Shabbat, the Muezzin, and Zanzibar Shang
I am sitting in my London apartment on a gloomy Sunday. It’s the middle of July and the sky is grey. I woke up to pouring rain and had a very long morning. I drank countless cups of coffee with organic milk from a British farm, took a long shower, and grabbed a juicy focaccia with mozzarella, pesto, and tomatoes, dripping with quality olive oil. This reminds me of the YouTube video that my sister sent me a while ago. I once had a plan to make focaccia by myself.
I could not be more distant from the touch of the Swahili Coast where I was only two weeks ago, yet, it is the Swahili Coast that I keep thinking about. During this last trip, I finished reading the book How to Write About Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina. It is a single book that made me rethink how I look at the continent, and, admittedly, how I read Ryszard Kapuściński’s work on Africa. In Wainaina’s most famous essay, also titled How to Write About Africa, Wainaina satirically warns writers not to use certain words in their titles. He singles out terms like ‘Africa,’ ‘Darkness,’ and ‘Safari,’ as well as place names such as ‘Zanzibar,’ ‘Maasai,’ and ‘Nile,’ along with atmospheric words like ‘Shadow’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone. Please note that Ryszard Kapuściński’s most famous book on Africa is called The Shadow of the Sun. Please also note that I am going to write about Zanzibar. I grabbed Wainana’s book sort of last minute, on my latest trip to San Francisco, in my favorite Beatnik book shop “City Lights Publishers” - and, what an impact!
I previously wrote about Zanzibar. In my essay called “Zanzibar Curry: Love It Like There’s No Tomorrow“ following my year 1 in Zanzibar, I wrote about both Kapuściński and Wainaina. You can likely scrap that writing (in your case, reading), except for the recipe for the Zanzibar curry (meaning, spice). I love Zanzibari curry (meaning, a dish). I also love Swahili cuisine. If there’s a cuisine that is flying under the radar of the world’s biggest names in cooking unnoticed, it is Swahili cuisine. If I were to get lost, it would be in a pot of Zanzibari curry.
I also enjoy getting lost in Stone Town, Zanzibar City’s gem from a “bygone” era. It’s as charming as it is dilapidated. I am not saying ‘dilapidating’ because there clearly is an uptick in construction and reconstruction as revenues from tourism go up. However, the balance between ‘dilapidated’ and ‘dilapidating’ isn’t tilting enough toward preservation. I just hope the growing commercial activity will help save these charming buildings—with their famed Zanzibari doors and Omani geometric patterns—before it’s too late. Right now, you can still see too big of a number of these beautiful buildings being supported from outside by wooden beams.
After a week in Zanzibar, I got somewhat attached to the calming sound of the muezzin calling up the Muslims to prayer. I lit my Shabbat candles to the sound of the muezzin’s chant in Paje on the southeastern side of the island. Paje has both a new mosque and a new development project - Paje Square - where you can buy a studio for $60,000 and live in paradise. I don’t call this a bad deal. Paje also has a thriving community of keen kite surfers and Rastafarians, with both communities intersecting heavily. The shared area of this Venn diagram is thick - everybody who is not sitting in it is a tourist paying 80 dollars for a kite surfing lesson. If there was a recipe to capture this vibe, read this:
Zanzibar Shang
One portion of (ideally Tanzanian!) beer—think Kilimanjaro or Serengeti, though good luck finding it outside Tanzania
One portion of Sprite
Limes, limes, baby
In Paje, you can enjoy chipsi mayai for $2, or splurge on a fancy Western-style coffee for $4—both equally satisfying in their own ways. If you wonder about chipsi mayai, no need to despair - fried French fries with fried eggs. A lot of fried and tamu sana, Swahili for very tasty. If you are going for something fancier, at the cost of 6x chipsi mayai, I recommend spending hours at Mr. Kahawa’s. It is precisely in Zanzibar where I learned to do nothing. Doing nothing for hours is incredibly and surprisingly pleasurable. At this time, Zanzibar is the only place where I can safely imagine myself doing just that - nothing less and nothing more - just a big fat Kunderian nothingness.
Much of this happened on Shabbat. It was a Shabbat where my meals consisted of Swahili mangoes, embe, and avocados, parachichi. It was also a Shabbat of okra curry with cashews, (mili)liters of Zanzibar shang and a (second) Maasai proposal. Following my first Maasai proposal a year earlier, as well as my second Maasai proposal this year, I can safely conclude that the matters are as follows: An average Maasai man needs 20 cows (for dowry) to get married. An average Maasai will tell you that he wants to marry a muzungu (a white person). My conclusion is that this average Maasai wants to marry a muzungu because he won’t need 20 cows, which, as I inquired, are hard to come by. I also reserve the right to be wrong on this matter. Please do not send HR my way.
As the matters of the heart go, Swahili poetry, just like the cooking, is often overlooked. I feel that the world is missing out:
Katika macho yako naona dunia,
Na moyo wangu unapiga kwa furaha.
In your eyes I see the world,
And my heart beats with joy.
