Zanzibar

A hot heavy wind greets me as I walk out of the plane in Zanzibar. The airport is tiny: three money exchangers and a locked customer care office are the only signs of human presence. There is no baggage claim, an employee brings the suitcases to the middle of the airport and starts an improvised auction.

Outside a few cab drivers fight for a ride to Stone Town.

- Jamba. Karibu. My friend, it’s 20 to Stone Town.
- 20 what? Dollars? Shillings?
- If it is too expensive you just tell me. This is not a fight, just a negotiation.

I take a ride to Stone Town for TSh15K (US$12) and the driver tries to sell me a ride for the next day. ‘For 50 I take you to Pawani.’ You never know if they are talking in dollars or shillings but that is the purpose. If you do not ask they will make a 30% profit.

- My friend, $40.
- We agreed TSh40,000. If it is $40 you just drop me here.
- Hakuna Matata, you pay 40K but you call me when you go back to airport
- Hakuna Matata

Stone Town, the heart of Zanzibar Town, is the archetype of an African city. The colonizers built and the locals watched passively to the gradual degradation of the buildings. The architecture is Arabic, 100 years ago I could probably feel I could be anywhere in northern Africa or Southern Europe, it recalled me the small villages of Alentejo in my homeland. Today, Stone Town looks like an abandoned city: filthy, smelly, and dark despite the white walls. There is litter in every corner, decomposing under 100 degrees temperature.

Someday I would like to understand why Africa is like this. Every country I have been into is a bunch of patches built by colonizers that no one ever cared to maintain: the Portuguese built Cahora Bassa in Mozambique, the British built Makerere University in Uganda, the Chinese built railway between Dar es Salaam and Kapiri Mposhi. When you talk to Indians in Eastern Africa they say Africans are lazy, there is nothing to do about it; the ones who are not lazy flee to Europe or America. I resist to believe that argument. Everyone who ever tried to build something in Africa did not care about the Africans. Colonialism, Maoism, or the most recent wave, philanthropy, are good examples of this.