What happened in Zanzibar?

Zanzibar at last: Part three

Catch up with Zanzibar at last: Part one here

And read part two: Foray into the Zanzibar night here

And then catch up with the final part about what exactly went down in Unguja, from the photos I managed to salvage from the trip, in the slideshow below. Enjoy! (Not visible on blogger for mobile)

Foray into the Zanzibar night

Zanzibar at last: Part 2

Read part one here

The best time to experience Zanzibar, at least during Ramadhan, is in the evening. The days may be dull, humid and dreary, but the island comes alive at night, more so at Forodhani. I discovered this three hours after setting foot on the island; by then I had parted ways with my German companions, found my host, Ahmed and cruised around the island in his car; met Muumin, a local tour guide who would be showing me around during my stay, gone to my room, freshened up and napped and was now ready to get a proper taste of the island.

 My initial impression on arrival was that, Unguja looked nothing close to what I had dreamt. I had always imagined that it looked somewhat like Lamu, with narrow sandy streets and buildings that took one back in time to the days of the sultans. What I saw instead were streets that could have been anywhere – the exotic feel I had expected was going to be a mirage, but I could live with that. What I did like about it was the hospitality and friendly brotherliness of everyone I met - it all made me feel at home. I also liked that my room had a balcony and window overlooking a neglected building – not much of a view, but the few palm trees towering over it and the houses surrounding it built in the traditional coastal design gave me a sense of being on an island.

  Muumin came to get me at 7pm after iftar (breaking the fast). We would be walking to Forodhani Gardens, the nightly centre of attraction, through the city centre and the labyrinth of narrow roads through Stone Town and into the food market at Forodhani. Earlier, that evening as we docked at the harbour, there had not been much activity going on at the gardens, but after sunset, the area came alive with a bustle of activity from food vendors, tourists and locals swarming the gardens to get a piece of the action. The warm orange light from the gas lanterns and sizzling sounds off the grills added to the lively atmosphere that interspersed beautifully with a breeze from the sea. Muumin and I shuffled around the stalls, he making small talk with the food vendors, while I sampled what I would have for dinner. I settled on a Zanzibar pizza, freshly-squeezed sugarcane juice and a bunch of deliciously red Shokishoki –an indigenous fruit from the lychee family, with a tasty white pulp, for dessert.

 I watched as the vendor rolled out the dough, put it on the grill and made the pocket-size pizza. Then I sat on the edge of the sea wall overlooking the waterfront and savoured my meal of choice. This sure had to be a people-watcher's paradise, I thought, as I took in the splishing and splashing of the young men and boys diving and swimming in the cool waters below. Muumin explained that in keeping with abstaining from worldly pleasures during the holy month of Ramadhan, people could only take a dip at night. He suggested that I also cool off in the sea and made as if to give me a mock push over the edge and into the waters below, as I squealed in frightened laughter. 

After dinner, and as we made our way through Stone Town again Muumin regaled me with tales of Zanzibar and why the young men were fed up and wanted independence from Tanganyika. He left me after making sure that I was safely inside my room, and tired I curled right into bed and drifted to sleep. Muumin would be back in the morning to take me sight-seeing around the main Island.

Part 3 coming soon.

 

Zanzibar at last: Part one

I hadn't planned to go to Zanzibar last year. I knew it was one of the places I wanted to check off my bucket list in the shortest time possible, but I had thought that would happen months later. However, life is spontaneous and when the idea sneaked into my mind I jumped on and sailed with it.

I went to Zanzibar, at the worst time - during Ramadhan. At that time everything is closed down in the predominantly Muslim island as most prefer to show their piety by keeping life as simple and as entertainment-free as they can. It is all about holiness and fasting.

I was in Dar all this time trying to pick out the best day to travel, and then suddenly my host's friend - a German volunteer worker in Tanzania - came for dinner with her family and they quipped that they were headed to Unguja (Zanzibar's main island) the next day. My host subtly tugged at my knee and whispered that I should tag along with them as it would be more fun than traveling alone, and I thought, why not? The Germans equally welcomed the idea and we agreed to meet at their hotel in the morning, and leave for the harbour together. My host had warned me against taking any other ferry save for MV Kilimanjaro, as it was the most modern, and with fresh memory of a ferry that had capsized just a few weeks before, I was wary to heed her advice to the letter to avoid a similar fate. However, that was easier said than done because as soon as we got to the harbour, we were ambushed by touts, who tugged at our luggage at every side and yelled that they would help us buy ferry tickets. Since Niki - the volunteer, had been to Zanzibar before and was technically a Dar resident, she told me she could handle it and went ahead to talk to a man whom she claimed to have consulted during her previous trips. The man insisted that his was the last ferry to Zanzibar that day and booked VIP tickets for us at a cost of Tsh27000. We made our way to the waiting area, with a view of the ocean and I was shocked to see an MV Kilimanjaro docked at the harbour; I realised we had been duped.

Our waiting area was a basic, unlit and overcrowded, warehouse with concrete benches and non-nondescript walls; on the opposite side the Kilimanjaro waiting area was well lit, with painted walls, nice lounge seats and uniformed attendants. I cursed under my breath, knowing that I had paid much more to travel in a ram-shackled ferry that could come apart and sink with my dreams of Zanzibar any minute. I swallowed hard as I boarded the creaky and rusted ferry and though we had paid for VIP seats, there was no such thing. We went atop the ferry and were welcomed by hawkers selling all sorts of wares. I bought cashew nuts and bottled water. There was no sinking back into the wooden benches so I plopped my bag and butt on the wood, before shuffling to the edge of the vessel to stare into the sea.  For the next three hours I drifted between drowsiness, staring, chit-chat with my German companions and a conversation with a prying stranger; but before I could complain of boredom, we docked at the island.

It was four O'clock and the last ferries back to Dar were just about to depart. I took a pic of my German friends against the background of the ferry and bid them goodbye as they headed to their hotel in the Old Town; and I called my host and waited for him to pick me up just outside the harbour. Despite all my earlier disappointments, I was happy to be at Zanzibar at last.

Zanzibar at last:Part two

Why do we hate non-voters?

"One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors" - Plato

After the riddle that was the 2007 general election one of my friends tore her voter's card and vowed never to vote again because she had lost faith in the system. She was angry that someone had meddled with the results and that her vote hadn't counted. We will only ever know the truth about that election if someone writes a tell-all book about it; but what is sure is that even if she had kept her voter's card it would still be a piece of memorabilia because the new BVR system has rendered the previous cards useless. I checked with her again, but nothing has changed. She will not vote next year (2013). Another friend who is at the forefront of telling others that they must register to vote will not be voting himself. I asked why and he mumbled something incoherent. He just does not think his vote will make a difference. I'm not sure whether the non-voters are a majority or a minority, but I believe, in the words of Aristotle, that it is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a different view without (necessarily) accepting it. But first let me deal with the self-righteous voters.

The problem with voters is that they are looking for a messiah. That is not a problem per se because everyone wants to be saved from all manner of societal ills: traffic jam, water rationing, badly-lit neighbourhoods, Al Shabaab, unemployment ... name it!

The problem is that voters claim they want someone who can solve their problems preferably at a national level, yet majority rarely vote for the messiah they have been wailing for. Instead voters are irrational beings who are swayed to vote for the very 'leaders' they loathe for reasons that even they are not sometimes clear about: euphoria, tribe, to make sure the other guy doesn't get to power, just because, nothing concrete.

Our style of democracy is based on the polls so if we don't vote, we get no representation. Luckily we have never had to deal with a situation where none of the registered voters turned up to vote, and if it ever happens we'll cross that bridge when we get there. The problem is that voters choose their preferred leader - who as we said is not the messiah they would have hoped for - and when he disappoints them as he is bound to, they seethe with anger.

Please note that the road to State House is paved with broken promises, even from the most well-meaning politician, if there ever was one. Politicians promise things they have no idea how to implement just to worm their way into your heart and win your vote at the ballot. But despite the vivid history of broken promises, voters continue to have unreasonably high expectations that can only be met by the gods and continue to be surprised when lying politicians move on like smooth operators who lured a virgin to the bedroom with promises of marriage only to leave her licking her wounds after the act. This time round, like in any other election season voters are angry and itching for change. As such they are taking out their wrath on those who have shown little interest in voting. My take is that if anyone has a right to vote, then he also has the freedom not to exercise that right, and I'd rather that you did not vote unless you are going to elect a proper leader.

Of course one can only vote if he is a registered voter, hence the constant bombardment that we all register as voters so long as we are eligible. The past thirty days have been registration season and with only a day left and slightly over half of the expected 18 million voters already registered, calls to register are getting even more frantic. In fact the yet-to-be-registered are being insulted and bullied to register at every opportunity. There have been reports of fishermen being denied the right to fish and people being denied all sorts of things if they can't prove that they have registered as voters. Even the president has called anyone who has not as yet registered "useless." Never mind that registering does not translate into actual voting. In 2007 of the 18, 126, 573 eligible voters, 14, 296, 180 registered as voters but only 9, 877, 028 voted (69 per cent voter turnout and the highest in recent years).

 There are many reasons that a registered voter would miss casting his ballot including death, illness, lack of access, insecurity, apathy and whatever other reason. Now I'm sure if if it was up to some voters they would impose the death penalty on anybody who refused to register as a voter or refused to cast their ballot for flimsy reasons such as: I'm just not interested. In some countries, like Australia there is a law to compel all eligible adults to vote and a modest penalty for not voting, but thankfully in Kenya there is no such law. It is a free country and you vote or abstain from voting by choice.

The pro-voters have cited all sorts of reasons why people should register as voters and go as far as voting when the time comes. Top among them are the slogans: Your vote is your voice, your vote is your future, if you don't vote you have no say, and you have no right to complain. In my view the voters are mistaken in ways I will explain at the end of these ramblings about voting. My belief is that since there will always be people who strongly believe in voting, the voters should leave the apathetic non-voters alone and focus their energies on their fellow voters. Trying to get a hard-line non-voter to vote is like milking a rock - it just won't happen; and if we don't have the leaders we deserve, it is not the fault of the non-voter, the voters have themselves to blame for electing bad leaders.

What matters is not the people who don't vote but rather the calibre of those who actually do (the non-voters would only matter if they had already declared their support for a certain good candidate and their numbers were significant enough to tilt the vote, but that is rarely the case). Ask a few people why they are voting for the person they have settled on ... Ask yourself why you are voting for your person. Maybe it is because you'd rather die than be ruled by someone from some other tribe ... or maybe you are not sure. Voters hardly every sit down to weigh all the candidates based on their track record and ability to deliver the things that would solve the problems they've been crying about.

Elections are like job interviews and should be treated as such. Anyone who presents themselves for the job of president, governor, MP, MCA, senator, Women Rep and whatever else, must be taken through a rigorous assessment and only be voted in if they are the right (wo)man for the job. We can't continue employing (electing) the wrong people then start complaining soon after that these people fall short of our expectations. Sometimes I have seen re-advertisement of vacancies because the people who applied for the job couldn't even make it past stage one. We don't need new thieves, we need people who can actually make a difference, if at all.

Maybe your right to complain for voting in bad leaders is tied to the fact that you actually voted them in while the non-voters stood aloof. Love is blind. I don't fault the voters for their belief, and they should keep trying to convince others to vote, but after the window closes, what they should do is to sit down and figure out why they are voting, and whether their preferred candidate is the messiah they have been searching for. Weigh all the candidates just like in a job interview and once you choose your best candidate, you can now try to persuade others to vote for that one also. I'd rather you abstain from voting if at all you are only going to add a vote to the same old goons.

Now to the non-voters Plato had a mouthful to say about participation in government: The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men; and the heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.  One more thing, if you don't register as a voter then you will have shut out the possibility of having the choice to vote if you change your mind. If you choose to vote, well and good, and if you don't that's your choice too and no one should fault you for it.

Ok now let's deal with these popular pro-voting slogans:

1. Your vote counts:

See this link for some thoughts on this: http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/articles/2000/07/is_voting_rational.html

2. Your vote is your voice also said as: If you don't vote you have no right to complain:

True. Your vote is your voice in that it sends a message about who you have chosen to lead you, but that doesn't mean that after you vote you shut up and wait till the next elections to regain your voice. However, what I find wrong with this is that it implies that it is not only those who didn't vote who lose their voice, but also those who voted for the loser. Not voting is a say in itself, that you don't believe in any of the candidates who offered themselves up for election. Whether you vote or not, the policies of those in power will have a bearing on you life, and anything that affects your life, you have a right to talk about, whether you voted or not. If voters choose a person with a history of corruption and other vices, who then goes on to screw things up as usual, are people supposed to shut up as they get screwed over by incompetent public officials just because they didn't cast their votes?


3. Your vote is your future:

This implies that if you vote you get a brighter future, but that is only as accurate as the quality of leaders you elect. If you vote for goons then that is the future you will have, and you can't blame non-voters for that.

4. If you don't vote you're helping to elect the wrong guy.

Wrong. Those who vote are the ones who elect the wrong people. It is better for one to abstain from voting than to pick the wrong people out of a sense of duty that he has to vote.


Some additional readings:

Is voting rational?

http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/articles/2000/07/is_voting_rational.html

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/doug-casey-voting-redux

The psychology of voting.

http://comm.stanford.edu/faculty/krosnick/docs/2008/2008%20Turnout%20Lit%20Review.pdf

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200911/why-do-people-vote-i

http://source.southuniversity.edu/the-psychology-behind-voting-behavior-106983.aspx

On becoming thirty before my time

On my birthday I really identified with this song - Life by Muthoni DQ - because in it she sings that life is what you make it.

                           

Life is plagued by controversies, some of which have no chance of being solved in this lifetime. Take the point at which life begins, for instance. Some believe that life begins way before conception, while others believe it begins anywhere between conception and childbirth depending on when they choose to terminate it. As if that were not confounding enough, another brigade insists that life begins after 40, making the problem even harder to solve.

It may not be clear when exactly life begins, but it is clear that age eventually catches up with you. Just the other day I was an impressionable teenager, with little regard for age,  glossing over women's magazines in which the writers went on and on about turning thirty. The big "three oh" - as they liked to call it - was said to be the dreaded age, when a woman began to kiss youth goodbye and to look back on the past with regret at having achieved nothing. No husband, no baby, biological clock ticking and a myriad of other worries about the things that one should have checked off the list by then. Even if the newly-turned-thirty-year-old had an enviable position at one of those blue chip companies, she still had reason to panic if at all she hadn't collected those things that society considers more important.

My mother's friend once mentioned, in passing, how turning thirty is a magical moment in a woman's life because by then, one has formed an identity and can move forward to the next phase of life without hangups.That made me flash back to the day I turned 26. For the longest time I had been fighting off people who insisted on labeling me young. On one hand the remnant influences from the women's magazines had me thinking that I needed to follow a fixed timeline and achieve certain milestones to avoid being one of those miserable women who'd just turned thirty and realised that they had run out of time. On the other hand, every time I expressed my fears that I would usher in thirty with as many cats and no man or baby to speak of, an older person would ask me how old I was and when I said 20-something, they laughed it off and told me not to worry: that I was still young. Towards the end of my 25th year of living, it dawned on me that I really was young. Then I turned 26 and suddenly felt old and unaccomplished. My heart raced as I panicked about not having enough time to do all the things I should do before I hit the third decade of life. I was turning into the miserable 30-year-old at only 26. But that phase did not last long, and I soon moved into the comfortable mid to late twenties. No pressure.

I am a few paces away from thirty, and this year I have had snippets of revelation of what awaits me at the golden age. I am no longer afraid. I am not looking forward to it (who wants to grow old?) but I know I'll feel at peace when I get there (God willing). But before then, I like the things I have seen about turning thirty.

And here they are:

Thirty is beautiful...

• You are no longer trying to keep up with the Joneses. You realise that your path is different from everyone else's. You run your race knowing that you are not competing with anyone nor can you accurately be compared with anyone because your circumstances are different. This results in a quiet, calm confidence that makes your journey easier.

• By 30 your search for an identity is over. You are no longer that confused woman who is all over the place. Instead you have a self-assurance that comes from knowing your strengths and weaknesses. 

• You do what you want without seeking anyone's approval. You couldn't care less what busybodies think about you because you are self-confident and you are not trying to please anybody.

• At thirty, you refuse to take things personally. When people do things it's about them. Some people are just weird and you won't spend your time boiling over on their account.

• You realise that not everyone can do the things you do so effortlessly and you try to develop some patience.

• You know there is no space for excuses in this life, no place for blame games. At thirty you take full responsibility - if something was to be done, you do it and if you don't, you take responsibility without trying to pass the buck.

• The best thing about being thirty is the freedom to say no to anybody without regrets, and to laugh at the weak attempts of people who want to use emotional blackmail to make you change your mind.

This quote by Maya Angelou summarises my pre-thirtieth birthday thought:

"Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. Not superficial costs—anybody can have that—I mean in truth."