The Allure of a New Ocean

I want to do to you

what springs does with cherry trees.

Pablo Neruda

Uluguru mountains, Morogoro, Tanzania

We see ads everywhere claiming, ‘It is the ultimate earning machine!’ – What could it be?  Is it mysterious?  Have you guessed yet? 

Motorcycles!

You can take on passengers, deliver and pick up goods, or go to work with it.  In poor countries such as most in Africa, they stand for a certain freedom and a move up the social ladder.

Another ad declares, ‘Be a man, give your girl a kiss…’

This ad is by the Kiss Condom Company.  Give your girl a condom, help fight AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.  There is huge awareness for safety after the mid 1980’s explosion of AIDS in Africa.  You find free condoms at border crossings, in bathrooms, in busses, and hotels.  Yes, free even though many still hide AIDS deaths, denying its existence!

We drive down the AIDS highway.  Many truck drivers would employ the services of ladies of the hour while driving the highways of Tanzania infecting several women along the way and spreading AIDS very rapidly to many corners of the continent.  Heading down the highway with that in mind gives the drive a somber perspective.

Plantains for sale

Charcoal – The quickest gets the sale - Running to Pluto

An additional sign on a ‘saloon’ (instead of salon) says, ‘We do white hair cutz’.  Most hair dressers have never had the opportunity to cut straight hair.  In remote areas, it is difficult to find someone who knows how, and why should they?  Unless they work with foreigners, this is not something they need to learn.

Flat winnowing baskets for sale by roadside

We leave the Ngorongoro Crater locally known as Africa’s Garden of Eden.  We head towards the Indian Ocean to visit Zanzibar, the slave and spice island now turned touristic.  Upon departing, we are reminded that the Serengeti area still hosts an active volcano called Ol Doinyo Lengai (Mountain of God).  Its latest eruption was in 2013, one of the few volcanoes ejecting carbonatite lava which turns white when exposed to air.

Dining room at one of the camps we enjoyed

Server was wearing a red secondhand shirt with the famous yellow M

Can’t get away from fast food reminders…

Remarkable craftsmanship and beauty

We were lucky the grasses were short allowing us to easily find and see the fauna.  During the long rains, animals are difficult to spot for two reasons; the grasses are thick and tall hiding the animals better.  Water is plentiful, so the animals are thinly spread out over the whole area rather than gathering en-masse at scarce watering holes.  During the no or short rains, with short grasses and few watering holes, guides can effortlessly lead us to see many animals.  They can follow dust patterns and know where the rare full water holes are.  The downside may be that you’ll see dead animals who were not fortunate enough to find either food or water.  

Animals in the caldera also leave on occasion to look for better mates, a needed mixing up the genetic pool.  Before we left the crater/caldera, I asked our guide why, with so many animals, we didn’t see more skeletons or skulls?  He said that many times, they bury them to keep the place from smelling or filling with unwanted insects and to keep it cleaner.  On so many levels they allow nature to follow its course but, on this point, they prefer to please tourists.  

Back down at lower altitude I spot dromedaries but at first, I think I’m imagining them.  I am not.  Many are free-roaming in Africa.  I thought they only lived near the Sahara Desert.  Our guide thinks it is funny.  Another of my many misconceptions of Africa.

Red dirt, green sisal plants

Pineapples hung by their roots

Plant diversity, just like clothing, hairstyles, and how babies are carried (here they are carried on the side rather than the back for example) is constantly changing as we drive through so many parts of Africa.  We see orange, eggplant, okra, sisal, pineapple, cashew, tamarind, teak, sesame, date, mango, butternut squash and spices such as lemon grass, nutmeg, mace and cinnamon.  

We pass by several gypsum quarries and hear about the famous blueish tanzanite stone, only discovered in 1960 and 1,000 times rarer than diamonds.  Tiffany & Co. the famous jewelry firm declared it to be the most beautiful stone discovered in the last 2,000 years. Many think it may be mined out in 25 years, but no one can know for sure.  At only $650/carat people wonder why its price is not higher other than it has no industrial uses like the diamond because it is not an extremely hard stone.  

Read this fascinating story of how a local woman ended up owning a tanzanite mine.  

House in background for size – huge trees!

Mirroring the hills behind

Beautiful ancient warrior

We drive through a valley of baobabs, these gentle and magnificent giants which have been found to live up to 6,000 years.  Their huge trunks, the color of liquid mercury come in so many shapes.  They are different than the ones seen on Madagascar Island, squattier and wider, yet extremely adaptable and interesting.  The Little Prince story where baobabs represent obstacles in life that are best addressed early on, comes to mind.  We learn that the trees lose their leaves for nine months and when they do, locals call them ‘devil trees’ since they then look quite macabre.  We taste baobab fruit juice but don’t get to try out the candied seeds.  Tall and skinnier trees also grace the landscape around us.  Their bark is bright yellow and white – they call them yellow fever trees, a good contrast to the enormous dark baobabs.

Everything is stained orange and it is hard to differentiate rust from dust – they are the same color.  It took me a long time to figure out why so many trees had orange trunks up to about four feet high, it is from the splashing of orange dirt when it rains or from termites carrying the dirt up the trunk as they make their many protective mud tunnels.  Some of these orange tunnels expanding further like sienna veins up its branches.    

Another truck on its side

Most of the guardrails along roads are destroyed

Many install speedbumps to slow the trucks down instead

Selling wheel chocks – a sign steep hills are coming

The road is loaded with traffic – Africa has very few pipelines to carry fuel, most therefore is carried by trucks.  Many drivers make extra money (or simply help) by taking on hitchhikers or carrying furniture, live animals, wood, kindling, or produce on the top of their cargo truck.  They slowly and painfully chug along, spewing dark smoke on the bikers, walkers and animals nearby. 

We notice more and more separation between Muslims and non-Muslims.  Demure girls wearing white head covers lining up to enter one side of school, playful boys the other.  Many girls get beat, pushed, reprimanded in demeaning ways as they make their way to a meager education.  Even from the distance and safety of Pluto, our bus, we can see they are not treated well.  Women are more reserved in Muslim areas.  Already, most young girls didn’t smile as easily as the young boys we met, now we can’t even meet young girls. 

One of the campgrounds where we overnighted had excellent shower and bathroom facilities.  In the morning madness of everyone getting ready at the same time, I would watch the reactions of the lady attendants as they would see us brush teeth, use dental floss, rub on deodorant, brush and blow dry our hair, or put on makeup.  It was obvious these were not things they had seen many times before or did on a regular basis.  They were especially curious of my use of dental floss.  It made me realize they are just as inquisitive about us as we are about them, just on dissimilar points.  Some giggled when approached to see if they wanted to try.  Others exclaim how loud we are, how much toilet paper and water we use, and how much garbage we leave behind (some of which are treasures to them).  I agree with them, most of the people on our tour are very much that way…

Rock is holding down his handmade car

made of carboard box, shish kebab skewers, plastic bottle caps

This one made of wood and plastic water jugs

There are showers with windows overlooking the outside world.  I watch monkeys eating yaka (jackfruits) fruits right off the branch of a tall tree while I clean up.  Not an experience I’d ever had before.  So close to nature even while inside.

On either side of the road are very deep trenches, some cemented over, some lined with rocks.  They show how hard it must rain at times for poor countries such as these to make the effort to build extensive flood-prevention structures. 

It took us about 90 minutes to cross the border into Tanzania and we are told that was a record!  Our guide had warned us it could take four hours!  All bags had to be checked through an x-ray machine and put back on the bus.  Outside meanwhile, men are jockeying into best possible positions to exchange money or sell us anything since we are a momentary captive audience.

Many families who grow, collect, and dry grains do not mill them.  Lacking the proper equipment, they carry the grains to a central miller.  We see numerous people transport heavy bags of grains to nearby mills.  One young girl in particular caught my attention as her dress was way too long and she kept tripping on its hem while handling her heavy precious load.  It didn’t stop her from completing her mission in any way.

There are more rice fields covering the land as far as the eyes can see, replacing ponds full of beautiful water lilies.  It feels like this could be the breadbasket area of Africa, so rich, so fertile, so green, so lush, so productive.   Lack of water not an issue.  Fields and their plant rows follow the contours of the earth, nothing exactly square or rectangular, just flowing along the gentle curves the land offers. 

Many of the homes lining the road have ‘BOMOA’ (break down) signs and ‘X’ painted on them showing they are to be taken down for a much-needed expansion of the road.  Many are not heeding the call to move, instead adding to these homes with small businesses or extra rooms.  Wondering when or how it will end. 

Our guide points out palm trees here and there.  They are not common, but it is believed elephants brought them here, seeds following their migration up the Nile.  

Indian Ocean from the mainland – my third ocean

We finally make it to the Indian Ocean where someone is sweeping (not raking) the sand in a seemingly futile effort (job security) to keep the place clean despite hundreds of people playing around.  At another corner of the beach camp, someone is measuring a homemade volleyball net with his outstretched arms.  After careful measurements, he returns to the place where they are putting it together showing they need to add about 2/3 of his arm.  He makes a gesture showing from the tip of his middle finger to just above his elbow.  Who needs a measuring tape?

From this beach, we head to the island of Zanzibar.

Ocean from Zanzibar – so many boats!

After taking a short ferry without Pluto, we arrive in Stone Town, the older part of Zanzibar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.  We walk around town in the evening.  We first find a small café at a nearby hotel noticing local policemen eating there making us think it is worth checking out.  It turns out we have the best chai tea I have ever tasted.  It makes sense that the island of spices can make a particularly good spiced chai tea.  It is offered with a fluffy ‘vitumbua’, a coconut rice pancake that is delicious.  As we are about ready to leave, some of the staff fake getting a co-worker in trouble in front of the cops, a bit of wholesome fun, we almost fell for.

Old and elaborately carved doors with brass studs

Style originated as defense against charging elephants

Some have Koran inscriptions, others Indian lotus or mixture of both.

Ravages of time

Grayness of time

Sweeping

Gary with Maasai students

Learning the special Maasai handshake

After tea and treats we walk around town.  We watch men fix their boats on the shore.  Old dugouts made of mahogany or mango wood – beautiful and strong.  Across the frontage walkway another man is sharpening his ‘panga’ (machete).  He is sitting in front of running shoes for sale.  Each shoe is tied by its laces to the next one down the line as if making a curtain of shoes, an ingenious way of saving space while displaying his wares.  Next to him a small boy is holding old bike tires for his dad to cut in strips.  Just around the corner another man has a 55-gallon drum full of water and a pressure washer – offering a one-man carwash. 

At one point, a couple of Maasai young men come to Gary who has a thick white beard and call him Simba as they pass by.  Simba is the Swahili name for lion but also a term of distinction.  They are here to study tourism/travel and I asked them how they feel about being surrounded by water since Maasai are claimed not to like it since they aren’t raised near it.  They agreed that they do not prefer water but are learning to live with it.  For them, being in Zanzibar is more of a cultural shock.

Electrician’s nightmare… or not…

A bit of color

Constant renovation

Basic scaffolding

Mosque and Anglican Cathedral Church of Christ (for the 0.6%)

Church details

Muslim influence

More details

Slave Pit sculpture in the ground memorializing slaves and their history

1998, by Clara Sornas, Scandinavia.  Chains original from slavery time.

Visiting museums and listening to stories around town we soon learn Zanzibar’s dark history.  Slave trade and export of ivory. 

Inhabited for around 20,000 years, it has been ruled down the ages by outsiders – in the 7th century BCE by Sabeans of the Semitic civilization of Sheba of Yemen, and then successively by the Persians, Portuguese, Arab and the British. As the main port of East Africa, it traded in gold, ivory, frankincense, ebony, turtle shells, silks, spices, corals, weapons and slaves.

Founded by Iranian immigrants and named after the Persian ‘zengi bar’ literally meaning ‘the black-skinned coast’, it carries together traces of African, Arabic, Indian and European civilizations in its architectural structure and cultural heritage.

It is believed the purest form of Swahili (Kiswahili – aka ‘coast language’) is spoken here since this is where it was born.  A fraction of the language derives from Arabic, but it is a Bantu language that is thought to be the easiest African language for English speakers to learn.

Bazara benches outside homes to welcome guests, play games,

have tea and treats, used to walk on and stay dry when rainy

Mostly used by males so the women can stay hidden in the home

This tiny island off the East coast of Africa dominated trade between Africa, India and the Middle East. It was the key tripod for the highly profitable slave trade.  Arab traders would use Zanzibar as their base to launch slave raiding expeditions in the interior of Eastern Africa.

Eleven sultans ruled in succession from 1856 to 1964 – Indians had a virtual lock on Zanzibar's lucrative trade in the 19th century, working as the sultan's exclusive agents.

Stone Town was host to one of the world's last open slave markets.  It was eventually shut down by the British in 1873. The slaves were shipped in dhows from the mainland, crammed so tightly that many fell ill and died or were thrown overboard.  Most had never seen the sea and were very disoriented and sick.  If left to die, the traders didn’t have to pay the $1 duty for each arrival so the incentive to keep them alive wasn’t great.

Of all the forms of economic activity on Zanzibar, slavery was the most profitable and the clear majority of the blacks living on the island were either slaves taken from East Africa or their descendants.

Every year, about 40,000-50,000 slaves were taken to Zanzibar, but the British explorer Dr. David Livingstone estimated that 80,000 Africans died each year before ever reaching the island.  When living in Stone Town in 1866, he wrote in his diary: ‘The stench arising from a mile and a half or two square miles of exposed sea beach, which is the general depository of the filth of the town is quite horrible...  It might be called Stinkabar rather than Zanzibar’. (Wikipedia)

Arab sultans and Indian financiers used to buy slaves to do agricultural work and carry some ivory tusks to the ships.  In the days, it would take up to four men to carry one.  Today these large elephants are long gone.  Zanzibar was the largest exporter of ivory to the US (in the small town of Deep River, CT – 1840-1940) where it would be made into piano keys (you could make 45 keyboards out of one tusk), billiard balls, dominos, fans, false teeth, jewelry, flatware handles, toothpicks, crochet hooks, buttons, and combs. 

Slaves did not cost much, adults were valued at about two yards of simple cotton, children one yard.  Slaves who were bought to fill harems received the highest prices.  Conditions were so harsh that plantation slaves’ death rate was around 30%, needing continual replacements.  Abolished in 1873 but still sold behind closed doors until 1897 when the hammer really went down.  Concubines too were abolished but not until 1909. 

It was surmised that the patriarchal Muslim family would disintegrate if concubines left their owners and children.  The colonial government postponed the inclusion of concubines (surias) in the abolition decree until 1909 because of concerns about social stability and the ambiguous legal status of freed concubines and their children who had been placed in positions of trust and had a life of luxury. 

Sexual exploitation was and is a critical feature of enslavement. Across many different societies, slaves were considered to own neither their bodies nor their children, even if many struggled to resist. At the same time, paradoxes abound: for example, in some societies to bear the children of a master was a potential route to manumission for some women.

Slaves rebelled a bit by singing insulting songs while working the fields and, it is believed, building all twelve columns of the church upside down to show their disrespect for the masters.  With slave abolition, many have returned to their own culture, clothing, dances, and music.  The Zanzibar culture is richer again.

Thanks to all that money, Zanzibar was very modern in its days:  By 1906, long before even London had them, Stone Town had electric street lights.  They were also the first to get color televisions in Africa.

A few world statistics based on 12,300,000 slaves/forced labor from the ILO (International Labor Organization):

Slave labor is a $150 billion/year market

Where it is found:

• Industrialized Economies:  3%
• Transition Economies:  2%
• Asia and the Pacific:  77%
• Latin America and the Caribbean:  11%
• Sub-Sahara Africa:  5%
• Middle-East and North Africa:  2%

Types of slave labor:

• State or Military purposes:  20%
• Sexual Exploitation:  11%
• Economic Exploitation:  64%
• Mixed:  5%
• 56% of slaves are women and children, 44% are men
• 98% of sex slaves are female, 2% are male

Although new to tourism (started 1995), it now accounts for 20% of Zanzibar’s revenue.

We also stroll through the local market, always an interesting thing to do.

Just a few fish each to sell

Carrying them on scooter

Two-wheel carts, waiting to help with loads

Peeling yams

Butcher window

Another butcher – meager choices

Selling nuts or baobab seed candies

We visit a spice farm and watch as they pick and let us smell or taste ylang-ylang, vetiver, lemon grass, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, allspice, black, white or red pepper, raffia, etc.  They also grow a variety of fruits such as coconut, mango, melon, orange, pineapple and more.  I spot a few breadfruit trees and asked if, like the French Polynesians, they eat the starchy fruit.  Strangely, they do not and that seems like a sad waste.

Natural lipstick

From annatto seeds

Coloring agent and condiment

Nutmeg, inside, brown kernel

Mace, outside, red aril

White flesh used for candies, jams, chutneys, pickles, juices

First make closed loop with rope and insert feet within

Then climb coconut tree

Cats everywhere – even front of bakery

The island is mostly inhabited with Muslims (98.9%), so we do not see many dogs roaming the streets as they prefer cats.  The language sounds much more Arabic.      

Dhow on the left

Dhow with motor heading to sea

Motor-less dhow coming back from sea

See how close they get from shore!

Poling a dugout canoe

Dugout on wavy sand

Tourist dhow

Collecting fishing nets after drying them on beach

Handmade fishing traps

Where they were getting fixed

Dry-out legs on either side of boat so they stay up when tide goes out

Low tide

Even lower tide

Poop deck!!!

Double outrigger canoe

We had hoped to sail on a dhow, the original boats used to fish these waters (and bring slaves to the island), most without motors, only under wind power.  None were to be found.  The ones who spoke enough English only sailed modern dhows with motors, others did not speak enough English to contract a sail with them.  With sadness but delight, we watched them leave early in the morning and come back much later each day we were there. 

White sandy beach, warm ocean, sunshine…

At least we got to walk the pure white sand beach, swim in marvelously warm and clear water, and visit the island at a very decent price, which surprised me considering it is so touristic. 

Rock overhang along beach

Whether it be the Americas, Australia or Africa, the same story of slavery, greed, the rich and powerful taking advantage of the poor repeats itself in various forms.  Will we ever learn and evolve?  So many African countries have much to offer, unfortunately it usually lands in the wrong hands.  Its beauty and people will forever be with me though.