Zanzibar: Malindi and The Passing Show

Twenty dollars got us a tiny room with two beds and no bathroom in the Malindi Guest House when we first arrived in Stone Town. The house itself is situated on a narrow but busy street, and is indicated by an ornate door that is constantly open where random men perch themselves to chat and get a break from the heat during the day. At the end of the street is the main harbor where young men swim out with colorful buckets to more than a dozen fishing boats that rush in with the tide at sunrise to fill with fish for impatient crowds of buyers who heckle and bargain at the muddy, slimy shore. The market and its surrounding busyness embues the air with the smell of fish, refuse, sewage and sweat, as every pocket of the small twisty street fills in quickly with men doing something and nothing: selling and buying fish, pulling carts with produce, riding bicycles with straw baskets lined with plastic for fish, zipping through the street on mopeds, or selling clothes and small goods on the side of the road. A small number of women are on the street too. They sell sweet fried breads and tea. I see others on the backs of bicycles and mopeds driven by men, riding sideways wearing traditional hijab.

Beyond the Malindi Guest House door is a courtyard, on the left are open-air stairs and to the right is a dark emptyish reception room with only a desk and a bulletin board where a gentleman greets us wearing a long traditional thob. While Teah negotiated with the wide eyed man with extremely pronounced cheekbones, I stood next to our pile of bags pondering the sign on the board: "please do not swim or sunbathe at any beaches in town."

The immediate space at the top of the stairs reveals itself as an entrance to the dark interior of the house and is a living room displaying middle eastern carpets and a few antique arabic pieces of furniture: a dark wood crib, a couch, and a large low table in front of it with magazines on it called "Friday," with young middle eastern women on the covers. But my attention is grabbed by a beautiful old upright piano in the corner of the room and I realize in that moment how much I am missing the sounds of South Africa, where there were always drums to play and people making music. In the same instant that I want to play the piano I know that I can't, and I am reminded of the way I felt as kid with my paternal grandmother who could make you aware of her rules without ever speaking them, for which I always felt a divided reaction - a pure and deep burn of injustice, and also the desire to comply just to feel the simple pleasure in pleasing someone else. This will not be the first time here that I feel this way here, there are many rules and boundaries that are conveyed and policed subtley, and without thinking I will find myself with both urges of response, to abide and rebel.

Beyond this living room is an adjacent windowless hallway that contains our room and a few others, and another hallway with two single bathrooms that are dark boxes with a sink, a toilet, a shower, and a candle with a box of matches. There has been a power problem on the whole island for the last three months because the cable that runs power from Dar es Salam to Zanzibar is broken. Despite attempts to fix it and promises of aid from foreign governments like the US, the people have had no electricity for months. Now they have to pay for petrol to run their own costly generators that are turned on for a few hours of the day. Maybe its just the heat, but the feeling regarding all this seems to be frusteration mixed with docility, a tired sense that everyone must keep the peace. I try to imagine what would happen in New York City if no one had power for three months in the middle of summer.

Shower before bed and once you get there, don't move an inch; close your eyes and pray that gods of sleep carry you off before your body heats up again, or before you become too conscious of the stagnant hot air. Somehow this worked for me on that first night in the Malindi Guest House, but it did not for the girls. After waking in the middle of the night and shuffling the mattress to different areas of the hotel in search of a breeze, Teah tried sleeping on the roof without a mosquito net and was woken up by a strange worker with a flashlight several times; Ghada slept on the lone wooden bed frame in the room. That was our first and last night in the Malindi, after our returning from Kendwa we are now staying at the ritz of backpacker guest houses across the street. For 30 dollars, it boasts 24 hour generated power, a ceiling fan, and a corner room with 4 windows, a bathroom, and two beds - enough to make me giddy at the idea of getting sleep.

On most days it is too hot to do anything in the middle of the day and the last stop before retiring to the room is my favorite place to eat, a restaurant appropriately called The Passing Show. Cheap, quick, and constantly busy, the Show is filled with people at every hour of the day and night, mixed with both locals who are mostly men - Indians, Arabs and Africans, and tourists, who seem to be largely Scandanavian. There are at least ten men who work at The Passing Show and all have an air of ownership, though it can be hard to tell who works there and who is just hanging out watching CNN. Regardless, they are a tribe of efficient people who give The Show an air of both business and social club.

When you walk in past the counter which sells fried food and sodas to go, you will be directed to one of many tables that occupy two open spaces inside, and an outside patio to the side. On each table rests a glass bowl filled with half slices of small limes and bright red chili peppers (both grow locally on the island), and little plastic jars filled with dark red spicy paste. Laminated one page menus are distributed and drink orders are taken immediately - cold Fanta or coke are served in glass bottles, water in plastic bottles, fresh cold tamarind juice in glass beer mugs, or sweet Masala tea with Cardemon. Dishes are separated on the menu in categories between Biryanis, Curries and the like, with choices of lamb, fish, beef or chicken, all served with rice, coconut nan or chiapati, and all for about 3500 shillings (around $3), also called Tsh. As soon as you've finished the second sip of your drink, plates of food are in front of you, and are as delicious as you would imagine anything is that has been stewing all day under a watchful eye.