Through a window, a glimpse of children hunched over school books. Garden, alley, alley. We push back into the streets, lost in the clamor and squalor of noon. Every guidebook warns that Stone Town is a living city. The afternoon streets are raunchy with the smell of people sweating and fish wilting.
Raw chemicals rise in great clouds from the underbellies of minibuses.
When the heat reaches its pitch, everything seems to be rotting or sagging or falling apart. We pass a tourist who is gazing around in horror. Catching our eyes, she grimaces. But we love it. It's a mineral landscape overrun by frazzled animal and sweet, sticky vegetable.