This morning from the small balcony off our bedroom I looked down into the narrow street and watched children going to school, quite early as it was before 8.00 am. Coming from the opposite direction was a woman cleaning the street her only equipment was a basket and two pieces of ply to collect the garbage from the street. Opposite the windows were hung with curtains that looked like rags. Many Swahili families live in poor accommodation around the town.
After breakfast we met our prearranged guide to tour the town on foot. Our first visit was to the market on the edge of Stonetown. We visited the fish, meat and poultry markets. Fish is the cheapest and poultry the most expensive. Every part of the cow or bullock is displayed. All the innards, the head and the rest of the cuts are for sale, it was a very gory sight. Chickens come in many guises they are smaller than we are used to in Europe. You are able to buy one alive and take it home, dead but not plucked, or dead and plucked. We then moved onto the fruit and vegetable stalls. The tomatoes were stacked in pyramids it was a painstaking procedure and required a lot of patience, there were breadfruit and enormous grapefruit and of course spices being a spice island.
Next we visited one of the sites where the slaves were kept before being sold. The building today is a small church which we entered and then went down into the dungeon. The slaves were chained and segregated and kept on platforms. The river used to run through the building which sluiced away the urine and excrement of the slaves, it must have been foul. They were poorly fed and often died. Normally they were kept for a week in one of these places before being sold. At the sale they were beaten by the merchants who sold them to show which were the strongest. The sale took place on the green opposite where the Serene Hotel now stands, The hotel was built by the Aga Khan, the site is known as Kaleli Square and Kaleli in Swahili means noise. The noise came from the screaming of the slaves from the beatings they received.
We then visited the Anglican Cathedral, Church of Christ. Inside, sitting on pews were school children having a history lesson with their teacher. The first bishop is buried here behind the altar. There is a crucifix made from the wood from the tree that David Livingstone died beneath in Africa. He wanted his heart to be buried where he died and his body interred in England. At the entrance to the cathedral are two load bearing columns that were installed upside down. It seems the builder went away for a few days and was not there to supervise their installation, instead of having them reversed it was decided to leave them as they were.
We were taken into shops I think with the idea that we might buy something, there is probably an arrangement in order for the guides make some extra money. Our guide said he wasn’t feeling very well as he was suffering from Malaria. He told us that he shared an apartment with some other young men and they were rationed with water every day. It is difficult to have a wife because he would have to give her father a bride price. As mortgages don’t exist they build houses very slowly adding to it as and when they can afford it, which explained the amount of houses in different stages of construction.
We wandered through the old Arab Fort that is now used for shows at nights and afterwards the House of Wonders where slowly exhibits are being created showing the history of Zanzibar. it used to be a Sultan’s Palace, then an administrative building.
We had dinner up in the rooftop restaurant and we were entertained between courses by an Arab who played the violin, not very well, who passed around his cap for remuneration.