Awake at dawn writing on the terrace. The call to prayer sounding. The sounds of chickens and sweeping. Few people are on the streets when I look down. Bill and Will are up studying. Off they go for their first ocean dive. Brian, Kristin and I plan our day. Zanzibar Coffee House, Cultural Arts Center, Spice Tour scheduled at noon, meet up with the boys. Maps in hand we head out. The going is slow because there is so much stopping and looking. I discover the fun of holding my digital camera at my side and taking pictures surreptitiously. Not bad. I don’t want to disrespect or offend but I want to record what I’m seeing. Too much to just remember. Many, many Muslims. Burqas. Flowing material. Bright colors. Saris. Bindis, Smiles. Eyes of babies peering out around mother’s arms. Barely visible. Blending in with the fabric layers. The coffee house isn’t open yet. We find the cultural center. Not open either but the Hamani Bath House is. Persian Baths from the 1700’s. Pools for bathing and swimming. Steam room. Massage room. Laundry service while you bath. Showers and toilets. Long channels where water used to run in and under the floor. A luxury spa by any standard. Things haven’t changed so much. The Persian Baths were used by the wealthy. Sultans and their families. Long since closed. Too bad. Our guide shows us piles of coins as we are leaving. We select coins representing eras in Zanzibar history. Used by Arabs in the 1800’s. Then the British. Finally independence.
The Cultural Center across the street opens. It is run by a collective of women who make goods and market them there in an effort to gain self-sufficiency. I buy a 2nd journal as my first is already filling fast. Many of the items for sale are made from recycled materials like rice sacks made into handbags. A woman sits on mats sewing. At the coffee house we sit just inside the door and take photos of people walking by. Many cultures and styles represented. A woman in a burqa talking on a cell phone. Bike rider delivering newspapers. Another picking up coffee. Four large boxes tied onto the bike rack. Caucasians (a few). Soccer shirt. Kangas. Collared shirt with dress pants. We drink spiced coffee and eat slices of chocolate and ginger cake. On the way back to the Clove we stop and bargain for woven floor mats. An older woman and her daughter are making and selling them. We introduce ourselves. Fatima is the daughter. The mother is sitting on the floor weaving long strips together. We buy two and Kristin buys one. TSH300,000. We meet our taxi at the hotel and are whisked out of town. Again quick images flash by. Brahmas pulling carts. Loaded buses full of people and good. Lumber piled against trees. We talk about deforestation. These small trees were undoubtedly logged from the quickly diminishing forests. Row of shops. Bicycles and motorbikes. Fancy beach estates overlooking the ocean. Built by Arabs. Schools with children in uniforms. The Spice Farms. Our guide is young and personable. He scrunches leaves in his hands and offers us a sample. “What is it?”, he quizzes. We guess most of the time. We get about 70% right between the three of us. We learn but can we retain? We get stumped on tumeric. A root we want to call ginger. Some plants smell like you would expect – pepper (dried black when young and white when red and older). The pulp surrounding it is first sweet then bitter. Ginger. An easy one. Immature cloves (an aphrodisiac along with cardamom). “Cloves are the king of spices. Nutmeg the queen.” We recognize lemongrass but not the iodine tree. The sap turns white when rubbed on our guide’s skin. Vanilla beans grow on vines like green beans. Chickens skulk by and our guide jokes ‘spicy chickens’. Bark is sliced off a tree. Cinnamon! Roots that smell like citronella. We collect samples in vessels made of leaves by our guide’s assistant. He climbs trees to collect fruits – star fruit, grapefruit, mango, papaya, avocado. Pineapples grow on classic stalks. An aloe plant as tall as I am. We crush and smell. It is a tour with just the three of us and our guides through the forest. The specimens are scattered throughout. It is shady. Cool. Chocolate beans! Nutmeg in large pods like passion fruit. Immature mace surrounds the nut. A curry plant? We’re not sure we understand. It is never quite clear. I’ve already forgotten so much! We are presented with woven bracelets and rings. The assistant is making them out of grasses as we proceed. Woven necklace in the shape of a frog. Saffron! Many of the plants were originally imported decades ago from dozens of countries. There is a pod. We guess rambuton. We are wrong. ‘Lipstick’ plant. Our guide smears it on his lips and they turn orange. Bright smile and eyes. Kristin and I apply it to our cheeks. Brian guesses Taro and is correct when we walk upon a large leaved plant. Cassava, too. There are many plants here that we recognize from Hawaii, where Brian’s mother lives. Our guide, Sahaid, talks about the seeds being brought in by foreigners determined to create familiarity. This island is an eclectic mix of cultures. I hope to learn/retain more about it. We see quinine, the ‘plant of 40 uses’. Treats malaria, is an antiseptic, calms the stomach, gin and tonics. We laugh. We are encouraged to buy. Big surprise! There is a long table covered with small bags containing everything we have seen. Hot curry mix catches my eye. Tanduri Masala. I chat with a vendor about tanduri shrimp. ‘Grilled. Olive oil.’ We agree it’s making us hungry. “Are you happy?”, Sahaid asks as we drive away. “Oh, Yes!” was our unanimous reply.
We meet Bill and Will back at The Clove. We eat at the roof top terrace of Archipelago Café. Grilled tuna. Fresh grapefruit juice. We withdraw another TSH3000,000. We are relieved to find a day/night that works with our MasterCard as we have discovered few places take it here. We’ve also been experiencing confusion with our pre-2000 US notes. Some places here won’t take them, either. Too many counterfeit bills have apparently been passed. About half the money we brought is older than 2000. We are bummed and not sure what we’ll do when our ‘good money’ runs out. We are glad we wired money ahead to Kigoma.
Bill negotiates a trade for me at a shop – my Addidas backpack for a cloth/basket sling. Just what I was hoping to do. At Old Fort our dressmaker has left for the day. We’ll have to return tomorrow to pick up our dresses. We stroll back along the waterfront. Will buys a necklace for his girlfriend, Tira, from a Masaai man. Brian gets to see all the barbequed seafood I couldn’t eat yesterday. We take photos. There are beautiful children sitting in the grass eating mangos. Just a few blocks back to our hotel. We are all tired and go to bed early.
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