Zanzibar 88, Part Two

Three months after his first visit, Robert Philipson returned to Zanzibar in July of 1988 and reconnected with his friends: Haroub, the object of infatuation; Abou, the civil servant with a wild streak, and his former teacher, mwalimu Jecha. During this visit, each revealed a new side. Haroub’s tenderness towards his ailing mother, Abou’s outrageous antics in front of the baraza boys,, Jecha taking him to an ancient ceremony of Persian origins that mystified him with no explanation. 

The magic was still there, from the ridiculous (heated discussion about whether an octopus was a fish or not) to the sublime (silent communing of the Zanzibaris men with the ocean). Because his Swahili had so improved. Philipson dove ever deeper into the life of this extraordinary island. “Muslim without being fanatic, racial without being racist, at least on the surface, modern without being Western, Zanzibar is so secure in its own culture that it has suffered the depredations of history and the loss of its empire with grace and even humor.”

Yet in spite of his extraordinary welcome, Philipson knows that he must leave and that these friendships, so vivid and generous, are ephemeral. He had yet to learn the wisdom of Zanzibar: family, friends, home . . . the drill.

Music:
"Adagio from Clarinet Concerto in A Major" – Mozart
"Bomwanzani Wa Mahaba" – Bi Kidude
"Culture Musical Club - 1 - LIVE at Afrikafestival Hertme" — Bi Kudude and the Culture Musical Club
"Kothbiro" – Ayub Ogada
"Kulumbu" – S.R. Mwinamila
"Love" – Bin Seif
"Mapenzi Matamu" – the Culture Musical Club
"Mgeni siku ya Kwanza" – Swahili Entertainment TZ
"Mimi Simtaki Wako" – Fatuma Dogodogo
"Nuru" – Culture Musical Club
"Yakety Sax" – Boots Randolph

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Part two, July nineteen eighty-eight. I sit once again in the dining room of the Zanzibar Hotel, a repeat of my first morning on the island three months ago. By 11:30 yesterday morning, I was settled in the hotel and ready for new adventures. They were not long in coming. I located Abu at home and he invited me to the football game being played that afternoon, Malindi versus Chipuchizi. I am no sports fan, but football is one of the more interesting games to watch, and the crowd was as much of a spectacle as the action on the field. Practically all men, of course, in Western and Swahili dress, quite a few Kofias to be seen. Most of the men were youngish, but they were also representatives of either extreme. The 60 shilling entrance fee discouraged the presence of casual onlookers. Bombay, a tall, gangly Indian from the Baraza, acted crazy the whole time, much to the crowd's delight. He put on a nonstop show of yelling and antics, including a mime of the warm-up laps the replacement players take as they get ready to enter the game. The crowd ached him on with rhythmic chants. I chose to support Malindi, the local team, but many of the Barraza boys rooted for Chipochizi from Zanzibar's sister island, Pemba. I was told that Malindi had Midomo Mirefu, long lips, were braggarts, but they won the match 2-0. After the game, Abu and I accompanied the driver who had taken us to the stadium and a few of his friends to a bar at Bububu, a beach outside of Zanzibar town. I had two beers forced on me, one of which I surreptitiously emptied under my stool, and answered questions about why America, a superpower, had not developed football teams of international standing. We returned to Stonetown where I enjoyed Abu at his place for a dinner of rice, fish, and mchuzi, sauce used as an additional flavoring. Then there was a long session at the Baraza where I was grilled on a number of subjects outside my linguistic competence. The first question was how Americans could countenance cartoons of their leaders that depicted them naked or with the bodies of the opposite sex. I tried to present the theory of Lockean liberalism with the vocabulary of a fourth grader. In spite of this handicap, or perhaps because of it, I provided great entertainment for the boys that night. They even forwent their traditional game of dominoes to pepper me with questions. Mombasa's old town is also Uswahilini, a Swahili area that has retained its distinction in spite of Mombasa's transformation into a metropolis. It has neither been preserved in an historical backwater, as has Lamu, nor has it been swamped and gutted by modernity, the case of Karyako and Dar Salam. Zanzibar, insular by definition, maintains a delicate balance. People are relaxed and friendly. The town hasn't been alienated by tourism. Nothing much seems to phase the place. Nimeonamengi Sigutiki. Muslim without being fanatic, racial without being racist, at least on the surface, modern without being Western, Zanzibar is so secure in its own culture that it has suffered the depredations of history and the loss of its empire with grace and even humor. Certainly the process has been traumatic. One need only read about the bloody cataclysm unleashed by Britain's clumsy withdrawal in 1964, but the Zanzibaris are neither sullen nor defeated. This evening I found Harub at home, returned from a journey to Dar Salam. He was glad to see me, and we proceeded to get stoned with a friend of his. I spent the rest of the evening with him, but it was not the sex charged extravaganza of our last night together. I find Harub as attractive as ever, but to emphasize the sexual aspect would strain and possibly ruin the friendship. If Harub does want a man, he wants someone he can battle with, his seduction would be affected through wrestling, and I have neither the youth nor the strength. Harub is hard and speedy. His formal education is not extensive, but he is intelligent and complex, both muffled and sensitive, a devout Muslim who smokes grass on a daily basis. He told me his father had died since I had seen him last, and it was clear that he wasn't affected. He hadn't even asked his mother if she had gone to the funeral. He himself was traveling at the time. I love my mother, he said, not my father. We went over to his mother's house to deliver some rice he'd bought in Daris Salam. She was very sick, but Harub went in to greet her. He insisted that I accompany him. She was lying on her side under a mosquito net facing the wall, clearly in great misery. The room was hot with fever. Harub sat on the edge of the bed under the mosquito net and took her hand. For an instant she rolled on her back and her face lit up in a smile. Then she returned to her suffering. I couldn't see Harub's eyes through the gauze of the mosquito net, but his voice was tender as he explained why he hadn't been around for the past few days. At one point he took out a huge wad of money and gave it to one of the women of the household. I don't know what Harub does for a living, but it involves a lot of traveling, and I figure it's illegal. At my request, we joined the Baraza later that evening. Abu was there and in rare form. An article on masturbation had appeared in the Daily News that day, and that was the topic under discussion. The writer asserted that masturbation is harmless, but this runs counter to the inherited prejudices of African and Arab society. It makes your body weak, I was told by one of the boys. They then asked me why American men would masturbate when women were so easily available there. I replied that each society had its own problems, and that the availability of women wasn't always enough. Anyway, you have prostitutes here as well, so it's not as if there are no women available. Not quite the line my sisters would have advanced, but my Swahili wasn't up to an exposition of feminism. Abu claimed he knew the best way to masturbate. You get a chair and you place it in the center of the room. Then you stick your thumb up your ass and you run around the chair while whacking off. At this point, he mimed the rest of the action, running in faster and tighter circles around the imaginary chair until he collapsed over it in mock climax. His cries mixed in with the whoops and laughter of the Baraza. Three months ago, my teacher Jecha invited me to witness the ceremony of Kukoka Mwaka, a ceremony he says is of Persian origin, which takes place in the village of Makunduchi. Thirty of us piled onto the wooden bush taxi here called Mbavu Zambwa, dog's ribs, and rattled our way southward over a badly deteriorated asphalt road. The ride took three hours, passing through flat, lush landscape, sometimes forested, sometimes cultivated, sometimes bush. When we arrived in Makunduchi, we were directed to a large field. Excitement and shouting filled the air, aided by the periodic blast of a bugle. Jaycha told me that men and boys used to battle with heavy sticks until the government outlawed the practice. And if someone were killed on the battlefield, no court case could be brought against the slayer. After the battle had been going on for a while, a group of elders gathered at one end of the field to build a hut out of sticks, branches, and palm fronds. The fighting stopped, and a dignitary, in this case a Zanzibari minister, was invited to step forward and light the hut. As it burned, people hurled rocks and sticks at it, and then the ceremony was over. I haven't the faintest idea what any of it means, and nobody I talked to offered an explanation. I passed by Harub's apartment at noon yesterday and hung out there for a few hours. We went to the market together, and he then banged out a very good lunch, kingfish, chips, salad, and fruit. The infatuation is wearing off some, and as attracted as I am to Harub's speediness and energy, we have little in common. He speaks so slangily and so rapidly that I have trouble following his account of things. Although he's patient about repeating himself. The man has a good heart, but in truth, none of the friendships with Abu, with Harub, with Jecha, has much of a future. But Zanzibar always provides a high level of exoticism. Because I can speak Swahili, even the most casual outing, a simple visit with a friend, becomes memorable. I went to Jecha's house in Urusi after lunch. He served me coffee and sweetbreads as we sat on the floor of his new home. I showed him and his wife how to play with a slinky I'd given the kids. Then we walked to the Buwani Hotel, a distance of three or four miles. We passed the kitty park on the way, and it was popping with carnival activity. For the four days of Id el-Haj, there are four different carnival grounds in Zanzibar town. The whole walk through town, the dying day, the carefree feel of the holiday, casual meetings and conversations with Jecha's friends and relatives, Jecha disappearing to pray for short periods, all of this was more than a bit picturesque. I can't get over the postcard quality of the place. Speaking the language allows me to actually live here rather than pass through as a tourist. But of course, I don't live here. I invited Jecha and Abu to join me for Swahili night at the Buwani, the swankiest of Stonetown's hotels. The food was superb, an enormous buffet of local delicacies, as was the entertainment. The guest of honor was the president of Tanzania, Mwinyi himself. I'd never eaten a meal with a head of state before. The laxness of security amazed me. Nobody's bags were checked, and we were allowed to take pictures freely. Three sets of mgomas, traditional dances, were performed, two from Pemba and one from Songea, information courtesy of Jecha. Tarab music was provided by Bikidude and her band. She was an elderly woman who sang in a voice of some asperity. Her diction was extremely clear. Her final song about the too lengthy visit of a guest had Abu and Jecha laughing uproariously. On the fourth day, give the guest a hoe. On the fifth day, the family is as thin as a needle. On the sixth day, the hosts go into hiding. As I remarked to Jaycha earlier, Zanzibar certainly has fallen from its days of glory as the capital of the Sultan's empire. But there is a richness of culture here that the wealthier town of Dar Salaam can't touch. They've got class. Swahili night at the Bawani could have been overpriced kitsch. It was instead tasteful and tasty. Certainly the customs were there, the waiters in Kansu and Kofia, the serving girls in Kangas, the Maitre D arrayed in Kansu and suit coat, fez on top, and carrying an ebony stick like the staff of Hermes. But so much of this is still a part of the culture here. It is not an atavistic past briefly resuscitated for commercial purposes. This is the way the Zanzibari celebrate. The event was for the town's elite, not for the tourists, and the elite were there, relaxed and social, gorgeously dressed. Even Abu showed up in suit and tie. It was an expensive evening by Tanzanian standards, but I was happy to play the host for once. A wild discussion at the Barraza last night. Abu and I were drinking in a tea house, small places that also serve a variety of snacks, ranging from different kinds of breads to sambusas, a cake containing meat, onion, and pepper, and bagia's, a kind of fritter. This particular tea house presented octopus in its display case, resting in gravy and ready to be sliced for consumption. A customer came in and asked if there were any fish. Abu said yes, there was octopus. Octopus isn't fish, the man replied, and so the argument began. Abu eventually hectored his opponent into silence, and out of loyalty, I said nothing to Abu until we left the tea house. The man was right, I told him, an octopus is not a fish. I then explained how a whale was a mammal, even though it lived in the water, and a bat was equally a mammal, even though it could fly because both had lungs and reproduced through giving birth. Let's take it to the Baraza, Abu said. Well, he burst on the scene. There were about a dozen present, and soon embroiled the body in controversy. He loves to act up in front of the baraza and they encourage him. So the battle was engaged, and the opinions flew thick and fast. Other questions equally mysterious were asked. Does a lobster have a head? Does a millipede have a neck? If a cuttlefish is not a fish, why is it called a cuttlefish in English? Abu wove in and out of the controversy like a boxer, jabbing here, ducking there. It was quite a performance, and it drove some of its opponents into displays of emotion. I was content to listen, although I made an occasional halting intervention. Once again, I am drawn into the life of this place. I am amazed how quickly and deeply I become involved. If I had work here, I could easily stay, but I do not, and my interior time clock is telling me to go. Purposeless hanging out is foreign to my nature. I need to be doing. I would have left today, but Abu asked me to stay one extra day so that he could have a meal prepared for me. Another magic day with Haruban friends. Yesterday he organized an expedition to Bawei Island, a piece of land larger and further out than Prison Island. There were seventeen of us, seven children, six adults, and three of intermediate age, who occupied themselves with the children. As soon as we arrived, we ate a delicious lunch of fruit and pilau, a rice dish of boiled beef, ghee, raisins, and cardamom. While the children played, Harub and Company smoked dope and drank gin. I indulged in the former, abstained from the latter. It was a day of brisk wind, so that though the sun was shining, the weather was not warm. On the side of the island, protected from the wind, the water was calm and clear. Schools of dagas, small silver fish, swam in the coral coves dug into the island by the beating surf. I took two long swims, feeling strong and athletic again for the first time in a while. And I took pictures. I was among friends, and people allowed me to snap them in their natural poses. Surrounded by beautiful young men, I was a welcome visitor. Harub's ngeni guest. Harub himself was solicitous, checking that I was comfortable and happy, making sure my belongings were sufficiently cared for. I experienced the delicious feeling of being able to relax and let somebody else run the show. I trusted him completely. Of course, the sexual element is there, and Harub is aware of it. This does not mar our friendship, and that day we were as close as ever. He wants to build a house and he's been trying to save up money, but his family is in perpetual need. I have trouble following Harub's conversation because he speaks so quickly and uses so much slang. When he's talking with his friend, it's only sound and laughter to me. In spite of Harub's limitations, I get a kick just being around him. He's so energetic and his face is so full of expression. He has a good heart, and many people love him. Sometimes when I am with him, I imagine that we are lovers. He is that considerate toward me, and I smile at my stubborn romanticism. For even a friendship with Harub is ephemeral. He is confined to his Swahili world, and I am just a visitor. The same holds true for Abu, although he aspires to a wider life and has the intelligence to attain it. He had his girlfriend cook a farewell dinner for me. I didn't even know he had a girlfriend, and we ate on a mat on the floor of his room, a wonderful meal of chicken, pajapatis, and sliced tomatoes. Abu had invited a friend, and the men, of course, ate among themselves. Abu and I went for a walk down to Fordhani Park afterwards. We sat on the cement pier with a simple arch titled for the arrival of Queen Elizabeth in 1984 and stared out at the water, which took me back to a similar scene that I had witnessed earlier that day. I had returned for my second swim off Baway Island to find the children and their guardians in the boat, but the men were on shore. All were facing the sea, and there was no talk between them. All you could hear was the lapping of the waters and the hiss of the wind as it passed through the vegetation. The sun's rays slanted into us, and the first hint of twilight descended with them. The men just stared into the horizon. Occasionally the sound of children playing in the boat reached us. They were perhaps not all sailors, these men on Bawei Island, but they were children of the sea, as familiar with its character as those who cross its expanses for a living. And so I asked Abu as we were staring out over the dark waters about his plans and ambitions. He sighed before responding. He wants to become an architect. He has a long way to go if he's serious, for he never made it to the O-level exams. He could study at night school, and I know he has the intelligence. But whether he has the initiative or persistence is an open question. For a third-form lever, he's done well for himself. But I think he's bored with his life. He's never lived outside of Zanzibar, and I said as much. He immediately changed the subject and began talking about how much my Swahili had improved since my last visit. This morning I bade farewell to Avalu after packing my bags. Harub shepherded me through the complicated process of buying boat passage and going through immigration. He left me in the hands of an acquaintance, Husseini, also making the journey. The Salama was small but rapid. We made the crossing in six and a half hours, which was more than long enough, for she was a floating version of a Dar Salam bus. Husseini had gotten us a good place in the back of the boat, but those in front got soaked with spray. But we were in the middle of the deck and had no place against which to rest our backs. I was able to read a few redgard kippling stories, but the last hour and a half. Were pretty uncomfortable. One could hardly get up and stroll about the deck. Even changing the position of one's body required a major reshuffle and the inconvenience of one's neighbor. The arrival in Tadar by sea was something I wanted to experience, but it was no pleasure jaunt. Years later, my former Swahili teacher at the University of Wisconsin explained the meaning of the Kukoka Mwaka ceremony I had witnessed on the island. The new year represents a kind of interregnum, a brief space of time between the established orders where chaos reigns, men can dress as women, old scores can be settled without consequences, and all of last year's follies are placed in the grass hut, which is then consumed by fire. We start the year with a clean slate. Never again spoke to Harub, Abu, or Mwali Mujecha. For several magical weeks on a mid-sized island in the Indian Ocean, our paths came together and we were companions. To extend the metaphor of Kukoga Mwaka, my whole year in Tanzania was itself a kind of interregnum, a time when I temporarily abandoned my family, old associates, and, with most difficulty, intimate relations. In spite of my confusion with Harub, my ill-advised attempt to re-establish my sexual self, I finally learned to trim my sails to the prevailing winds. If I wasn't going to buy a beach boy, I had to accept my friendship with the young men of the Barraza as simply friendship. Each of my three Zanzibari friends opened his heart and home to me. None presumed on our friendship to ask for money, patronage, or help in getting to the United States. Theirs was a disinterested relationship, and I wish I could say as much for myself. But I was doing research. I was there to learn, and so all experiences became instrumental, a means to an end. In that regard, the eruption of my sexual nature was a reminder that I still had human needs. And if Africa could not provide me with a lover, she certainly could, as she had in the past, present magnificent opportunities for friendship. I still think of my three friends and wonder what happened to them. Life in Zanzibar is circumscribed, and I doubt if any of them have left the island. Harub is probably still smuggling. Abu is still a civil servant, and I know that Jecha is still teaching. But why should they leave when their friends and family, language and culture are bounded so tightly by the Indian Ocean's lapping waves? I have since lived in Oakland, New York, Irvine, Pasadena, and Oakland again. At the end of my road, my research, my desperation, my progress, I wound up with the wisdom that they had possessed all along. Family, friends, home, the drill. It sounds like a cliche until you've lived it. Of course, Swahili has no word for cliche. The Swahili are not that distrustful of commonly received wisdom. Like all people, they have enshrined their habitual truths and proverbs. We in America have drained our proverbs of all their punch, avoiding them in our speech or using them with the corrosive irony that is the hallmark of our sophistication. Yet the most fitting auvoir to this episode, wherein I have again met my Zanzibari friends, played the boisterous games of the Baraza, and walked the cradling streets of Stonetown, is the consoling proverb that loved ones say on the point of departure and separation. Waliohai Hawaachi Kuanana, the living do not stop seeing one another.