A few minutes later, Matteus stretches in the next bed. We gather a few things, camera gear mainly, and head out for the Darajani Market.
Streets of Stone Town are narrow, and crooked. Cobbled, and cornered. Mysterious, and marvelous. Earlier in the week with walked with the purpose of getting lost. Each turn a delight, a suprise, and a gift. We hadn't even needed the city tour guides to find the famous Jaws Corner. We stumbled upon it, while waiting for me to change lenses. Wide was wonderful for the wooden doors.
I had come around the corner after said lens change to find Matteus, and Anneliese (a Belgium gal we had met on the spice tour earlier that day), standing under red and blue triangular flags in a courtyard. These political flags for the CUF opposition party were strung from a center pole, a living palm tree, actually. Half way up the tree was a sign that said "make free international calls here", with an old telephone mounted above it. I photographed it immediately and then challenged Matteus to climb it, given he'd successfully climbed the mast of the dhow two nights before.
He climbs it with gusto, and picks up the phone, spiral cord hanging from his free hand: "Hi mom, I need more money." Men look up from sipping coffee, playing dominos, and chatting to smile at him. Some take a photo of him on their phones. In the flurry of the busy late day activity, Matteus and I made enough of a scene to attract attention. The good kind. The kind that brings chatter, laughter, and coffee with the locals--or at least former locals.
Babu, as everyone knows him, now lives in Calgary. He's back for a bit with his friends (The one who lives in Dubai we'd see again in the market afternoon, and take coffee with him.). Selma, the owner of our Bed and Breakfast calls these Zanzibari's JuneJulys. "They come back June July bringing money. They aren't part of the tourist influx this high season, but they are around." Thus, in his JuneJuly spirit Babu (who's name is Ally) buys us coffee, opens his arms for hugs, and his heart for the love of his home town. We sat there at Jaw's corner for some time taking a second cup of coffee, and the exhuberance of wandering, human connection, and the open heartedness of real travel.
But this morning, our last in Zanzibar, we walked with purpose--to get to the market as Zanzibaris were setting up, and get back before breakfast, at our lovely Kiponda B and B, was over. I often feel that you really see the workings of a town, a city, in the morning hours before shops open. Secondary school children in matching Muslim head scarfs and uniforms proceed to schools. Goods are being loaded into carts and cars and flat bed wheelbarrows. Sacks of rice in the nook of a bicycle frame. Mornings are a moment of quiet movement.
We arrive to the back side of the red roofed market, and enter by a greens salesman. The cilantro is so fresh, I can smell it. To my left meat hooks hang above empty stalls; to my right, a row of troughed and titled stalls--also empty. At the end of those fish stalls, the fish trading platform-- my favorite part of any local market in any seaside town. I'm flashed with memories of Tokoyo's fish market and the morning auction as fisherman brought in their enormous tuna catch. Here, yellow jerry cans, blue buckets, woven baskets on the back of bicycles, and even plastic bags held today's catch for auction. A man in a kofia calls numbers in Swahili. Men and women nod and toss crumpled bills to him in exchange for octopus, red snapper, tuna, sword fish, king fish. I gawk, and really wish I knew more Swahili, not to trade or buy fish, but to get an insider's photo. I'd use the fish eye lens. I almost want to be the fish--one eye up on the circle of humans bidding on me. I do know the word for octopus. Pweza. Pweza mchuzi wanaze (octopus in coconut sauce) was my favorite meal. I'm totally suckered in by the eight arms of the abundance of octopus as I walk around and point, and smile. Mattues suggests the collective noun for octopus is ARMy! Men man the booths, no filling up with purchased fish, sharpen knives, and cut fish steaks on a wood hunk of tree ring.
The meat is a bloody mess. Hooves and hides hang on the curb. Ribs and racks of beef arrive by truck load. It's heavy lifting. Crimson red and pale flesh over dark skinned shoulders. Bones break with cleavers and when blood spatters nearer to me than I'd like, I move quickly away, back out to the street.
Two men push bicycles with huge baskets of fresh bread. Umoja, I ask him for one. Matteus and I tear through the crust to the warmish squishy insides.
I follow Matteus through the narrower stalls inside now--spices, baskets, and fruit. He buys a bit more cinnamon for those famous Hager twists, some more black pepper, and with the bargin we throw in a small bar of the ylangylang scented soap. On the spice tour we learned that ylang ylang is the flower of Channel #1. We weave around for fruit, and I buy a chermoya. That's how I first learned the name, but it's also known as a custard apple, soursop, or guanabana. Latin genus (Annona sp.) It looks like a bright green grenande, but rounder. The seller is sweet to cut it for us, and its sweeter meat inside is a joy. I spit the black slippery seeds in the compost bin. I wipe my lips and finger tips with the hunk of bread I've saved.
The snack ties us over. We cross the street to see sacks and stacks of root veggies-- potatoes, onions, garlic. They are too bulky and heavy to be set in stalls in the covered market. A shoe seller begins to lay out his shiny soles. In Moshi, Matteus had noted how many shoe sellers were barefoot themselves. Girls and boys pick up trash in the morning beside their school along the open market area. It's a small dent in the massive amount of micro-trash here, mostly platic. Perhaps there are not pockets in the kanga or ketenge women wear, nor in the long white robe for Muslim men. In reality there is very little infrastructure for trash collection. Later in Kigoma, I'd see trash pits smoldering, even in school yards.
Matteus checks his watch, and we begin to wander back to our place. When we cross the threshold of the large wooden carved door we have to turn sideways to pass through. Three flights up the uneven rises of the stairs, we join other travelers on the rooftop cafe for our final breakfast in Zanzibar.
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