Shaggy

I just went to a Shaggy concert organized by ZIFF.
Yes, SHAGGY. Of all the random things I've seen in Zanzibar, this is one I'll never forget.
But of course there's a 6 hour wait before he arrives and then the power goes out as he's walking on stage. They eventually got a couple generators; one of which died halfway through the show - they eventually made do with half the instruments and just passed the mics around. Zanzibar is seriously 'local.' As a performer, he's actually pretty bad. Kuumba could have done a much better job with the dancing. Shaggy didn't even sing much - he had 3 others rotate in for him until he held a world premiere of his latest song - "Sugarcane." It definitely has nothing to do with the sugarcane juice you get here in Forodhani, and everything to do with his ego. It's so bad I won't even paste a link. We left the show at around 3am, but he apparently continued with his 2 hour encore until 4:30am. (I don't know how these Zanzibaris do it, but the clubs here open at 1am and close at 5.)
All in all, not a bad end to a film festival. And it only cost me 10 bucks.

Go watch 'The Creators'

I think I'm loozing my Kanadien akcent. I'm not too worried though. Earlier, I was worried about losing the French that I've picked up in the past year. And then the universe sent a guy from the Comoros to talk to me. And then a lost couple from France.
Then recently, I was missing art - those tourist trap murals do not cut it. Once again, not something I expected to miss in this part of the world. (Re: missing music - I watched a South African film at ZIFF called 'The Creators' about musicians in the Cape Flats, making sense of what is essentially a post-apartheid cultural and intellectual wasteland. One of the musicians made a good point: "Music is squashed here. The Americans, they send weapons but no instruments!") I wondered where I could find art supplies in Zanzibar. Then, the universe sent along an opportunity to help with an Early Learning Childhood group's painting project for a week. I'll take what I get.

Also, I'm really glad I put random music from everyone I meet on my iPod. It's given me a chance to 'discover some new bands' without a record store or decent internet connection in sight.

The point? I'm sure I'll bump into some Canadian or American soon enough. The universe usually works itself out.

Edit: I haven't bumped into any Canadians or Americans yet, but I have bumped my head in so many places - twice on a daladala's roof, three times while leaving shops... Zanzibar was not built for big people. The doors may be beautiful, but I find myself turning sideways and ducking every time I walk through one of them.

A Little Rant

I said I wouldn't complain about the bugs, but here goes. Last night I got back late from ziff and fell asleep in my clothes. It seems there were a few mosquitoes stuck in my jeans because today was... painful to say the least. I have so many bites in places I can't see and places I would never dream of using bug spray. To be honest, I don't even own bug spray or a mosquito net.

Two more have moved into my house. Actually, they were always around here during the day I just thought they left at night. Lizards. Two geckos live in my wardrobe. I don't actually have the key to it - apparently Bw. Sallum's sister keeps some stuff safe in there. But the geckos have found a way in through the back. For those that are unfamiliar, these little guys are neon green, and have super sticky feet - not that I've touched one, but they run all over the ceilings all the time, hiding indoors from the harsh sun outside. Generally though, they leave at night. (To eat?) My guys, not so much. 

(I learned not to tell my mama about a gecko or she'll kill it. I also learned that if you kill a gecko, its tail lives on...)

On a different note, that wasn't a Turtles chocolate in my shoe. (There is no chocolate here!? There are beans but no chocolate bars.) The gooey crunch was the same, but of course, it was actually a roach. Today's lesson: don't leave anything crawl-in-able on the floor. 

And these ants! I don't know how they do it, but everytime I see them they are in single file line zigzagging around my entire room. And everytime I see them, I lysol their path but within a few hours they return to the exact same path. I've even tried leaving obstacles like chairs or little blobs of intensely strong citrus hand sanitizer. The little buggers just dodge them and continue.

Paka (Cats): They're everywhere in town. They usually sleep during the day and then fight (or mate! :O) at night. They like to eat my shoes.

Majogoo (Roosters): I see them everywhere in town. There were two in the house yesterday. Today I ate chicken curry. And it was delicious :D

Also, I had to dodge a donkey on my way to school this morning. Someone left it to eat grass on the side of the street and I guess I looked tasty too because it tried to follow me.

ZIFF!

Zanzibar is a festival town. Every few weeks there's some big reason to celebrate. It's fairly sleepy otherwise, so when there is actually some form of entertainment, it's a pretty big deal. This week, the Zanzibar International Film Festival, ZIFF, is on. The self-proclaimed Film Festival of Africa, it features mostly East African and South African films, with a few Arab and one (?) European submission.

Someone gave me VIP tickets, but I can sit next to a British diplomat sweating profusely in a wool suit anyday - I just have to walk into the Serena Hotel and pay $4 for a coffee that costs 3.5 cents on the street; but sitting with Zanzibaris is a rare experience. (Feeling like a Zanzibari is even rarer.) You might know by now that I've been following Zanzibari politics and the separatist movement. (it's kind of like being at home in Quebec) So bahati nzuri, and I find myself watching a separatist movie with separatists. With TIFF, I imagine red carpets, glamour and the celebrities that follow. But Zanzibar, as my Baba frequently tells me, is very 'local.' The amphitheatre in the Old Fort;

gets turned into a cinema for the duration of the festival. (There used to be a cinema, but it burnt down so they make do with the fort and rooms in the ceremonial palace, not a bad venue at all.) All the locals sit together (for free I might add) on those huge stone benches. And as I sat there with them, I'll admit I was initially a little unsure. Ok, to be honest, I was shitting my pants. That was one rowdy group of entertainment-starved Zanzibaris. But as the film went on, it started to feel like one big family. Actually, it felt like high-school again. Every time a familiar sight came up, everyone cheered to see their tiny island up there on the big screen in front of all these foreigners. Whether it was Jaws' Corner or the mzee that dries out cloves on the street, they we roared in laughter, high-fived and even danced together as our little Zanzibar shone in the spotlight. And I realized that when so many people live in a place like this - fairly small, completely walkable, and devoid of public space; everyone is connected by the same few things. Everyone gets married in the same place, everyone buys halua from the same guy, everyone watches the sunset at the same dock.

Afterwards, I even got to meet the MP for Stone Town, a true separatist (and a brown guy which is unusual), and the former culture minister whose portfolio would have included ZIFF. (And he's secretly running for the presidency next election - hopefully no Zanzibaris read this. Although, I soon found out how corrupt he is... maybe it's not such a bad thing if someone ruins his campaign.)

Point being, it was so much fun that it turned me into a true Zanzibari - when the internet was down for a few minutes the next day, I took it as an excuse to leave work early and go watch a few incredible South African films. My Afrikaans is getting quite good too.

(Side note: I found out that you can get a tiny studio apartment, utilities included - water/power/cable tv/cleaning lady (!) in stone town for only $125/month.)

Less is More

I'm really mixed up with all these posts. I think I wrote this in the first week, but it got lost in the Zanzibari interwebs.


Less shampoo, less food, less detergent. Less shampoo means a faster bucket bathing experience (no more tears!), less food down the hatch means less out the... (less sleepyness too), and as for less detergent - today was interesting. I somehow agreed to washing my clothes this morning. I was told that someone 'washed the family' once a week because it can be hard, but that I was welcome to try myself. This confused me because I had seen the kids run out of the bathroom in a towel yesterday. Quick to avoid being washed, I instead found myself washing clothes. The detergent smells exactly like the raspberry-esque effervescence that accompanies Dukoral. For those of you that have travelled to places with high cholera prevalence before, I need not explain. For the rest of you, I strongly encourage the aforementioned travel with all of the necessary medical precautions taken. This stuff is strong - both the Dukoral and the detergent. Put too much and it'll never wash out. Less is more.


Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on the Tigo Tanzania Network

Pole

Sorry, I've been getting really sloppy with these posts. Work has surprisingly gotten busy recently, and so I've just been posting unedited things I jotted down. They're really incoherent and probably boring to read, but I have another 20 or so to type up and post so I have no time to produce good writing. Let me know if there's something in particular that is more or less interesting and I'll take it into consideration. Most of you fb message me anyway, so that's probably the easier and faster way rather than comments. Baadaye, Adam

Approval

It is my conviction that with all things in life, old Brown ladies are the hardest to impress. Thus, if you get their approval, you have succeeded and nothing else matters. Plus, they all talk so getting one's approval is equivalent to getting them all.
If you don't believe this about old brown women, then I have a short story for you:

I went to a traditional Zanzibari wedding yesterday. Just quickly, the men meet the groom at the mosque, listen to a few prayers and then eat some halua (this warm gooey tough jello thing), sambusa (samosa), and kahava (coffee). The women do something similar at home with the bride, but I'm told there's no food. After, the bride and groom meet at the reception and are then ridiculed by old brown women who don't even know them. It's just tradition.
Everyone makes a tiny speech wishing the newlyweds well. (seriously everyone - this takes a while) At this particular wedding, the father of the groom made an interesting speech. He mentioned that his son had been able to marry the girl of his choice, which is something new in their culture. Now the father of the groom is Ismaili and his wife is Sunni - it's odd that this was an arranged marriage. Although, there aren't too many Ismailis left in Zanzibar so maybe it was a necessity - Nyerere and nationalization, look it up.
But back to the old brown women; they stole the mic after these speeches and made hilarious comments the rest of the evening. For example, when the bride and groom went to kiss but slightly missed, these women said something in swahili along the lines of, "if you can't even kiss now, how are you gonna make a baby tonight?"

So when one old brown lady complemented me on my Swahili skills, I knew that in my quest to speak Swahili, I had succeeded.