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. 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. But we love it. At the enthusiastic urging of our guidebook, we wend our way through the labyrinthine streets to find Mr. Mitu, Stone Town's celebrated tour guide. Mr. Mitu is something of a local legend, a portly, gray-haired man who pats his stomach as he fires off encyclopedic knowledge of Zanzibar's history.