Zanzibar to Bagamoyo, Tanzania, Monday October 20th

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We packed so efficiently for once that we had plenty of time on our way to the port to take final photos and to linger a little. Sweepers were cleaning up the market, ready for a new session to set up. The oldest mosque, Bamnara, with a minaret from the 17^th Century, looked squat and unimpressive, although people passing by were telling us all about it in a very proud way.At the port, we joined a line of people passing through the gate to board the boat. Other tourists were leaving the line for the passport check at the immigration window, so we thought we had better see what was needed. Our thought that Zanzibar was part of Tanzania was correct, but there was a difference in that it is a recognised independent entity with its own government, and as such we should have filled in forms and had our passports checked when we arrived. We were able to do the paperwork now, leaving the exact details of when and where we had been and having our suitability for entry checked in retrospect. I had a feeling that this must happen often, since there was no fuss and the men just patiently explained what we needed to do.

The boat was not crowded and no entertaining happenings were going on at nearly seven in the morning. People boarded right up to the very last minute and then we were off. A video to entertain passengers had no sound and was about the chasing, sacrificing and general mistreatment of people in South America, but it did have a happy ending in that one man survived and saved his wife and children from drowning in a hole.

We had hardly seen any of Zanzibar, and it had been a good decision to spend most of our time in Stone Town and all of it in the one hotel. Now, as I looked out of the boat windows, I felt a little like a canoe rounding a corner in a lazy river and seeing white water ahead of it. We would be visiting Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam and catching a plane back to Paris, all in two days.

People with flowers and smiles were waiting to greet others from the boat, but for us this moment on Dar es Salaam was a transitory one if we wanted to reach Bagamoyo in good time. Keith was well prepared and knew where we should go for the New Posta bus station, and then from there we had to travel across town to catch another bus. The city looked clean and so much neater that Stone Town, with large buildings, gardens and a statue of a soldier in action. Unfortunately the sculpture was in the middle of a crazy whirl of traffic and we weren’t able to reach it to find out what it commemorated. Dalla dallas were lined up on the other side of the road and when we passed them, the assistants would ask us where we were going, and in no time we were in the right one and off to the other bus station. That bus station was a different deal altogether, with market stalls on both sides and seemingly hundreds of dalla dallas and buses arriving, waiting and taking off in what appeared to be a very haphazard fashion. A lady I had spoken to on the bus showed us where to go for the buses to Bagamoyo, and we were then scooped up (a bit like low key kidnapping) by an assistant and hurried into his vehicle. There we sat while he attempted to convince everyone who passed that they wanted to go to Bagamoyo, until it seemed to me that we were full up. Keith had his large bag on the seat beside him but he then had to nurse it so that more people could fit in. Eventually there was a count down, with five needed, then three and so on. The last people stood in the aisles so my idea of ‘full up,’ thinking of seats was definitely wrong.

There were lots of advertising hoardings on the sides of the roads, and the one to entice people to take up smoking showed a change in the times from when riding a horse through beautiful countryside was effective. Now a cool man was lighting up beside his laptop computer. Fanta ads vied with Coke ads in this predominantly Muslim city, and every phone company was trying for a share of the market using sports stars, attractive people, parents keeping in touch – every way to appeal to a diverse consumer group.

It was a long and very soon a bumpy ride. I was worried that Keith’s back might be affected but he was so tightly packaged into his seat by other passengers and his pack that he couldn’t bounce around and all went well. The lady next to me told me about the bus fare, and also to be very careful in Bagamoyo. She lived there and she advised me to watch out for robbers. Our bus assistant seemed to belike a hyperactive monkey, leaping on and off at every stop, hanging on to the side when we were driving in case he could spot more custom, and generally getting more exercise in our two hour drive than most people would in a similar session at a gym. We finally arrived at a dusty bus station, with no idea of which direction to go in. As always, there was someone who could help us, so we followed the advice to walk back to the main road, to walk for about a kilometre and then to take a dirt road straight ahead when the road turned, for the cheapest guest houses.

It was nearly midday and the time when all sensible people take to the shade of a tree. Instead we were walking along with our packs, looking out for a dirt road. We passed a very interesting artists group, where they claimed to train artists as a way of combating homelessness, and where there were enormous wooden sculptures of politicians lined up. We thought that we would come back and look later, once we had found somewhere to stay.

Where the road curved, there were several options at what would have been a square in a European town. Facing us was a building which said that it had tourist information, and which also was an institute for studies in tourism. Fledgling guides were learning the theoretical side of their profession there, and would combine it with placements in National Parks and other places where they could practice. A very polite young man with excellent English, Sammy, greeted us and offered us some possible tours, with different rates to suit different needs. Luckily there seemed to be no need for us to pay the more expensive tourist rates. We decided that with only an afternoon and a morning there, an individual guided tour with transport arranged would be the way to make best use of our time. Sammy took us down to the guest house that we had read about in the Lonely Planet guide and we arranged to meet again the next morning.

Our guest house was very comfortable, with a fan and a mosquito net and clean, shared facilities, and cost only A$9 per night for two. Once installed, we looked for somewhere for lunch, and found a large restaurant where we could have beans, vegetables and rice. After lunch we sensibly rested for a while until the main heat of the day had diminished, and then we walked down the street towards the Mission. We couldn’t see the sea, but we were near it, with one of the resorts, for those who could afford more than a cheap guest house being surrounded by eucalyptus trees. We sniffed our way past, regarding the trees as symbols of home. I have not been at all homesick, although there have been times when I have wished to be with family and friends. So we had not thought that reminders of Australia could be so powerful, or that we would identify as Australians. All this year we have been asked our country of origin, and so we have gradually come to see ourselves as what we say we are, as Australian, in a way that we didn’t when we were at home. I imagine that being away for longer than a year must make people quite nostalgic for lots of aspects that were taken for granted when they lived in their home countries.

The Mission could be seen in the distance, at the end of a long mango tree lined drive.Cows and goats grazed amongst the long grass at the sides. This was the Catholic Mission that we had read about when we were in Zanzibar; the place where David Livingston’s friends had first brought his body after his death a long way inland. They had embalmed the corpse and carried it here in the heat, and although it was only here for one night, the priests managed to have a lead coffin made for its journey to Zanzibar and then to England. We looked at the remaining tower of the chapel where Livingston had been laid, and wondered about his experiences as an explorer, and at his zeal and faith, which was shared by the missionaries who had come to Africa. Many times I had read about their vision of enlightening the Africans and improving their lives on earth and saving their souls. It must have been a time of great confidence and belief in the fundamentals of Christianity, and also of being prepared to make enormous personal sacrifices to do what they believed themselves called by God to undertake.

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Education was one of the key aims of missionary work, with a school being set up on the Mission site. Even now there was the ADEM training college, offering all sorts of courses in teaching and educational management.

The museum housed maps and items that explained the history of Bagamoyo, which was not so different to that of Zanzibar in having been a melting pot of cultures since at least the 12^th Century, when Arab traders are known to have been visiting. Here, the different groups integrated, while retaining their own ethnic cultures, and with the abolition of slavery and the settling of many of the freed slaves here, there was a mix of African tribes as well. Today, there are people of Arab, Persian, Indian and European origin living here, along with the descendants of 16 African tribes.

Shirazi traders had arrived in about 1250 and had established a Muslim settlement, with a harbour at Kaole, only about five kilometres from Bagamoyo. In the 18^th Century the Aran Swahili Shomvi clan, supported by the Omani Sultan, arrived and took over. They initiated the movement of the main settlement to Bagamoyo, which was then called Dunda, and the Sultan sent mercenaries over to control Kaole and to support the move. In any case, after 1850, Mangroves had so infested the harbour that it had silted up and become virtually unusable for major trade, so the move to the newly named Bagamoyo was a fait accompli, suiting the Arab and Indian traders very well. In the late 19^th Century Bagamoyo was a major commercial and religious centre. An information board explained that the name Bagamoyo had connotations of relief for caravan traders after a long trip to the interior, and meant ‘throw off your melancholy’, but later, in the time of slave trading, it was synonymous with the term ‘crush your heart’. Slaves were brought here and herded in groups of up to 500 onto dhows with three levels, in such dreadful conditions that some did not survive the short trip to the slave market at Zanzibar. In the second half of the 19^th Century 50,000 slaves passed though Bagamoyo on their way to the slave market each year. At that time, 23.3 % of slaves were taken to Arabia, Persia and India, 18.6% to South East Africa, 6.4% to Mauritius and Reunion, and 51.7% were retained on Pemba, Zanzibar and the East African Coast. It was on their labour that the vast plantations had been built up.

Abolition of slavery was achieved in different countries at different times, with Great Britain following the Slave Trade act of 1807 with the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, France abolishing the use of slaves in its colonies in 1848, and in the USA in 1865. The last known ex-slave, Maria Ernestina, died in Bagamoyo in 1974, at over 100 years of age. She had been captured as a child with her mother, and during the many months as a member of a slave caravan, the slave trade became illegal. The German authorities confiscated all the slaves and freed them, but Maria was given into the care of a German family. There was no mention of why she was not freed in the care of her mother, so perhaps the mother died or was not able to look after Maria, or was not considered to be suitable for some reason or another. Maria ran away from her foster home to the Catholic Mission, where she was cared for, and later lived her adult life in the town of Bagamoyo.

French missionaries established the Mission when they built a Freedom Village for freed slaves, because there were too many ex-slaves for the Mission in Zanzibar to look after. The missionaries were active in ransoming slaves as well. That meant that they bought the freedom of slaves from their masters, and the information board said that although they obviously encouraged Christianity, it was not insisted on for the ex-slaves in the Freedom Village. In 1863 the price of a child slave was 25 French francs. Child care, health and care for lepers were important aspects of the work of the nuns who came here.

We had seen stalls selling beautiful and intricate wood carvings, known as Makonde carvings, with heads and bodies being traditionally represented as 2/3 of a figure and the legs as only 1/3. People, not as individuals but representing ‘man’ or ‘woman’ are shown in all the traditional daily roles, with the equipment that they would have used. The carvings can depict spirits and the traditional African notion that ‘I am because we are,’ with the individual having importance in their contribution to the group. After the coming of Christianity, Makonde carvers incorporated Bible scenes and now many of the carvings are not for use within the community, but for sale to the tourists.

Being a coastal settlement, many different fish traps were used. Weapons for hunting on the land were displayed, along with different wooden blocks for printing kangas. Other displays showed other traditional implements and artefacts. The history of the Catholic Church in East Africa was outlined, ending with the appointment of Bishop Telesphor Mkude in 1994.

There had been so much to read and absorb, but also many details that filled in the picture that we had been gaining over our time in Zanzibar. Our walk back took us down to the shore, and along an idyllic palm fringed beach. Dhows had been dragged up on the shore but some still bobbed up and down in the water.We were too late to see the sale of fresh fish from the boats, but there were still people with buckets of fish and in one case a man with a large fish in his hand riding along the sand on a bike.The water was warm, and not the refreshing dip that I craved to cool off my feet. It was a perfect beach, fairly deserted, with clean sand, clear water and shade. Unfortunately some tourist hotels were being constructed and no doubt they would bring tourists who would change things forever.

I had no idea of where we were, since we seemed to have been walking in a circle, but luckily Keith had his location detectors working. With blind faith I followed him across some wasteland, along a narrow rough track between some neglected buildings and into a built up area with dusty roads that I didn’t recognise at all. It was quite a surprise to finally see the Institute of Tourism and then I knew where we were.

There were lots of guest houses along the roads. The one called the ‘Vatican Guest House’ had only the name in common with the city in Rome and was perhaps a vestige of the Catholic presence here.There were many shops in the road behind ours, and a few were definitely aimed at tourists. We hadn’t seen any, but presumably there was a season when we would not have been such curios walking along the streets. A traditional looking kanga took my eye and I bought it, hoping that the colour and design did not mean that I was available very cheaply or some such. The words on it said ‘God is Peaceful’, so there was some hope. Dinner at a different restaurant was not exactly what we thought we had asked for, but turned out to be the old Chipsy Mayai, so was fine anyway.

Keith went out to the internet café and I stayed home, typed up a day or two and then read ‘Memories of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar’ By Emily Ruete, Princess Salme of Zanzibar and Oman. In my life at home I read at least a book a week, but with so much writing to do and days full of interesting activities, I am not finding so many moments to read.

One of the last buildings we saw in Stone Town, and one of the few that have been maintained in good condition.
Children search in the drain for goodness knows what. Bagamoyo is a very poor area, as can be seen by the standard of the housing in these street scenes.