My trip to Zanzibar, Tanzania

It is a characteristic of our family that we get extremely frustrated in the event that we have nothing to do. Zanzibar is a place that has nothing to do. This is the place you travel to and visit because you need to be forced into the position of doing absolutely nothing. After the initial withdrawal symptoms and the settling of the incontrollable twitches and spasms, I found that this experience was truly heaven.

We stayed in a private villa named Ze Villa. It was a beautiful place right on the beach with steps that led down onto the sand and, at high tide, our own private little alcove. Most of the island is surrounded by a reef where the waves would break; creating a little lagoon type body of water that stretched to the beach that was laid with the finest white sand that sparkled in the sun each day.

The villa was completely fitted out with all we would need including DSTV and cooking staff. The staff provided 3 meals a day unless otherwise specified. During our 6 day stay, we had the most delicious food I have had in a long time. The food consisted of simple meals with no extravagant cuisine; it was home-cooking that anyone would appreciate. Red meat presented a bit of a problem since they prepared it extremely well done and our meat eaters liked theirs medium to rare. On the island, the sea is the main source of life and therefore red meat is a delicacy that is not experienced widely so ‘rare’, ‘medium’ and ‘well done’ are not terms that the people are aware of. I remained unaffected by this problem since I am vegetarian. I do not eat any food with a face, but I am told that their fish dishes were absolutely wonderful, and this by my fiancé who is not a great lover of fish. The variety presented on a daily basis was very good, but it was more or less the same variety everyday with one or 2 dishes added or substituted. This did not matter at all since the quality and preparations were exquisite to my mind.

In the early hours of the morning the women would wade into the water up to the reef and gather seaweed, urchins, crabs and anything else they could either sell or eat. The men would be out on fishing boats catching their dinner and maybe a bit extra to sell as well.

Several mornings I was woken up by God in order to bear witness to the amazing things He could do with a little bit of turquoise water, white sand, blue sky and some gold colouring. I was awed every time and I applauded the greatness of His creativity and for sharing this wonder with me.

The people that live here make their living by the sea as stated before. There is very little shopping to be done, even in the main shopping area which is called stone town. Most of the items are imported as well, so we came back with nothing extra save a few sarongs and a pin for my travel bag. When shopping though, be careful of purchasing hard wood items as these trees take centuries to grow and are often cut down in ignorance of their true value. One item that is unique to their country is the tanzanite gem, but be well educated in seeing the value of a stone before purchasing as they will try and make a deal.

Everyone is very willing to help and very friendly, but the understanding must be reached that they are a different culture to ours and therefore not going to run around to help you, and often times they simply fail to understand you.

Cows are mostly used as labour and we saw very few herds. Most of the little towns had an array of goats, geese, turkeys and chickens running around and I am guessing that it would have to be a collective ownership because I could certainly not ascertain which belonged to which house. Even with the children, it was as if they all belonged to everyone.

In Zanzibar we all learned a few lessons amongst which the following:

You do not need good driving skills, you just need a hooter and a blind faith that you are protected (this actually seems to be a predominant factor throughout Africa).
You can actually fit in 3 cars in a two lane road as long as you hoot yourself through.
Respect is given to all items that are on the road and bribes are given to cops.
Whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner, supper is what is available.
No one understands what you are asking. The language gap is too great and English words like economics, population size and major export product, makes no sense.
A 4x4 trail does not need to be driven by a 4x4 vehicle. Indeed, not even shocks are needed.
Realize that there is no speed limit, but if you are from a western society, just learn to shut your eyes and reach for your Zen center.

Zanzibar is not devoid of any western influence; in fact they even have an internet café, although we were unable to bear witness to the actual operations of this technological cubical. Everywhere you look, you can see little parts of the west creeping in: plastic bags, internet, housing, cars, etc. The problem is that although the influence is there, the necessary knowledge transference is not.

As an example: Everywhere you look you see plastic bags thrown around. Westerners are quick to judge and call this island and its people careless and dirty, when the truth is they are operating on 2 systems. On the one hand they have always been taken care of by nature; on the other hand they are given luxury items from the west. They just assume that nature will recycle the mess as she always does because no one has bothered to inform them that plastic is semi non-biodegradable.

The people here live of the sea and from day to day. There is no urgency, no haste. As with most of Africa, they do not understand the meaning or reasoning behind rushing or, for that matter, the concept of time. For any westerner, this is very hard to understand and the people of Zanzibar (indeed, most of Africa) are very much ridiculed for their lack of ambition and failure to make a success of their lives or their island.

The truth of the matter is that these people have the life that most enlightened people are only now realizing, is the way to live. They live in the now, without worries, fear or stress. They go out each day, gather what they can, sell what they are not going to eat or use themselves and build small, but efficient lives for themselves. The people of Zanzibar have learned to use what the sea and nature gives them.

But slowly the west is seen to intrude on these value systems. The west can not approve of this type of lifestyle since we have worked eons as a society to build up the technological empire and the waste monster that we have today. Put simply, we simply fail to understand and therefore argue that they have to change and move forward.

What the people of Zanzibar really need is someone to help them incorporate the western advancements, including the recent realization and findings on how to do this in an environmentally safe way without spoiling what is already such a centered lifestyle.

Overall the trip to Zanzibar was very interesting, culturally informative and peacefully relaxing. I enjoyed the experience and would recommend this type of holiday to anyone who feels that they need to be cut of from the ‘normal world’ for a while.