Chapter Three - in which we enter the labyrinthine streets of Stone Town
My apologies for not being back to the computer to continue this tale, I could tell tales of high water, winds that have come forth from the depths of Hell, a problem of telephonic nature and its inability to couple with the modem. I could go on but I won't as I have to tell you how this vast packing case, which currently resides in my back porch, balanced precariously on a wooden pallet. Its not the thing that one can susbscribe to on the internet, for instance:
'...add your email address in the box below to subscribe to be sent a mystery parcel each month. An undisclosed sum will be taken from your debit/credit card until you send us a stop subscription notification (in triplicate to the address below)...'
I had spent the last week of my holiday, earlier this year, in Tanzania on the island of Zanzibar. It sounds exquisitely exotic and for the most of it, it is. Imagine a pale white beach where the sand is made up of crushed coral and breaks up into tiny undulations under your feet as you walk towards the blue sea, clear enough to see the dangerous black spined sea urchins. Although when you get really close to them, with a diving mask and flippers, and dive down towards them the black colouring has a hint of purple and white to the central part of it, but before you can look to close the need for oxygen takes up your thoughts and I rise up out of the water like a breaching whale with less hydrodynamic lines. It is certainly different to Hastings where you have to hopscotch over cobbles to get to the opaque sloshing liquid that is called the English Channel. But the above description, at the beginning of the paragraph, only describes a small beach on the north west tip of the island. By the way, palm trees sway in the breeze and reggae is pumped out through sand drenched speakers. But I digress, I really want to tell you about my last night on Zanzibar in Stone Town before I flew out.
You know you get these ideas after having one too many drinks. My poison was called a Mudslide and varying quantities of kahlua, Baileys, cream, vodka, milk, ice cubes and a squirt of chocolate sauce, the type you put over ice cream. It was like eating a chocolate nut sundae but with the added hit of hidden alcohol. The place was the Sunset Bar balcony of the Africa House Hotel. An ex-colonial club turned into a hotel with carpets on the ceiling and the walls and these brass knobbed chests with intricate wooden designs on them. They smelt of a hint of wax polish and a tinge of mixed spices from the central town market.
I had just seen the visible dhow sail across the view with the last entrails of the sinking sun slip past the horizon. Storm clouds were on congregating towards the north, like actors to eager to get on the stage and not waiting for their cue. It hadn't rained for the whole week I had been there and I wanted to wait for the smell of the first drops of rain on the hot beaten soil. That odour still catches me unawares and reminds me of a many great things. But even this thought was becoming further from my mind. This space was becoming void and simultaneously filling with the thought of these chests. I had to have one. I had to have a richly illustrated wooden rectangle of design.
I walked with a hint of panic and haste down the central staircase in the hotel and out through the main door, guarded by the cannons on their plinths.
"Good evening Sir, be safe", the early nightwatch man told me.
Up the road opposite the entrance to the hotel until I met the main road. The usual night time traffic of taxis with beaten up corners and mopeds. I turned left and follow the main canyon of shops; my running gait was struggling with the constant harrasment of "CDs, Marry Jo Hannah, Money, Trips to see the Turtles" and run towards the tourist shops and the main post office. The Memories of Zanzibar, the Shadows of Zanzibar and others. I was looking for a slight giant of a man who walked with a stoop. His name was David, I once gave him the Tanzanian equivalent of twelve US dollars for an anti-malarial medication. If anyone knew where I would be able to find one of these chests, then he was my man. Now just to find him, with my left foot I enter the darker streets off the main tourist route...
Chapter 4 after the New Year's Day celebrations, sorry Hannah and Ash
'...add your email address in the box below to subscribe to be sent a mystery parcel each month. An undisclosed sum will be taken from your debit/credit card until you send us a stop subscription notification (in triplicate to the address below)...'
I had spent the last week of my holiday, earlier this year, in Tanzania on the island of Zanzibar. It sounds exquisitely exotic and for the most of it, it is. Imagine a pale white beach where the sand is made up of crushed coral and breaks up into tiny undulations under your feet as you walk towards the blue sea, clear enough to see the dangerous black spined sea urchins. Although when you get really close to them, with a diving mask and flippers, and dive down towards them the black colouring has a hint of purple and white to the central part of it, but before you can look to close the need for oxygen takes up your thoughts and I rise up out of the water like a breaching whale with less hydrodynamic lines. It is certainly different to Hastings where you have to hopscotch over cobbles to get to the opaque sloshing liquid that is called the English Channel. But the above description, at the beginning of the paragraph, only describes a small beach on the north west tip of the island. By the way, palm trees sway in the breeze and reggae is pumped out through sand drenched speakers. But I digress, I really want to tell you about my last night on Zanzibar in Stone Town before I flew out.
You know you get these ideas after having one too many drinks. My poison was called a Mudslide and varying quantities of kahlua, Baileys, cream, vodka, milk, ice cubes and a squirt of chocolate sauce, the type you put over ice cream. It was like eating a chocolate nut sundae but with the added hit of hidden alcohol. The place was the Sunset Bar balcony of the Africa House Hotel. An ex-colonial club turned into a hotel with carpets on the ceiling and the walls and these brass knobbed chests with intricate wooden designs on them. They smelt of a hint of wax polish and a tinge of mixed spices from the central town market.
I had just seen the visible dhow sail across the view with the last entrails of the sinking sun slip past the horizon. Storm clouds were on congregating towards the north, like actors to eager to get on the stage and not waiting for their cue. It hadn't rained for the whole week I had been there and I wanted to wait for the smell of the first drops of rain on the hot beaten soil. That odour still catches me unawares and reminds me of a many great things. But even this thought was becoming further from my mind. This space was becoming void and simultaneously filling with the thought of these chests. I had to have one. I had to have a richly illustrated wooden rectangle of design.
I walked with a hint of panic and haste down the central staircase in the hotel and out through the main door, guarded by the cannons on their plinths.
"Good evening Sir, be safe", the early nightwatch man told me.
Up the road opposite the entrance to the hotel until I met the main road. The usual night time traffic of taxis with beaten up corners and mopeds. I turned left and follow the main canyon of shops; my running gait was struggling with the constant harrasment of "CDs, Marry Jo Hannah, Money, Trips to see the Turtles" and run towards the tourist shops and the main post office. The Memories of Zanzibar, the Shadows of Zanzibar and others. I was looking for a slight giant of a man who walked with a stoop. His name was David, I once gave him the Tanzanian equivalent of twelve US dollars for an anti-malarial medication. If anyone knew where I would be able to find one of these chests, then he was my man. Now just to find him, with my left foot I enter the darker streets off the main tourist route...
Chapter 4 after the New Year's Day celebrations, sorry Hannah and Ash
posted by A teacher returning to Geography Education at 3:39 AM
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