A certain curly, red-haired young man challenged me to write a "Top 10 quirks of Tanzania". I don't know why I never thought of it before. So I started. But then I realised I had never really spent all that much time on the mainland. As I am sure all of you are exhausted of hearing, I love Stone Town, Zanzibar. So i thought I would be more qualified to write "Tope 10 quirks of Stone Town". Here it is:
The ten observed quirks of Zanzibaris in Stone Town
1. Mwah! Making the long extended kissing sound that in many countries would be a perverted call to sexy women, but is actually the sound that vendors make to advertise that they are selling water or peanuts etc, or as a way to tell people to move out of the way, especially if they are on a whizzing bike cruising down the streets of Stone Town
2. Looking away as the way of answering no (so that it seems as if they are just ignoring you)
3. Phone ringing = give the passengers on the dala dala some music to listen to. Many people on the island (and I am told, on Mainland as well - hell, even in Malawi) let their phone ring for a good 10-15 seconds before they answer it. Often the ring tone is the latest Bongo Fleva sound track. In my time in Zanzibar it was most definitely the song "hakunaga".
4. Salaam Alaikum! As children walk from school to home on their regular route, there will be people whom they know who work/own the shops and businesses that they pass. And so if you find yourself in a shop and school has ended there will be at least one, often up to three children whom will file into the shop, will very seriously shake hands with the owner and then with you as you are the guest in the shop and then will walk out. Or they will come in and will have long teasing chats with the owners, sometimes being allowed to be quite cheaky and telling the adult off. And then they leave again only for it to be repeated the next day and the next…
5. Karibu chakula. Always, always willing to share their food. People whom you may have only met once will walk past you in the street and offer you some biscuits or fruit. Even people whom you just happen to be sitting with while drinking coffee on the side of the road will offer to buy you another cup of coffee or will offer you half of their doughnut
6. And speaking of food – I have never seen so much eating on the road. People can eat all their meals on the street – there are huge amounts of chapati, uji, urojo, kachori, bajia, chips, mkate wa ufuta etc etc sold everywhere for people to buy. And they are bought. Men congregate around tables selling pieces of octapus and they stand in silence stabbing up pieces of meat dipped in piri piri (pronounced pili pili) sauce. Similarly children sweep past stabbing pieces of cucumber or pineapple with tooth picks and dropping a sticky coin as payment.
7. The hood, yo! The young children rule the streets. In gangs. Enough said.
8. Baby-sitting. If you are sitting on a dala dala and you close your eyes or dose of for but one second you may wake up with an unknown child, baby or piece of luggage on your lap. When a parent gets onto a dala dala the cild is just handed to the first pair or hand they find. Sometimes they remain on the laps. The parents don’t really mind. The know that at some point in the journey the child will be passed from one to another and will find its way back to the owner. Sometimes there is no immediate available hand and so you will at least once witness a hangling baby in the centre of a dala dala.
9. Chocolate Zanzibar pizzas! (sorry no space to explain a Zanzibar pizza) There are disproportionate amounts of Nutella to people on sale in Stone Town. You can find it everywhere, even in shops that seem to sell only soap and dusty flour and sugar.
10. Piki-piki and keep-lefty. As in "so I suggest you catch a ride on a piki-piki taxi and then at the second keep-lefty you take the third exit and you will see the market on your right". Translated (for you mere non-Zanzibar mortals), "So I suggest you take the scooter (or motorbike) taxi and at the second traffic circle you take the third exit and the market will me on your right".
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