29. Zanzibar: Land of Imagination, Hakuna Matata, Dark History
25th – 26th March 2023
“Hakuna matata” local greeting: no trouble, no worries, take it easy.
Zanzibar always lived in my imagination: Irma Stern’s haunting 1940s oil paintings of local people. Huge, intricately carved doors she brought back to Cape Town. Excited to visit. l was not disappointed!
We arrived at this Island archipelago off Tanzania’s mainland, about 1. 8 million people, predominantly Muslim. Multiple boats in bay. Individuals fishing in canoes!
Took a dhow to Prison Island, strangely never a prison but rather quarantine hospital: Beautiful Zanzibar doors, peacocks, Aldabra tortoises. Then swimming, snorkelling at sandbar. Fabulous braaied fish lunch, salads with avocado, pawpaw, mangoes, sprinkled with chilli flakes and salt, prepared and served by fasting Muslim men – Ramadan.
Silversea banquet, flamboyant Queen concert celebrating Zanzibar’s famous son, Freddie Mercury, in Mtoni Palace ruins, once home to Omani Princess Salme.
Walking narrow streets of Stone Town, UNESCO World Heritage Site, named for coral and limestone rocks of its walls: Craft, food, vegetable markets. Exquisitely engraved doors abound, each a masterpiece reflecting a specific history, style, culture; fronting romantic looking homes, many old, in disrepair.
For centuries Swahili merchants brokered long distance trade with Arabs, Persians, Indians. From late 15th Century colonised by Portugal, Oman, Britain. United with Tanganyika, 1964, to become Tanzania. Infused with African, Arab, European, Indian influences.
Wonderful destination – but hides dark past. Oft forgotten trade, not only ivory, cloves, other spices, but in human beings: the cruel life destroying largest East African slave trade centre. Initiated centuries before, “sales” originally to Middle Eastern destinations, abolished decades after West African slave trade. David Livingstone an influential abolishment activist. We moved slowly through the Slave History Museum reading, viewing photographs, descending into dark musty cells that held slaves with insufficient food, inhumane conditions until auction day “sell-off”. Fear, sometimes suffocation, during high tides, when water flowed through cells!
The supremacist themes of Slavery and Colonisation follow us around Africa. So privileged to be free and taking it easy!
“In every generation we are obligated to regard ourselves as having personally come out of Egypt”. What does this mean for us today?
