Vagabond

by Mogoatlhe, Lerato

  Mozambican uniforms are notorious for demanding bribes. The only time this happens to me is at the Namoto office. They don’t even examine our passports and travel documents. A uniform walks people to an office; no doubt to demand more money than what they put on the table. When my turn comes, I show them my stories and threaten to complain to their Minister of Tourism through an open letter. They believe me, and I become a legend for being the only person who doesn’t pay to leave the country.

  We get back on the road, to the banks of Ruvuma River and wait for the boat with scores of people and goods that include storage boxes and a mini fridge. The boat drops us off at a sand bank where the Tanzanian leg of the trip starts. Today’s sunset casts a purple hue over a horizon dotted with acacia trees; hippo and crocodile snouts break the surface of the water. The effects of last night’s tequila shots are out of my body, and I remember that I didn’t withdraw money for the trip. Rami pays for my boat rides and the dala dala to the Kilambo border post. The office is closed and the only uniforms on duty are the security guards at the boom gate. One of them offers to call the man who runs the immigration office so we don’t spend the night at Kilambo.

  The uniform arrives in a crisp yellow shirt and brown pants with a freshly ironed pleat. He’s polite and efficient and never asks anyone for a bribe. I keep moving to the back of the line until I’m the last person left in the office. A Tanzanian visa is US$50. Rami looks uncomfortable when I ask for a loan I will repay when we get to an ATM.

  ‘Kaka, hakuna pesa,’ I say in broken Swahili, calling him brother in the hopes that this and using his mother tongue will make him more open to my suggestion. I want to leave my passport and continue to the nearest ATM in Mtwara. ‘I will return in the morning to pay for my visa, tafadhali,’ I explain, using the Swahili word for please. He says I have to retrace my steps by more than one hundred kilometres to Mocimboa da Praia. It’s too late to find transport to Mozambique, and in any case, there’s no way I’m going back. We run around in circles until he starts walking to the door.

  ‘I guess you’re sleeping here, then,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t have money for a hotel,’ I retort. ‘Maybe I can leave my passport and laptop?’ I try again.

  ‘That’s not how it works,’ he says. He pages through my passport and laughs that I have many visa stamps yet lack the common sense to never arrive at border crossings without cash. ‘Fine,’ I say, suddenly nonchalant about my predicament. ‘I guess I’m sleeping at your house tonight, but tell me something, what are you going to say to your wife when you show up with this?’ I unwrap my kanga to show the little black dress that shows my thighs and cleavage.

  ‘You don’t have to leave your laptop here but the passport is staying. Make sure you are back here by 10am,’ he says.

  ‘Asante sana. Thank you,’ I say, my voice sweet as honey again.

  In Mtwara, Rami and I hop from bank to bank looking for an ATM that works. The cheapest hotel he finds is a run-down place owned by a Senegalese man. I backtrack to Kilambo in the morning and then back to Mtwara to catch the bus to Dar es Salaam.

  June 2010

  The loud, crowded Ubongo bus terminal in Dar es Salaam packs hundreds of buses that cough out plumes of black smoke into its small space. A tout snatches my bags and trots to the exit without waiting for me or finding out where I want to go. He minds my bags while I look for a dala dala to Posta; the landmark I use to get to the Young Women’s Christian Association.

  Unlike the YWCA in Accra, and the permanent scar it leaves in my memory, this house of God doesn’t have suffocating rules. They allow male and female borders but no couples. The nuns who run it don’t judge our revealing clothes or police our movements. The walls between the rooms are made with boards, making me privy to my neighbour’s phone conversation about how gratifying it is to ‘spread joy in Africa’, he says with a heavy American twang.

  ‘The project didn’t work but, you know, we went there with sweets and stuff, and seeing those poor African kids smiling because we gave them lollipops made a difference, like wow, dude.’

  I remind myself to keep staying away from Westerners and their condescending attitudes.

  Wandering around the city centre, I see people jumping in and out of overcrowded dala dalas with windscreens proclaiming Allah’s greatness and blessings. Most women wear burkas and school girls sweep the ground with their skirts. Vendors sell boiled eggs from plastic buckets, peanuts and sweets from boxes and water from wheeled cooler boxes. Men and boys walk around selling strong black coffee from metal kettles that are fitted with round zinc contraptions filled with hot coals. The coffee is served in a small oval ceramic cup.

  There’s wonder in walking around Dar. Markets explode with colour from fruit and cloth, the sound of car horns mingles with the Swahili that rolls off tongues like a melody, and streets are lined with people selling papaya, pineapples, mangoes, black-skinned avocados and coffee, always. No one gawks at me and the touts I meet at tourist landmarks don’t make me repeat myself when I tell them I’m not interested in what they’re selling or in the mood to party with them in the evening. One of the many things I love about travelling alone is that I can withdraw and stay in my head for as long as I want to. I’m not in a talkative mood in Dar.

  At the forex bureau I go to to change the Zambian kwachas and meticals to Tanzanian shillings, the only people in the multiracial room who don’t speak Swahili are myself and a Malawian man. I’m not used to people who aren’t black speaking local languages as a rule instead of an exception. In this regard, Dar es Salaam thrills me.

  Waiting in line at an ATM, we’re joined by a Maasai man wrapped in a shuka; a dagger dangles from the leather pouch on his waist. More than turning what used to be blots on the map into places I know with all my senses, my travels are also an affirmation of my blackness. They give me the opportunity to experience being black and African without disguising or denying myself to fit in. If this were South Africa, the Masaai man would have to wait until Heritage Day in September to dress like this in public, or be on his way to a traditional event.

  Kigamboni Ferry Terminal comes with a reputation for pick-pocketers and fast-talking touts who steal money by claiming to be ticketing agents. My cabby drives slowly into the parking lot and rolls up the window to block out touts who are already running next to us.

  ‘Remember to be careful,’ he says when he leaves me at the ticket office. A man I have not seen until now grunts at me and puts my bag on his shoulder, making me shove my way through the large crowd waiting to walk into the ferry. When he finally talks to me, it’s to say pesa – money – with his palm turned upwards. He leaves me in the dim, sweltering lounge with red seats. It smells like samosas and popcorn and sounds like a crèche from the kids playing in the aisles.

  I walk to the deck to watch Dar fading into specks of low-rise buildings. Men lean on the rails to smoke. I jump around people sitting on the floor to find my place among them. One of the corners is packed with boxes of live chicks. I wedge myself next to a mother and her two kids. They make room for me on their plastic mat. Like every woman who is not a tourist, she is dressed in a burka. Hers is plain; others have sequinned collars. The scarves they use to cover their faces have been removed. Their daughters are also dressed religiously.

  All faces around me offer a history of Zanzibar at a glance, their African and mixed heritage that comes from Persians and the Portuguese conquerors who stopped over to trade ivory, slaves and spices, and stuck around to rule the Indian Ocean coast from northern Mozambique to Somalia.

  Stonetown comes into view with white clouds tumbling over two church towers and the round minaret of a mosque. Dhows carrying sacks of goods sail past yachts. Boats that are not in use have been left in the water sans sails. There are cargo ships, and a dock packed with office-sized containers.

  The women gather their bags and children, and fix their burkas.

  Meet Africa’s most relentless touts – the papasi. It’s th
e Swahili word for ticks. Like the pests, they hang on to me from when I walk out of the port, rushing over to offer organising taxis, accommodation, sunset cruises and a trip to Prison Island. Taxi drivers join the swarm around me. I walk over to an old man leaning against his bicycle. He charges me 100 shillings to carry my bags to the hotel.

  I walk behind him as he pushes my bags through alleys with weird angles that make walking around them feel like being in a maze. I catch glimpses of women in long burkas that sweep the ground behind them, school boys in white tunics and skull caps, and thin cats scavenging for food.

  Old mamas flatten balls of dough into chapatis they fry on iron-cast pans. Curio shops hang Maasai necklaces and Tingatinga paintings of stick people and sunsets on their doors. Kiosks sell rice and beans from buckets left on stoeps. A chorus of ‘karibu sana’ follows me.

  Stonetown still evokes its grand old days with wide mahogany and teak doors decorated with engraved patterns and brass spikes. After checking into Pearl Guest House and using a shared shower, I hit the streets to look for food and an internet café, and get lost in its maze until I end up at the beach.

  It’s almost sunset, and the town’s people are making their way to Forodhani Gardens. The setting sun is dark orange and sits low on the horizon. The sea and buildings behind us radiate with its colour. Families, couples and groups of friends walk around the gardens; some stop to get a drink or ice cream at the kiosks or to watch the daily sunset show put on by boys who perform acrobatics to jump into the ocean; the boys in Zanzibar are fish in water.

  Further down, people set up tables for the daily food market. I walk over to a man with a juicer. It’s a coral blue steel contraption with two rollers he presses by spinning the attached wheel. He presses the sugar cane until all its cloudy juice flows through a silver furrow to a red bucket with a block of ice. He pours it into a jug, adds fresh lime juice and some ginger. My drink in hand, I roam around the tables considering my meal options. There’s king fish and lobster. Juicy beef kebabs are piled next to tandoori chicken pieces that are pink from the spice used to cook them. The fat mussels entice me as much as the prawns, tuna steaks and octopus. Mountains of sweet potatoes and stumpy chips compete for a place on my plate with stacks of chapati and fluffy coconut bread with sesame seeds.

  I walk to a table that only deals in the local speciality: The Zanzibar pizza. The vendor flattens a ball of dough into a paper-thin base. His deft hands get another ball he layers into the base. He spoons mince meat that’s mixed with chopped onions and green peppers on the base and adds a spoonful of soft, processed cheese before cracking an egg into the mixture. He adds a dab of mayonnaise before mixing the fillings and folding the base into a square. He tops it with another layer of dough and cooks it until it’s brown. It’s also served as dessert with Nutella and bananas.

  I walk back to the tables with the seafood, making small talk with the vendors in Afrikaans, for a plate of coconut bread, chips, shark kebabs and king fish. I sit with other diners on smooth, concrete benches and think about how lucky I am that I get to have moments like these, when I can eat like the Motsepes in South Africa on a shoestring budget. I really pity black life in South Africa. We think we are better than the rest of the continent, yet our life lacks flavour and creativity. The only thing we do with sugar cane is eat it, and until your money moves you from working to middle class, the only fish on your plate is hake, canned pilchards, canned tuna, and river fish if you’re lucky.

  I get lost again on my way back to the hotel. The alleys lead to dead ends or into homes where I walk in on families getting on with their evening rituals. I follow one of my favourite smells, that of bread that’s still baking in the oven, until I end up in Darajani Street. It’s almost 11pm, and the few tables that are still serving chapati and tea are being packed up. The vendor offers to walk me to my hotel, which turns out to be nearby. I order sweet, milky spice tea – masala chai – and make conversation in my growing Swahili vocabulary; the music changes from Bongo Flava to a Lucky Dube compilation when I mention my nationality.

  I wake up to the sound of the muezzin calling the town’s mostly Muslim population to Fajr. I open the wooden window to look at the square; men dressed in white, cream and dark grey tunics walk slowly on their way to the mosque. I go back to bed. My sleep ends when I hear the faint sounds of someone beating on a piece of metal. Back to the window I go, and discover that the sound comes from boys who jiggle coins while selling loose cigarettes and peanuts. Shops are opening for business, men pull boxes of water and other goods on makeshift wheelbarrows. An old man sits on a stoep at the square with a flask and small porcelain cups. Kahawa, as coffee is called in Swahili, is the island’s favourite drink.

  This is my second trip to Zanzibar. The first is a weekend media trip by Metro FM as part of their travels to broadcast some shows from around Africa. I spend the weekend hungry and frustrated by the oh-so-slow pace of life. Things only get done eventually here. Walk at a quick pace and people urge you to walk ‘pole pole’, or ‘slowly slowly’. Ask when things will be done and the Zanzibari will tell you Inshallah. If you want things to happen right now, like I do, you’ll hear, ‘haraka haraka haina baraka’, which loosely translates into doing things in haste will make you miss your blessings. I’m back to appease the guilt: I cannot accept that I hate one of the most beautiful places I have been to.

  I start my day by retracing the steps I took in 2006. From the hotel, I turn right into a passage so narrow that our bodies touch when we walk past each other. The shops sell perfume, soccer shirts, burkas and kofia. Old men sit behind small tables fixing watches or drinking coffee. Darajani market is a long white building and spills over into the streets around it as well. It’s teeming with tables selling fresh produce, packets of spices, soaps and oils made with turmeric, rose water, ylang-ylang, aloe, clove, coconut and lemon grass. The aroma of spices like nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon mixes with the smell of incense. The sound of people haggling over prices is muffled by clucking chickens and hooters.

  Vendors display different types of rice, beans and lentils from baskets, their names written on cardboard in Swahili. The produce section displays pyramids of shiny red tomatoes, red onions, potatoes and brinjals, a selection of apples, pineapples, papaya, green-skinned oranges and mangoes. The dark avocados are bigger than my hands, granadillas have yellow skin and bananas come in three sizes: Sweet ones that look like giant thumbs on their stalks, long and thick ones that are green or yellow, and the ones with red skins that are said to do the same job as viagra.

  There are a lot of things I’ve never seen before, like soursop, jackfruit, dried octopus and fresh ones that end up in a coconut curry served on basmati or jasmine rice, and on street corners sold in deep-fried bite-sized pieces called bitings. The fish market is in a long room with wet floors covered with scales, splashes of blood and bits of fish gut. Fish mongers slap their catch against the ceramic or concrete work stations. Some cut whole fish into pieces. Cats hover around, as usual. Large groups of men gather around the newspaper stands to read front-page news. Most of the newspapers are in Swahili.

  There are tables with dates packed into airtight plastic bags or see-through containers. Men who sell coconuts sit on the floor, hacking and shaving them with machetes; they serve these with a straw. I drink my coconut water next to a vendor and give the fruit to him when I’m done so he can scrape the flesh for me. There are shops and vendors selling kitenge and kangas, the colourful pieces of cloth that are bought for their patterns and the messages written on their hemline. I buy several, including a yellow one with Barack Obama’s face on it and the words ‘Hongera Barack Obama’; congratulations Barack Obama. I cool down with homemade tamarind juice from a man who sells it by the glass from a bucket near a dala dala station.

  The market is the only part of my morning that works out. The rest of my plans fall apart when I get lost along the way to the Slave Market. I give up on asking for directions and follow different groups of t
ourists to eavesdrop on walking tours that show them the town’s ‘famous historical doors’ that date back from the time of sultans. Some of them are as old as Stonetown. The group I join at St Joseph’s Cathedral speaks Italian. I wander off, dodging papasi trying to sell me tours, then packets of spices when I say no to their trips. I stumble into a square called Jaws Corner. The walls of the buildings are painted with a shark or plastered with posters of politicians campaigning for votes in upcoming elections. There’s a wall with a TV stand. Groups of men sit on the stoeps or lean against their bicycles drinking coffee and ginger tea, or playing bao, a traditional game that involves moving seeds around eight holes. Other than the old woman who sells the tea, I’m the only woman, and this bothers some men.

  The old man I buy my coffee from scolds them, and tells me to sit next to him. They’re angry that I’m invading their space; even worse, I’m dressed to reveal my legs and thighs in a short dress. Women here still cover themselves from head to toe in public.

  I walk back to Darajani street to get a dala dala to Nungwi, where the island’s strict dress code is reinforced by a hand-painted board of a woman in a bikini. A red cross covers her body.

  Zanzibar lives up to every cliché of a paradise island, with soft beach sand and sea water that comes in various shades of turquoise. The women’s kangas flutter in the warm breeze. On the way back to town, we pick up an old man lying on a stretcher made with a bamboo mat pinned to bamboo poles. His body twists with pain, his pink lips frothing with saliva whenever he howls, which happens every time we hit a speed bump.