We laugh, turning another corner of an alleyway narrow enough that we could place our hands on the walls of either side. This corner leads to a central square, where during the daytime locals heat tea kettles over wood charcoal and share mugs of coffee while they play their favorite board games. It is night, though, and the square is empty but for two American sailors who have lost their way trying to find the concert nook we’d bought tickets to only a half-hour ago.
Andrew looks at his google maps screen, but tucked as we are in the cement and stucco labrynth of Stonetown, it isn't getting any service.
A bird poops on my shoulder.
“Ewwww!” I say, swiping my hand across my shirt and smearing it on my hand. A local man appears around a corner and witnesses my distress.
“Follow me!" he takes us two paces, through an even darker stretch of alleyway to a restaurant/bar offering napkins to hapless bird-bombed individuals like myself. “My name is Peter. What is yours?”
We chat with Peter for a while, learning he is actually from the mainland, and having moved to Zanzibar only two years ago is still trying to sort out his own directions. When we explain we will be late for our concert if we don't set off through the maze soon, he guides us back to whence we came.
We take our seats behind a small coffee table set up in the inner courtyard of one of Stonetown’s historic buildings constructed in the 1800s at the height of Zanzibar's role as Indian Ocean spice trade outpost. Similar to Malacca in Malaysia, Zanzibar is located outside of cyclone zones and surrounded by ocean currents and trade winds that switch in six month increments. This environment has long offered sailors a two-way highway for traveling between Europe, Arabia, Africa, Indian, and Asia collecting spices, dates, textiles, ceramics, and unfortunately, slaves. At various times in its history, Zanzibar had been controlled by the Swahili people, Portuguese, The Sultanate of Oman, the German Empire, and the British. In 1964, Stonetown was the center of the Zanzibar Revolution, a conflict that caused the removal of the Sultan and the birth of a socialist government. While Zanzibar was officially combined with Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964, Zanzibar considers itself a "semi-autonomous" part of Tanzania. For cruising sailors like us, this means undertaking the whole customs, immigration, and health check-ins both at Zanzibar and on the mainland when we reach Tanga.
The ambiance in our concert courtyard is magical. The only light comes from a series of oil lanterns hanging from hooks and candles lit inside glass at our table. The flickering of flame bounces around white walls built of coralline ragstone and mangrove timber, set in a thick lime mortar, plastared, and lime washed. It is a building technique borne of a fusion of Swahili, Indian, Arab, and European influences. The courtyard is open to the sky, and both Saturn and a half-slice moon hang above the vertical four-story column. The musicians include three professors from the local music academy and three students. They are playing three violins, an accordian, a tambourine, and a African hand drum. They each take turns singing, and one of the students is encouraged to explain the meaning of each song to us. She also speaks good English, but all the songs are in Swahili.
They draw their bows across their strings, and the combination of instruments is unusual to our ears. I believe their strings are tuned at a quarterstep different than violins in the US typically would be, and this lends an exotic sound to the music. The hand drummer in particular was a fascination to watch. During the crecendos, his hands were flying and playing this single drum turned into a full-body activity. My favorite move was to watch him swipe the elbow of his right arm around the hollow of the base of the drum, changing the tone and length of the precussion being played by his hands. Our server leans down to whisper in my ear: “The hand drummer has traveled the world with his drum, and won many awards for his skill.”
"Wow," I said, I could absolutely believe it by the way he was playing, and here I was having fallen into this concert through nothing but luck.
A few days ago, we had arrived in Zanzibar, settled in, and started looking for things we'd like to do. We made our goal list in our log book: “Roof top dinner at sunset, market adventure day, smoke a houkkah at the Africa Hotel, find a few nice coffee shops, drink beers overlooking the beach and the Dhow sailors, go visit the endangered red monkey who only lives on Zanzibar, visit the Freddie Mercury bar and museum.” (Yes! Freddie Mercury lead singer of Queen was born in Zanzibar!)
We figured we'd do the first thing first, and we arranged with our friends to attend a roof-top dinner at Emmerson Spice Hotel at sunset. With Stonetown being a labyrinth of narrow stone alleyways, the people tended to climb skyward to get their fair share of sunshine. This leads the city to offer all sorts of interesting rooftop nooks to enjoy. Emerson Spice came highly recommended by Susan from S/V Erie Spirit and her niece who visited a year or two ago. We entered through a historic and intricately wood carved door, climbed a spiral of narrow stairs built of red mahogany, and emerged on the rooftop just as the sun was falling low over the Zanzibar skyline. The Dhows were sliding across the horizon, making their way into harbor for the night.
"Wow, this is breathtaking!" we all agreed, and as we were seated, our servers took cocktail orders. Our fravorite of the night was a new concoction none of us had ever tried before: Cognac, Swahili Honey, and the juice of a local variety of lemon with a lumpy skin. Our friend Pete ordered two, and Andrew drank his nicely done margarita with a measure of cocktail-jealousy, then ordered his own.
Our meal was supurb. Five courses, each light and fresh, made thoughtfully with unique flavor profiles gained from Zanzibar's ample supply of the world's spices. Again, consensus formed that the Lobster over glass noodles was our favorite dish: a sweet and tender chunk of lobster, perched atop perfectly executed glass noodles, served with fresh, local avocado and a peanut sauce that must have had cardamom and lemongrass. Paired with our "strawberry forward" dry rose wine, it was a culinary experience to be savored. We left the evening singing the chef's praises and rubbing our satisfied bellies.
As we meandered through the maze trying to find our way out to our taxi driver, we happened upon a man dressed in a long white robe and a marroon colored fez holding a violin and standing outside a building with one gas lanturn still burning and lighting a sign that advertised a concert. He was chatting with a group of friends. I stopped to read the sign. “A concert!" I said. My group of friends now paused in curiosity as well. One of the men in the circle turn to us and says, "yes! we play concerts every Monday, Friday, and Saturday night." They wave us forward to come into the concert hall. The man with the violin started playing and singing a few bars. Pete and Jen were harboring ambitions to climb Kilimanjaro the next week, and the Oddgodfreys decided attending this little concert would be our own worthy goal.
As the group played, we were served coffee in tiny ceramic cups with dates, a coconut spice bar rich with cloves, and a cashew bar. These snacks were pleasure to nibble as we soaked in the music. The concert was almost a private concert. Four local women were in attendance, dressed in their colorful veils, and halfway through, we were joined by a French couple. The local women led the way, demonstrating the cultural tradition to dance your way up to the stage and flutter cash before the musician whose singing you most appreciate before tucking a donation into a wood carved treasure box. They certainly deserved more than the $12.00 US cover charge, so I danced my way up, feeling rather awkward as I did so.
“Be free, my friend! Dance anyway you like!" our server said.
Right. Improvise, Leslie.
Near the end of two hours of playing, the musicians paused in flow of music to allow the student to introdue each musician by name, instrument, and a little bit of their personal history to a softer background beat. As his or her name was announced, the musician would step forward to play his or her own solo riff and demonstrate the complexity of their skill in free form. We would clap and cheer, then they'd move to the next musician - just like they do with Jazz Quartets in the U.S. This felt like a curiosity to me. I wondered if I was witnessing the chickn or the egg, here?
“Jazz music is thought to emerge out of "hot music" from New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century. Some of the structures were inherited from Africa and passed down to blacks from slavery to freedom. The magic of jazz is the way musicians combine African improvisation with European influences on from and harmony.” Article, The Social Effects of Jazz, by Zola Philipp, citing Dorsey L. (2001) "And All that Jazz has African Roots!” in J.L Conyers, Jr. (Ed.), African American jazz and rap: Social and philosophical examinations of black expressive behavior (pp. 35-54).
Watching this group of six musicians, I could see all of that happening, plus influence from the Arabic traditions as well. I realized, this is one reason why I want to travel and sail. Exposure to a diversity of ideas seems to be evolution's way of creating something new. I want that to happen within me; I want to experience it for myself.
Zanzibar romanced me all ten days we were visiting. They make the most divine coffee, served in coffee shops tucked like hidden treasure inside the Stonetown maze. One perched atop a roof with stained glass and 360 degree light, others closed behind Zanzibar’s famous wood carved doors, yet another inside the lime-washed walls of Stonetown’s traditional houses.
The market is filled with color and light, stacked high with bags of spices grown locally and hand woven baskets to carry your purchases away. You have to chat and negotiate, lest you pay approximately 10x the real price especially if you are a “Mzungu”. This gives us the opportunity to make some good natured friends.
“How about 50,000 shillings?” a vendor proposes.
“Mmm…no….”
“How much are you willing to pay?” They ask.
Having recently received some coaching on this point from a local Swahili, the answer is “I think I’d like to pay 500 shillings.” It seems to be an outrageous spread, but if you laugh and feign outrage, they will too, and you’ll do “the dance” and end up somewhere in the middle. At this point, I consider overpaying by 2x to be a win.
The streets of Stonetown are scrubbed clean each morning by little ladies who seem intent to chase each speck of dirt away, and they succeed.
The jungles are filled with plants used as local medicines and the red-backed monkeys who live only on Zanzibar the whole world over.
They have white sand beaches that stretch as far as the eye can see, and apparently, it is one of the best places in the world to learn to windsurf.
To cap off our time in Zanzibar and to celebrate Pete and Jen's successful summit of Kilimanjaro, we led them to one more Afro-Jazz night at yet another restaurant with incredible goat byriani, delicious wine, and another beautiful Stonetown courtyard - this one filled with ferns and water features. The music was played by professional musicians and professors all, including violin, keyboard, drums, base guitar, and qanun.
Another Zanzibar night never to forget.
