I’ve now been in Zanzibar for a month and a half. This isn’t going to be a structured blog post, but rather a series of reflections:

 

Last weekend I had the magical experience of sitting in the Indian Ocean looking up at a brilliant sky filled with stars. Moving my legs and arms under water, I could leave trails of glowing phosphorescence.

 

The date shakes in the little store by Darajani are my favorite things to eat/drink in Zanzibar. The owner puts yogurt, peanuts, honey and cardamom in a glass, mixes it all up and then pours in milky date juice. You give it a final stir and eat it with a spoon.

 

My Swahili is still miserable. I seem to have hit a wall. I’m picking up lots of words but my tongue still gets tied when I attempt to articulate a sentence. I need to spend more time practicing, but I’m just exhausted every day after work…

 

I have been going for an afternoon swim every day after work at the nice sandy beach on the southern side of the Stone Town peninsula. It’s great to watch the sunset with traditional dhows sailing by while bathing in a warm sea. I just learned that there are 15 raw sewage discharge points right near there. May have to stop this tradition.

 

The hours are long and the work can be tedious, although still very interesting. Hours of reports are mind-numbing even though I strongly believe in the topic. Occasionally you have to let off a little steam, though. At the end of the day on Friday, (after work hours) we all had a little office dance-off competition.

 

I hate “mzungu prices”. Everything I buy is always considerable higher than what my Zanzibari counterparts pay. I know this is the result of history and tourism that has very unequal benefits for Zanzibaris, but it is still tiring.

 

Being gay on Zanzibar is pretty dismal. From what I’ve been able to observe, the only gay scene is either extremely discreet and unmentioned, or prostitution. The government officially banned gay tourists from coming to the island in 2004.

 

My counterparts took me to a great local eatery. I can get a plate of ugali (an African ball of solid cornmeal porridge served with a sauce) for about 75 cents. The cleanliness of the establishment is questionable, but I have yet to get sick.

 

I don’t know if I want to stay in Africa but I don’t really have any interest in going back to the US.

 

I’ve met a great group of expat friends, mostly from the UK. They are wonderful. I wish I would have made some more Zanzibari friends by now. It’s the language again, though. Despite great friends, I still sometimes feel very lonely…

 

Jaws Corner is the most colorful hangout in town. Every afternoon groups of people gather around the TV to watch political speeches or football matches. There’s always a lot of shouting and it’s usually hard to tell whether they are shouting over a speech or a match.

 

There is a push for a greater level of autonomy for Zanzibar. Things could get messy… The situation in Zanzibar is, at the very least, fragile.

 

For my 31^st birthday we all went out to the new tapas bar that just opened up. Coworkers and friends were all there. It was a memorable evening. The owners gave us a pitcher of sangria on the house, although that had more to do with the fact that it took us two hours to get our food.

 

My first weekend in Zanzibar was the huge Sauti Za Busara music festival. The artists were incredible and the scene was amazing. Unfortunately, though, it was still primarily aimed at tourists.

 

Abbas. A coworker came in to town from Sudan for a two-week gig. I met him briefly at the office, then one evening I went to pay for my drink at a local bar. The bartender came back with my money telling me, “sorry that man over there paid for your drink.” We were great friends from that point forward. He seems to know everyone in the town, even though he hasn’t spent significantly more time than I have here now and only speaks Arabic and English.

 

There have been good moments and bad moments, but there have been lots of memorable moments. When I first arrived in Zanzibar 6 months seemed so long, now the end seems just around the corner…

The big news in Zanzibar this week was three small bombings that occurred around Stone Town, two in the main city and one outside of town (the linked article only mentions 2, but there was in fact a 3^rd bombing the day before). These occurred last Sunday and Monday and targeted an Evangelical church, an Anglican Cathedral and a popular tourist restaurant, Mercury’s, named after the lead singer of Queen who was born on Zanzibar. I first heard the news Monday evening from a Facebook group that I am a part of, Zanzibar Residents. Shortly afterwards I received notification from the US Embassy alert system that I have signed up for. I realized that I was a block away from one of the bombings about 45 minutes before it took place (the initial report said it took place earlier, putting me there right at the time of the bombing, which surprised me as I didn’t remember anything out of the ordinary).

 

The bombings were very small and according to the official report nobody was hurt. We did, however, hear from one of the local journalists that we are working with that one person was injured and died in the hospital the following morning. The following day we went to the site of one of the bombings and the only sign of damage that we saw was a small hole blown in the pavement, which may or may not have been from the bombing, it was hard to tell (it could also have been a pothole). The restaurant is apparently now already open. Still, despite the fact that they seemed like minor incidents, it was worrying news.

 

These are not the first attacks that have occurred on Zanzibar over the past few years. My previous blog entry discusses some of the violence that has been targeted at tourists, but there have been additional attacks targeted at the local Christian minority. Churches have been burned, priests and a moderate Muslim cleric have been attacked and one priest was murdered. The attacks that have occurred have not constituted widespread violence, but they seem to have the common characteristic of being carefully targeted at the Christian community and at tourists. What is the explanation for these attacks?

 

I discussed in my previous blog that the behavior of tourists is often at odds with the conservative Muslim values of the society. This can be extended to include the local minority Christian community, whose presence is at odds with the small number of Islamic fundamentalists on the island, primarily under the banner of Uamsho (Swahili for Awakening). But while the society as a whole is very Muslim and quite conservative, it is generally not a fundamentalist society and this group has only a relatively small level of support amongst the general population.

 

Another conjecture that was offered by many of the journalists that we were discussing this issue with is that it is related to the Constitutional Referendum that is currently being discussed. Ever since Zanzibar and Tangayika unified to create Tanzania in 1964, the exact structure of the government and Zanzibar’s level of autonomy have been frequently debated. This Constitutional Referendum is another big step in the debate and it is currently taking place in Dodoma, the legislative (and official) capital of Tanzania, and there is still a great deal of discontent on Zanzibar. Many people are still pushing for the complete independence of Zanzibar, a move that is primarily being trumpeted by Uamsho. Zanzibar has a majority Muslim population whereas mainland Tanzania is primarily Christian. Many have speculated that these attacks are in response to this contentious Constitutional Referendum and may be the beginnings of a stronger push for independence.

 

However, someone I was also speaking to suggested that another possibility is that groups from mainland Tanzania are committing these acts to discourage tourism on the island in order to promote the mainland’s tourism industry. This may be a stretch, although the bad press that Zanzibar has been getting surrounding attacks such as these has had a detrimental impact on tourism on the island. Tour operators are urging tourists to stay away from Stone Town and just go to the all-inclusive beach resorts, again creating a greater separation between the local people and the tourists. The US Embassy, however, has just recommended caution and has not suggested any specific travel restrictions.

 

This situation will play out over my next few months on the island as the Constitutional Reform process is decided in Dodoma. There is a great deal of uncertainty, but hopefully these are isolated attacks committed by marginal groups in society. However, there are legitimate issues in need of reform and these attacks highlight deep-rooted tensions on the island.

Zanzibar is famous for its legendary beaches, some of the best and most beautiful in the world. There are coral reefs surrounding the islands of Unguja and Pemba, and these create a fine white sand on the beaches of most parts of the island. The fine, white sand, of course, leads to water that almost looks unreal. It is an intense turquoise blue that slowly fades into a deeper, darker blue as the seafloor slopes away from the beach. The beaches on the east side of the islands are the most spectacular as much of the western side coastline is covered with mangroves rather than beaches.

 

Naturally, these beaches attract crowds of tourists that flock down to the islands, mostly from Europe (particularly from England and Italy) to enjoy the natural wonders of Zanzibar and to stay at the exclusive resorts. Tourism is relatively new, there was very limited tourism before the Revolution and foreigners were virtually prohibited from going to the island during the first years of the Revolutionary government. Over the past few decades, though, the tourism industry has been increasingly developed across the islands, mostly on Unguja, and now it makes up 20% of the island’s GDP. Elegant resorts and hotels have been popping up along these amazing beaches, often at odds with the small fishing villages that have previously existed there. Tourism on Zanzibar, while necessary, has been quite problematic.

 

Last Saturday afternoon, I finally made an excursion out to one of these famed beaches, in the village of Kendwa on the northern tip of Unguja. Despite many of the problems that I have with the tourism industry, I do love tropical beaches. This is one of the perks of having an internship in Zanzibar. We spent a great day lying on the beach and swimming in the warm, turquoise water. It was wonderful, although afterwards, despite the layers of sunscreen that I put on, I nursed a bad sunburn.

 

Going out to the beach in Kendwa was jarring, though. The village is extremely poor, houses are made out of mud walls and have dirt floors, and has been shoved to one side of the dirt road while immediately on the other side, behind gates with security guards and large walls, are opulent resorts taking up all of the beachfront property. The village is obviously a fishing village, but now there is just one small trail that goes down to the beach along the side of one of the resorts, to where the boats of the villagers are dragged up on the southern end of the beach. It makes one wonder if the village was initially right on the beach and was pushed back by the resorts (I don’t know if this is true or not, but it sort of seems that way). Along the beach, sunburnt tourists stroll in string bikinis, while a few local women look on, completely covered and wearing hijab. It is a stark contrast and seems quite culturally inappropriate.

 

Additionally, the big resort on Kendwa beach, Kendwa rocks, is famed for its “Full Moon Party” a gigantic all night party celebrating the full moon. There is music, dancing, and lots of alcohol flowing. This is occurring in a fairly conservative Muslim society that frowns on the consumption of alcohol. Local restaurants never serve alcohol and there are very few stores that sell it, but it is very easy to get it at all of the restaurants and resorts aimed at tourists. Unless there is a large party going on at one of these tourist resorts, everything in Zanzibar shuts down fairly early. When these large parties and festivals turn into all night ordeals, this again goes against many of the cultural norms of the island.

 

But apart from the violations of cultural norms, the tourism industry doesn’t seem to benefit the majority of the population. Most of the island is made up of desperately poor, rural villages. Of course, the hotels do employ many locals and have provided a good source of income for them and their families, but unfortunately, many of the hotel employees actually come from mainland Tanzania where the levels of education are a lot higher. The tourism industry also provides a lot of exploitative employment as well. Walking around Stone Town and other resort areas, tourists are constantly accosted by street touts, referred to as papasi, offering tours, selling sunglasses and knick-knacks, and often peddling drugs. Sometimes it is even worse and more exploitative. When sitting in a bar one evening, I looked around and realized that two prostitutes had appeared on either side of me. This is the unfortunate aspect of tourism here that has negative implications on the culture, the environment and an economic impact that only benefits certain segments of the population.

 

The negative impacts of tourism have been demonstrated recently as there have been a couple of deadly attacks aimed at foreigners. Radical religious groups have been taking hold in some of the most vulnerable sectors of the Zanzibar population and have instigated some of these attacks. Two British girls walking around Stone Town had acid thrown at them last year and a French couple in a northern beachside village were murdered in their house last month. The general Zanzibar population has decried these attacks and is afraid of losing the tourism industry. But if the industry was run in a more responsible and less exploitative manner that benefitted more of the islands’ citizens, it could both support the local economy and allow foreigners to experience the cultural and natural wonders of Zanzibar.