stone town

today I fell in love. stone town is unquestionably one of the most amazing cities I have ever visited. we took the hour long cab ride with sam and court this morning and ended up at a hostel called manch lodge, not far from the haven hostel we stayed at our first night here. the white washed paint on the building is chipped from the salty sea air and the sheets are festive tropical flowers, bright and charmingly mismatched. we threw our bags in the room and made to explore.

the city is a maze but we were determined to do stone town in a day and that meant mastering the narrow alley ways and winding streets as soon as possible. we set out sans map and headed in what we believed to be the direction of the ocean. it was hot and humid and my choice of a black shirt and black skirt, though very culturally appropriate, was making my body damp with sweat. no complaints, I thrive in the heat and humidity and the occasional breeze offered some relief. we walked down the narrow cobblestone streets that seem to be placed arbitrarily, joining others in random places and dead ending without warning. there is absolutely to rhyme or reason to the layout of the city and that adds to the charm.

ok, I have to say that as im sitting in the hostel room typing this, I left the door open. big mistake. there is a guy standing in the door as I type and right now he is asking me about the law of segregation… er now he’s on to evolution. what is going on?! he doesn’t get the hint at all that I’m busy and I’m not in the mood to drop what I’m doing and answer the standard serious of questions thrown at us everywhere we go – where are you from? what is your name? how long have you been here? you are volunteer? and so on…. I’m still typing as he talks, only partially aware of the conversation, saying a lot of ‘ahh’s and ‘aya’s (we learned that one in arusha) and ‘oh’s… now he’s talking music, I think. how the heck did we get from talking chromosomes to this topic? he is apparently a fan of linkin park, ha. no really, what is going on?!! sometimes I feel like all of these men have aspergers. you can be completely ignoring them, hardly paying attention, sending signals of disinterest so strong any normal human being would taste it, and yet he stands there, chatting away, as if I were hanging on his every word. we’ve decided this phenomenon is rooted in the way society is structured here. the women are inferior, their opinion doesn’t matter, so whether we’re interested or not, the man will talk to us if he wants to.

this is getting annoying like you wouldn’t believe. last night around the bonfire I just wanted to sit in peace and stare at the fire – a favorite summer pastime of mine. this little twerp comes, sits next to me, and despite me explaining that I’d like some peace and quiet, he starts talking to me. the funny thing about it was, and he’s lucky I found this comical, that he talked at me for a good 8 minutes and 47 seconds without taking a single breath or pausing for so much as a second. it was actually quite impressive. I understood maybe every 11th word of what he said, and even the words that I believed were english, and somewhat distinguishable, I was tuning out. as far as I could tell there was no topic of conversation, rather a random stream of consciousness monologue being performed for me by this borderline bipolar 21 year old dude. yes, at some point in his speech I heard something about him being 21, I think it’s when he was confessing his love for the ‘chinagirl’ aka thu or something like that. being anonymous back in the states is going to be sooo wonderful :) ok, finally, he’s gone, back to stone town…

by the end of the day we were turning down streets, pausing, and taking a vote on our next move. which way do we turn? did that door look familiar? yes, of course, we’ve seen a thousand like it today, but have we seen that one? have we passed by that shop before? most certainly, I recognize the khangas… or do I? but that building, paint chipping and clothes hanging from the balcony, that is definitely something we know… I think. navigating this place is like playing a game, only if you make the wrong turn it doesn’t matter. eventually you’ll find something you recognize and before you know it, between the three of you, you’ll find your way back to the hostel.

we succeeded at this game three times today, once in the dark. the first time we set out for the ferry to confirm our ticket for tomorrow. piece of cake! it helped that we had stayed here for a night before and had a handful of brits, who knew the area, as our guides. for what a labyrinth the city is, it doesn’t take all that long to figure it out. next we headed to the spice market. an outdoor… or rather, covered in orange tarps that give everything a strange orange hue, market that offers every spice we learned about on our tour and more. I stalked up, the prices were quite affordable, and the quality is unbelievable! fresh spice mixes from zanzibar? I might just have learn how to cook when I get home.

we stopped for a coconut from some guy on the side of the road. nothing like quenching your thirst with fresh coconut milk then downing the coconut calamari to fill your stomach. what am I going to do back home when there are no guys with machetes and coconut tree climbing abilities?!

next it was every vegetarian’s nightmare… the meat market. i’m not talkin’ the beaches of nungwi littered with bronzed europeans (ok, bad joke) but really, this was a building with stands lining each side that literally wreaked of death. there were bloody carcasses hanging from the booths on either side, everything from large slabs of meat to whole skinned goats to heads of bulls. yeah, that one confused me too but it’s as if they make a clean cut just behind the horns and straight down through the head and then i suppose you can purchase that head for your dining pleasure? flies were swarming and the smell was suffocating. there were definitely goats being let into that place and you can only imagine their fate. we didn’t stick around to watch, i’m way to fond of goats.

the fist market was more bearable, mostly because selfishly I love seafood and will eat anything from the ocean cooked or not, so it was pretty much my paradise. I was imagining everything sautéed or barbequed and got really excited for the night seafood market. we have eaten seafood at every meal here and it’s not even starting to get old. it has been completely mouthwatering every time and I will definitely miss the variety back in arusha, where we wouldn’t dare eat seafood anything.

we stumbled upon another market, more khangas and scarves, and we couldn’t help but make several purchases. when you can get scarves for two for 5000 tzs it’s just too good to pass up. by this point all of the wandering and shopping was making us hungry and thu and I had been dying to try to roadside grilled corn. yes, we’re at that point in the trip where we’ve gone so long without getting sick (I’m doing some serious knocking on wood right now), that we’ll eat pretty much anything. we got two ears of corn, grilled over a fire and covered in lime and chili and salt. reminded me a lot of elote in mexico though not nearly as good. something about the way they cook the corn, wasn’t quite what we were expecting. the kernels pop off and are hard and chewy. it’s like something between grilled corn and a corn nut if that makes sense. the flavor is great, and nice and spicy, but after eating about a third of the ear we were stuffed and ended up pawning off the rest on some locals who were extremely pleased with their free treat. I also bought a piece of naan that is possibly the best carb I ever eaten in my entire life. the food in zanzibar has some been some of the best we’ve had. then again, as I mentioned before, I tend to think that every meal I eat is better than the last.

next it was time to hunt for the chicken market. we had done the spice market, walked the fish market (and seen them cutting up some huge shark creature, the fin was three feet long and the organs were ginormous!!), cringed in the meat market, and now the vegetarian was bound and determined to see the kuku market I had heard about from a friend. I found a local to lead us there. the smell was probably worse than all the other markets combined. wait, no, I take that back, the fist market smelled terrible! and the flies were unbelievable! the meat market just smelled like blood. so the chicken market was dark and the chickens were kept under these woven baskets. it was packed with cats as well, I suppose cleaning up the leftover pieces. I asked the guy where they cut off the heads. thu and amy were extremely entertained that the vegetarian was the one seeking out the place to watch chicken decapitations. he eagerly lead us through the chicken coups and to a place where guys were quite literally slitting chicken throats and de-feathering them while standing in a pool of chicken blood and chicken carcass. It was one of those affirming moments where I was so pleased to be a non-meat eater.

we also toured the anglican cathedral and old slave market. it was an overwhelming experience. you are able to go underground into the holding chambers where they used to keep the slaves, overpacked, starving, and suffocating, before bringing them to the market to be sold. there were photos and information about how big the slave trade was in zanzibar, and in some places there were still shackles. the alter of the beautiful cathedral is quite literally built on top of the location where the whipping post used to be. it was extremely distressing to learn about and see, but it is a part of history that needs to be acknowledged despite the tragedy of it. eerie being down in those chambers, a reminder of a very devastating past and the cruel potential of the human race. but there are also reminders of the people who worked to end slavery and that was uplifting to learn about. all in all a great experience.

we walked for miles today, sampled many a local cuisine item, and mastered this maze of a city. it was time to get cleaned up, because lets be honest, after a day running around in the hot and humid sea air, you stink. once semi-presentable we headed to the night seafood market. I got almost instantly distracted when we left the hostel and set out on the dark streets (talking about testing our navigation skills!). we passed some men enjoying this strange looking gooey mixture of I-didn’t-know-what. so I approached them and asked about it. they said it was fruit and I instantly said ‘like a smoothie’? and they nodded, though im pretty sure they have no idea what is smoothie is and were just agreeing with the silly mzungu. ‘where did you get it?’ I asked eagerly, and one of the men pointed. there was a dimly lit shop across the alley. I walked over and invited myself inside and behind the counter to try to point out what I was looking for. I explained my need and asked about the contents of the drink. the guy showed me some huge buckets of different colored liquids. brownish – banana. yellow – mango. easy enough. fruit chunks... uh, what’d you call it? some pink stuff... ok? and when I started eating it, anther surprise, peanuts? the first peanut I got I thought had maybe fallen in by accident, but then there were more and more and it worked so well with the flavor I started getting excited to find more peanuts in my fruit drink combo mixture of goodness. peanuts were definitely not in there by accident – genius. I enjoyed every last drop of that thing. I still have only a very vague idea of what a few of the ingredients were but when something tastes that good you don’t question it. this is another one I’m going to have to bring back to the states… the only problem, how to figure out the ingredients. I might need to have it again for breakfast in the morning :)

after my short detour we were on our way again. the nigh seafood market is possibly the most awesome collection of food ever in the history of the world. the featured drink is made from sugar cane (pressed on location), lemon and ginger. delicious. the food is anything and everything from the sea and then some. more delicious. the people are nice and friendly (overly friendly as always) and willing to bargain a little… not so much delicious, but definitely fun. we started off with some clams and fish. everything is on shish kabobs and when you order they take it back to a communal grill shared with neighboring stands and bbq it for you. we had more of the amazing naan, tried barracuda and kingfish, and then sat digesting as we contemplated our next item. thu and I wanted shark, it was pretty good, not what I was expecting. we had lobster with masala seasoning that was ridiculously tasty. I ended the night with a banana nutella ‘zanzibar pizza’ that pushed my into the painfully full category but it was worth it. zanz has had the best food of any place we’ve traveled and this night was the icing on the cake. I’m gonna miss having every type of seafood ever only a few thousand shillings away.

tomorrow we head to dar then back to arusha the next day. it will be good to be home but definitely bittersweet as this vacation part of our trip has been so amazing. We’re excited to get back to the hospital, though, and pleased to be staying at centre house for the rest of the trip.