Sunday, May 31, 2009

The weekend provided the moderator team with a rare and relished break to explore outside the seminar room. On Sunday morning, the three of us headed to historic Stone Town for breakfast overlooking the dhows and other wooden fishing boats at the quiet southern end of the town beach. Over delicious coffee and freshly made flat bread, we reflected on our prior day’s jaunt to Prison Island, more appropriately called Changuu Island. There, we met and fed some of the island’s hundred or more giant Seychelles tortoises and marveled at their vast size and strangeness.

The island is a quiet sanctuary, though there is a hotel of sorts. It is uncommon to find all the evidence of a hotel—a pool, tennis courts hidden amongst low pines, restaurants with chairs and tables—without a single guest. Where was everyone? Over a beer, we learned the answer. Things are busy only from July to December. We were glad for this fact; aside from a skeleton staff and one family picnicking on the beach, we had the island to ourselves.

Now, after lingering over the first cup of non-instant coffee since arriving to Zanzibar, we planned our day’s work in Stone Town: to find gifts to carry home to loved ones when we depart on Saturday. For more than an hour, we meandered through the narrow and shopped-lined streets. Wares pour out of the shops to decorate the heavy and carved door frames and cement steps. The Zanzibar doors are of legendary proportion. They are wide and tall, made of massive and dark wood and framed with elaborately engraved floral and geometric designs. We learned last year how the details reveal cultural clues about those who live or lived inside. Onion-domed brass decorations protrude horizontally out of these already formidable doors, making them all the more powerful and strong-looking.

On every street, eager children greet us in English, apparently proud of their skills. Their open and friendly approaches underscore the communal atmosphere found among these walkways shaded by the closeness of the buildings. Women—some in burkhas, others in abundantly colorful and traditional East African attire of matching top, skirt, and headscarf, and still others in western attire—move freely through the town. There is a pervasive feeling of peace and an ease of movement everywhere we wander.

It strikes us that Stone Town, with its winding alleys and dark passages between buildings—often leading to dead ends or back to where you were five minutes ago—is like a dry Venice. As is the case with its Italian cousin, Stone Town’s history is intimately linked with merchant trade and the resulting wealth. Unlike Venice, however, modern Stone Town isn’t scrubbed clean by the money of millions of tourists. There are trash heaps tucked into many corners. Piles of ash, bits of unmelted metal, and smoke stains on the long-ago whitewashed walls remain after the trash is burned. Along the lowest point of the street, a small stream of muddy water leads the way to nowhere. As our feet tired, one man from a group who were sitting sharing their stories, asked if we were lost. We had been lost with the first right turn, or was that a left turn? Nevertheless, we were successful. Each of us found something to bring home. But I was the only one with a bag in my hand at the end of the day.