Stone Town, Zanzibar

The last stretch of the program will encompass a week in Stone Town, the “soul” of Zanzibar Town which is the capital of the semi-autonomous (from Tanzania) island off the coast of Tanzania. Stone Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and rightly so. It is an amazing mix of Arab, Swahili, and Indian cultures which is evidenced in the architecture as well as the inhabitants of the city. The call for prayer sounds five times daily from a mosque that neighbours an incredible Indian restaurant while merchants holler at you in Swahili from their shops. I absolutely adore Stone Town. It actually has a very European feel with thin winding alleyways and cobblestone streets.

I wish you could smell the smells of this market!

The inimitable Tim Johns shows our class around the market on a field trip

Our time in Stone Town has been extremely busy. Besides lectures we went on a few field trips, most notably to a spice plantation not far from Stone Town. The Spice tour was fantastic, we got to see how cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, nutmeg, turmeric, and many other spices and fruits are harvested and processed for sale. It was a very interactive tour, we had an excellent guide who would let us taste, touch, and smell everything we saw. My notes from the day are excellent- I rubbed cinnamon bark on the page when we saw our first cinnamon tree and even weeks later it still smells, and rubbed a cut turmeric root all over the page, dying it yellow after our guide let us dig up a root. Another great field trip was a walk through one of Stone Town’s markets. I love how lively the visit was; people are yelling at you, there’s music, everyone bumps into everyone indiscriminately. There’s fresh fruits and vegetables like okra, tomatoes, cabbage, and pears, as well as less recognizable traditional African varieties. There are spices and spice products, dried fish and octopus, and woven baskets and mats.

We are also very busy wrapping up our classes with final essays and exams, finishing final research projects and presenting them and also getting ready to separate from one another. For a mental break, the program took us out on boats to an island 45 minutes off the coast of Stone Town to snorkel for half the day. The water is crystal clear turquoise blue and extremely warm and it was so nice to spend time in the boats and in the water before heading back for more work.

Stone Town, being quite the tourist hub has some great restaurants. I’ve eaten very well this week. Probably the most memorable meal for me was one that I ate at Mercury’s- named after Freddie Mercury (did you know he was born in Zanzibar?) It was a plate of fish tacos: perfectly spiced fish in a perfect warm and crispy tortilla served with mango salsa with the perfect amount of green chilies and lovely guacamole.