On the road to Zanzibar....
I was absent that day in primary school when the teacher introduced the topic of Africa. The assignment was to pick a nation in sub-sahara Africa and write a report and class presentation on that nation. The map was almost as big as I was. It was probably older too, because the teacher had to tell us that some nations had changed their names. When I returned to school after my cold was a bit better, the teacher informed me that I must select from the remaining African countries, but all of the countries that I was interested in had been taken by other students. There was this tiny speck of a place, an island, with an exotic name and a very rich history....Zanzibar!
I declared that I would do my report on this little place with such a fancy name. My teacher did not want to allow this, and I had to do some talking, but I have never been at a loss for words:) so my teacher allowed me to do the paper on Zanzibar, even though by this time it was part of Tanzania and technically NOT a "country".
That one primary school paper led me to a lifelong love of this place that it seemed no one had ever visited, and for which no information was ever available. Sure, the encyclopedia had an entry, and there were books, long out of print, which I eventually acquired out of blind luck and perserverence, like "Memoirs of an Arabian Princess", but very little was known about this forgotten little island that had once been the center of the universe in that part of the world for its spices and deep harbor. Being the kind of person that did not know the word "impossible", I made it a life goal to visit the tiny spice island and stand in the ruins of the Sultans of Oman and Muscat, and visit the Portuguese forts and walk the beautiful beaches at sunset watching the dhows slip into harbor.
Since there was no good way that I could see to come up with airfare to Zanzibar I realized that I would have to work my way there somehow. I decided to become a flight attendant...for anyone that would hire me. I applied to every airline that would take my application, and eventually went to work for a small airline that PanAm purchased. After one year back then, you received a long vacation. If you gave up a lot of days off and worked for other people when they needed a day off you could extend it. In this way, I worked towards my dream. The job did not pay much, and I saved as much as I could, but ended up with about $500 US dollars in cash and $500 on a Mastercard that my family had provided...since they were so horrified that I had decided to do this for a living (PanAm flight 103 had recently been blown up over Lockerbie Scotland, and they were frightened for me).
If I told you that I was NAIVE...well...it would be an understatement. I was young. There were no limits to the world. I could do anything, and I never believed that any harm would come of me. After all, I had just served my time in the military and many said I could not do that either, but I had. Of course I could go to Zanzibar, and OF COURSE I could go alone. Everyone I knew wanted to go to Paris, London, Rome, or Cairo...how boring:). No one was interested in an out of the way island they had never heard of, so I booked my reservation for one.
There were some problems with this idea from the beginning. You see, there was no internet, and no way to make a reservation in a hotel in Zanzibar. I wrote to the embassy in Dar-as-Salaam, but they only had info on Tanzania and safaris...typical things that tourists wanted to do there, but visiting Zanzibar was not one of these things. There was also the problem of getting to the island, as there were only two flights in a week, one from Dar-as-Salaam and one from Mombassa, Kenya. I chose the Mombassa flight.
The PanAm flight left off in Nairobi and my stay in Nairobi was an adventure that some say I should write a book about. I did not know that back then, Africa took only Visa cards (the British card), but not Mastercard. This left me $500 short. I'll leave the adventure at that, and tell it again some other day. But, suffice it to say that a young female flying on an American passport in Kenya becomes the responsibility of the person meeting the flight. I later found out that the man who met the flight would have been imprisoned or something if anything had happened to me. He would not leave me anywhere until he saw me safely to the airport in Mombassa the next day!. He scared me to death as I had no idea of his intentions or why he would not leave me:).
The stopover in Mombassa was absolutely beautiful. God does make so much beauty in the world. The taste of the air, and the deep blues and greens all around me swept me up into a state of elation. I stood, and I stared and breathed as if I had never taken a deep breath of air before in my life.
There was some money declaration form that I had to fill out, and I dutifully declared what I had, including change. I was not paying attention at all I was so wrapped up in the open air, the beautiful people with such big smiles and warm cheer. I had rolled up all but $50 US dollars in a napkin, and put it inside of my pants so that it would not be taken if I were robbed. This was simply a precaution because I did not obtain traveler's cheques for fear they would do me no good in Zanzibar. I knew that if I lost this money I would not be able to eat or purchase the yet unknown hotel space in Zanzibar.
There was a line to leave the airport and walk out to the plane. The tourists from Nairobi were off to safari, and the only people flying to Zanzibar were Zanzibarians or businessmen from Kenya, mixed with a few women and children. I quickly realized that this was the end of any language or culture I knew, and my Swahili book would have to work, or I would be sleeping on a Zanzibarian beach (which believe it or not, was my second option short of a hotel...yeah, I definitely had more nerve than brains:).
It was my turn at the checkpoint before boarding and I was the last in line having dallied a bit to catch as much of Mombassa as I could before the scheduled departure. The woman at the gate was very stern looking. She spoke quite proper British English. She asked me at least 20 questions. She did not understand why I was going to Zanzibar. She was suspicious that I was young, female and alone. It took me 5 minutes to convince her that, indeed, I had embarked on this trip alone and I was not associated with any of the other passengers and I did not know a soul in Zanzibar and had no address or hotel information to give her about my plans upon arriving on the island. She repeatedly asked me what I was going to Zanzibar to do, and I repeatedly told her I always wanted to go and here I am. She did not understand this at all:). No one who looked like me ever went to visit Zanzibar! It was NOT the tourist attraction it would later become.
Finally, she searched me. I was not expecting this at all, but I was easy going about this and allowed her...until she found the stashed cash. She had seen the $50 in my wallet, and I told her the "bundle" was money. I could tell from her face that she REALLY did not understand this. I told her that I put the money there so that I would not get robbed of all of my money. "Robbed" she asked? "Who is going to rob you"? Well, I guess this all seemed perfectly rational to her, but not to me. I told her I was simply being safe...she looked at me like I was either crazy or trying to pull something off on her. She said, "why did you keep this money in your wallet"? I tried to explain that if someone robbed me I would open my wallet and tell them that was all I had. That if I did not have ANY money in there, then they would search until they found the whole amount. It was a tactic I had been taught as a soldier. I looked at her now...like SHE was crazy:). This made NO sense to her. Firstly, no one was going to rob a woman and secondly, I must be up to no good given the circumstances and I must be trying to hide something...like cash that should have been declared.
She was quite exasperated that I kept telling her that there was nothing wrong here but a girl that wanted to make sure that she would not get robbed and be left with nothing with no return flights for three days. She was not buying a bit of it. I was simultaneously amused and laughing, or frustrated and annoyed. I too, acted like Bazan.
She told me she was going to take me to jail. JAIL!!! Was she kidding me??? I had done absolutely nothing wrong. All I had done was hide my money. How could that be against the law? She had a guard stand by me while she went to check my declaration forms. While she was gone, all of my families words rushed through my head. I was going to end up dead or worse. I should not go running around the world alone. Mother's voices ring loud in times of troulbe. The customs agent brought a supervisor back and he seemed a bit more worldly, and verified that the wrapped up wad of dollars (which they made me reach down and remove) was indeed the exact amount I had declared. He told her to let me board the plane, and she did so reluctantly.
Honestly, I did not think that they were going to let me go to Zanzibar that day. I did not know what I had done wrong, but it was obviously something that could land me in a cell. I found out much later that the black market in foreign currency was a BIG issue in Kenya and Tanzania. I was an inch away from being arrested...but due to sheer luck (because I was really not paying attention) I had filled out the forms correctly. I can't imagine what would have happened to me in a Kenyan jail. I am sure that at some point the US consulate would have been notified and perhaps my stay would have been short, but then again, who really knows.
Zanzibar...it was wonderful. There was a hotel open. I visited the ruins of Majid bin Said and his sister princesses. I walked the ramparts of the Portuguese fortifications, and took many deep breathes of spice scented air, feeling some strange sense of familiarity with it all. It's very odd when you feel you have been someplace before, but you have not. I brought the "Memoirs of an Arabian Princess" with me too, and I did not know that it had been outlawed in Zanzibar, and that ban had never been lifted even after their revolution. I sat on the roof of the hotel and sat in the ruins of the women's quarters of the palace and read bits from the book picturing it all in happening before my eyes in a weird time warp.
No one would have robbed me in Zanzibar, that was the conundrum that I could reconcile with the customs official in Mombassa. It was unheard of on that island, at that time, when Zanzibar was a small place with barely a person that did not know everyone in the only populated town. There were no secrets, and I doubt I've ever felt as safe anywhere else in the world. Some cannot imagine a place where there are no robberies, and some people imagine a robbery taking place in their country. Of course, anyone that can imagine this must be guilty to have such suspicions of others. It was a completely different culture, and in its own way, it was more naive than I was.
I declared that I would do my report on this little place with such a fancy name. My teacher did not want to allow this, and I had to do some talking, but I have never been at a loss for words:) so my teacher allowed me to do the paper on Zanzibar, even though by this time it was part of Tanzania and technically NOT a "country".
That one primary school paper led me to a lifelong love of this place that it seemed no one had ever visited, and for which no information was ever available. Sure, the encyclopedia had an entry, and there were books, long out of print, which I eventually acquired out of blind luck and perserverence, like "Memoirs of an Arabian Princess", but very little was known about this forgotten little island that had once been the center of the universe in that part of the world for its spices and deep harbor. Being the kind of person that did not know the word "impossible", I made it a life goal to visit the tiny spice island and stand in the ruins of the Sultans of Oman and Muscat, and visit the Portuguese forts and walk the beautiful beaches at sunset watching the dhows slip into harbor.
Since there was no good way that I could see to come up with airfare to Zanzibar I realized that I would have to work my way there somehow. I decided to become a flight attendant...for anyone that would hire me. I applied to every airline that would take my application, and eventually went to work for a small airline that PanAm purchased. After one year back then, you received a long vacation. If you gave up a lot of days off and worked for other people when they needed a day off you could extend it. In this way, I worked towards my dream. The job did not pay much, and I saved as much as I could, but ended up with about $500 US dollars in cash and $500 on a Mastercard that my family had provided...since they were so horrified that I had decided to do this for a living (PanAm flight 103 had recently been blown up over Lockerbie Scotland, and they were frightened for me).
If I told you that I was NAIVE...well...it would be an understatement. I was young. There were no limits to the world. I could do anything, and I never believed that any harm would come of me. After all, I had just served my time in the military and many said I could not do that either, but I had. Of course I could go to Zanzibar, and OF COURSE I could go alone. Everyone I knew wanted to go to Paris, London, Rome, or Cairo...how boring:). No one was interested in an out of the way island they had never heard of, so I booked my reservation for one.
There were some problems with this idea from the beginning. You see, there was no internet, and no way to make a reservation in a hotel in Zanzibar. I wrote to the embassy in Dar-as-Salaam, but they only had info on Tanzania and safaris...typical things that tourists wanted to do there, but visiting Zanzibar was not one of these things. There was also the problem of getting to the island, as there were only two flights in a week, one from Dar-as-Salaam and one from Mombassa, Kenya. I chose the Mombassa flight.
The PanAm flight left off in Nairobi and my stay in Nairobi was an adventure that some say I should write a book about. I did not know that back then, Africa took only Visa cards (the British card), but not Mastercard. This left me $500 short. I'll leave the adventure at that, and tell it again some other day. But, suffice it to say that a young female flying on an American passport in Kenya becomes the responsibility of the person meeting the flight. I later found out that the man who met the flight would have been imprisoned or something if anything had happened to me. He would not leave me anywhere until he saw me safely to the airport in Mombassa the next day!. He scared me to death as I had no idea of his intentions or why he would not leave me:).
The stopover in Mombassa was absolutely beautiful. God does make so much beauty in the world. The taste of the air, and the deep blues and greens all around me swept me up into a state of elation. I stood, and I stared and breathed as if I had never taken a deep breath of air before in my life.
There was some money declaration form that I had to fill out, and I dutifully declared what I had, including change. I was not paying attention at all I was so wrapped up in the open air, the beautiful people with such big smiles and warm cheer. I had rolled up all but $50 US dollars in a napkin, and put it inside of my pants so that it would not be taken if I were robbed. This was simply a precaution because I did not obtain traveler's cheques for fear they would do me no good in Zanzibar. I knew that if I lost this money I would not be able to eat or purchase the yet unknown hotel space in Zanzibar.
There was a line to leave the airport and walk out to the plane. The tourists from Nairobi were off to safari, and the only people flying to Zanzibar were Zanzibarians or businessmen from Kenya, mixed with a few women and children. I quickly realized that this was the end of any language or culture I knew, and my Swahili book would have to work, or I would be sleeping on a Zanzibarian beach (which believe it or not, was my second option short of a hotel...yeah, I definitely had more nerve than brains:).
It was my turn at the checkpoint before boarding and I was the last in line having dallied a bit to catch as much of Mombassa as I could before the scheduled departure. The woman at the gate was very stern looking. She spoke quite proper British English. She asked me at least 20 questions. She did not understand why I was going to Zanzibar. She was suspicious that I was young, female and alone. It took me 5 minutes to convince her that, indeed, I had embarked on this trip alone and I was not associated with any of the other passengers and I did not know a soul in Zanzibar and had no address or hotel information to give her about my plans upon arriving on the island. She repeatedly asked me what I was going to Zanzibar to do, and I repeatedly told her I always wanted to go and here I am. She did not understand this at all:). No one who looked like me ever went to visit Zanzibar! It was NOT the tourist attraction it would later become.
Finally, she searched me. I was not expecting this at all, but I was easy going about this and allowed her...until she found the stashed cash. She had seen the $50 in my wallet, and I told her the "bundle" was money. I could tell from her face that she REALLY did not understand this. I told her that I put the money there so that I would not get robbed of all of my money. "Robbed" she asked? "Who is going to rob you"? Well, I guess this all seemed perfectly rational to her, but not to me. I told her I was simply being safe...she looked at me like I was either crazy or trying to pull something off on her. She said, "why did you keep this money in your wallet"? I tried to explain that if someone robbed me I would open my wallet and tell them that was all I had. That if I did not have ANY money in there, then they would search until they found the whole amount. It was a tactic I had been taught as a soldier. I looked at her now...like SHE was crazy:). This made NO sense to her. Firstly, no one was going to rob a woman and secondly, I must be up to no good given the circumstances and I must be trying to hide something...like cash that should have been declared.
She was quite exasperated that I kept telling her that there was nothing wrong here but a girl that wanted to make sure that she would not get robbed and be left with nothing with no return flights for three days. She was not buying a bit of it. I was simultaneously amused and laughing, or frustrated and annoyed. I too, acted like Bazan.
She told me she was going to take me to jail. JAIL!!! Was she kidding me??? I had done absolutely nothing wrong. All I had done was hide my money. How could that be against the law? She had a guard stand by me while she went to check my declaration forms. While she was gone, all of my families words rushed through my head. I was going to end up dead or worse. I should not go running around the world alone. Mother's voices ring loud in times of troulbe. The customs agent brought a supervisor back and he seemed a bit more worldly, and verified that the wrapped up wad of dollars (which they made me reach down and remove) was indeed the exact amount I had declared. He told her to let me board the plane, and she did so reluctantly.
Honestly, I did not think that they were going to let me go to Zanzibar that day. I did not know what I had done wrong, but it was obviously something that could land me in a cell. I found out much later that the black market in foreign currency was a BIG issue in Kenya and Tanzania. I was an inch away from being arrested...but due to sheer luck (because I was really not paying attention) I had filled out the forms correctly. I can't imagine what would have happened to me in a Kenyan jail. I am sure that at some point the US consulate would have been notified and perhaps my stay would have been short, but then again, who really knows.
Zanzibar...it was wonderful. There was a hotel open. I visited the ruins of Majid bin Said and his sister princesses. I walked the ramparts of the Portuguese fortifications, and took many deep breathes of spice scented air, feeling some strange sense of familiarity with it all. It's very odd when you feel you have been someplace before, but you have not. I brought the "Memoirs of an Arabian Princess" with me too, and I did not know that it had been outlawed in Zanzibar, and that ban had never been lifted even after their revolution. I sat on the roof of the hotel and sat in the ruins of the women's quarters of the palace and read bits from the book picturing it all in happening before my eyes in a weird time warp.
No one would have robbed me in Zanzibar, that was the conundrum that I could reconcile with the customs official in Mombassa. It was unheard of on that island, at that time, when Zanzibar was a small place with barely a person that did not know everyone in the only populated town. There were no secrets, and I doubt I've ever felt as safe anywhere else in the world. Some cannot imagine a place where there are no robberies, and some people imagine a robbery taking place in their country. Of course, anyone that can imagine this must be guilty to have such suspicions of others. It was a completely different culture, and in its own way, it was more naive than I was.
posted by Emmunah at 6:31 AM
10 Comments:
Sounds like a good trip, one I'd like to have made--even with the suspicious lady at the gate.
nice story.. but what an odd place to visit, all from a lesson back in primary school. Though u know what there are alot of omanis that are originally from zanzibar and they are the nicest ppl around. Do u remmeber any swahili?
JAMBO!!! That's it, all I know. There was a person on the Island that spoke enough english to interpret. The hotel sent someone running for him when I arrived. The Sultans of Oman and Muscat settled Zanzibar and had about 8 Sultanates there until the African Party won the election in the 1960's and threw them out. The place was in pretty bad shape in the 1980's but I later found out the Agha Khan invested some money to rebuild some of the most famous buildings. Now...it appears that some OBL people are hiding out in the coconut palm forests.
how nice !
I salute your brave dessecions.
cleary you are brave and "Sarbarz"
sarbarz is a kurdish word , a famous kurdish poem says
"I prefer fly like an egale high and freely for one day than living 300 years in low-lying dirth as raven do.
( say,did you get my e-mail ?)
At the risk of dating myself, I recall a youthful David Frost's thoughts on "That Was the Week That Was" about the name for the soon-to-be merged (1964) entity of Tanganyika and Zanzibar: "Zanzanyika"..."Tangabar"...or just plain "Clyde"?!
JaySoundsOff.blogspot.com
LOL, yeah, must have been watching David Frost in my crib one day:) Tanganika was probably on the map in school. Zanzibar's president is the Vice President of Tanzania. I heard recently that Tanzania has become terrible, and all the more so in Zanzibar. There was an expression "love your enemy" that was recently outlawed as too political! Sick huh? It wasn't always like that.
Thanks Medya...I lived my younger years like that. Now my wings are clipped in a way. Will write soon, I'm trying to get more information.
Luv ya!
Nice post. Check out my site if you can. auto loan refinance
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dear administrator:
Some of our comments above may include links that are no longer valid or that do not have a nofollow value. They might very well lead you today to a third party. Therefore,
I ask you, if you would be so kind, to please delete or disregard those
comments.
Many thanks and best wishes,
Iza, Roberto Iza
Muy Señores Míos:
Algunos de nuestros comentarios incluyen vínculos rotos que bien pudieran llevar hoy a una tercera persona. Por tanto, le rogamos, por favor, que los deseche o desestime.
Gracias y recuerdos
Iza, Roberto Iza
Post a Comment
<< Home