Swahili Coast and Spice Island
By: Tyler A. Donohue
Tags: East Africa, Memoir, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Travel Writing

Landing in Stone Town, I meandered down a winding alleyway toward the hostel. After the typically long wait at the desk, I finally got to crawl into my bunkbed. I was dripping in sweat and desperately tired.

An hour later, I woke up groggy and rubbed my foggy eyes. I stumbled down the street to find coffee. I sat in the hot afternoon and sipped thick Arabic coffee on a street corner with a group of old men.

Seriously caffeinated, I returned to the hostel and got ready to go out. I met up with a group of other volunteers that I didn’t really know and immediately felt at home.

The car was filled with raucous laughter as we sped towards the Northside of the island. We spent the evening drinking strong cocktails and eating subpar pizza on the beach.

The sound of loud afro-beats emanated from the dance floor inside. After dinner, perfectly loosened from liquor, we made our way to the dance floor. In the center of the sandy floor, we dropped our bags and spent hours dancing under the dark sky.

Hours into the night, I had sweat dripping down my body — I felt free. We counted down at midnight and pulled each other into a sticky embrace. How strange is it that I am living in the future, I thought.

It was still 2019 in America. The year before, I had barely made it to the bar in Brooklyn before midnight. The man I was dating at the time had shuffled me inside, and we hurriedly clinked our glasses of cheap champagne and kissed.

Then, he sheepishly told me that he had food poisoning, “I feel horrible,” he said, and I had suddenly realized just how miserable he looked. I laughed at him in the way you laugh at someone whose soft corners you have learned so well and I quickly ordered us a car.

We spent the rest of the night in sweatpants, curled up together in bed. A year later, as the sun started to creep over the horizon on the first morning of 2020, I crawled into my bunk bed all alone. I ate a few pieces of chocolate and cookies and fell asleep with a constellation of crumbs around me.

As I walked through the streets on Stone Town the following morning, the winding streets seemed to uncoil before me like a runaway ball of yarn in every direction.

The air smelled rich with spices. There was a permanence to the buildings — brutalized by the briny sea air, discolored by the beating sun. While Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania officially formed one nation back in 1961, it still felt, in many ways, like its own country.

There was a distinctive cultural difference on Zanzibar — dramatically impacted by centuries as a major trading post; it had become an amalgamation of Arab, Indian and European influence.

Over the centuries, these islands off the Swahili Coast had been colonized by Oman, Portugal, Germany, Britain, and ultimately fought for independence and joined Tanganyika to become modern-day Tanzania. All of this has made Zanzibar a strange epicenter for trading, slavery, colonialism, and revolution.

I found myself enthralled with the strange, and all the while, familiar feel of the place. As I walked along the alleyways, I traced my hand along the weather-worn white walls, staring up above as the morning light fell onto lacy rosewood balconies and stained-glass windows.

I bathed in the sound of the call to prayer, penetrating and reminding me once again of how distinctively unmoored I had become.

I examined the mahogany Zanzibari doors — the way the intricate designs wound sinuously in every direction, enormous brass studs protruding — a relic of Punjabi influence.