. Huge, elaborately carved wooden doors, some with spikes to keep elephants (which don’t live on Zanzibar) from ramming them. We learn that these doors were inspired by Indian designs. The square doors are Zanzibari. Children are playing soccer with a worn out ball in the narrow street. A young boy (age 10?) runs into me, looks up and smiles. I smile back and pat his shoulder. Touching Africa. It’s becoming real. We stroll down different streets from yesterday. Narrow and winding in all directions. I keep trying to remember the casual greeting Bill and Kristin taught us but my brain scrambles and I keep deferring to ‘Jambo’ (which we’ve learned is only used for tourists). Everyone says it to us as we go past. I marvel at Kristin as she chats people up in Swahili. People respond to us differently when they realize we are not all ignorant of their language. We work our way back toward city centre. Kristin and I recognize a street from yesterday. We lunch again at Old Fort. Lobster. At last! My sorrow from yesterday’s loss is relieved. My lobster is large and succulent and delicious. Grilled with a light curry sauce. Brian likes the painting we bought yesterday. The artist, Jabar, is painting another perspective. I ask more about his Japanese teacher. She was a volunteer who came to Zanzibar for only a short while to teach young people a marketable art. Jabar had been interested in drawing since childhood. He was born on Zanzibar to parents from the mainland who are no longer living. He doesn’t know where they came from precisely as they never were able to take him back to their villages. He signs his paintings ‘Jabar Nice’. We again watch him paint. He takes our canvas off the frame for us and rolls it in a cardboard tube now that it’s dry. We bargain for batiks from another shop and pick out a Tinga Tinga for Patty. The artist produces more small square ones so we have choices. Kristin describes in Swahili what we are looking for. We pick out one that is bright and not too complicated like the original Tinga Tinga’s (he was the artist that started this style of painting). Kristin and I admire a woman’s fabrics and I try on a dress. It is too small. I pick out material and the dressmaker leaves to make a dress for me and one for Kristin. TSH13,000 (about $12.00). I feel like I should give her more but Kristin says it’s fair. I could have a dress made in Kigoma for less. We walk to One Ocean and watch Bill and Will dive in the pool for the 1st time. Their faces intent. Brows knit in concentration. Looking related. We meet back at The Clove Hotel later. Will falls asleep so we leave him there. The four of us walk down the street to KiKude, the restaurant where Bill and Kristin celebrated their 1st anniversary. We relive the day for each other. I order prawns and am served a huge pile. A glass of South African wine. Not too shabby! I order another. I sleep well.