On our second day in Zanzibar, Stephanie and
I decided to walk around Stone Town some more and explore our new neighborhood
while Maggie was at work. Naturally we started with the beach; at least we couldn’t
get lost walking along it…right? Plus this way we could scope out a running
route for Steph. Having seen the hospital (site of our internship) along the
main road the day before, we figured we could get to it if we walked far enough
up the beach. So there we were, enjoying the fresh air, cameras out…snapping
away, only to hear someone yelling to us to stop…someone being a stern-looking
security dude strapped with an AK-47. Oops! BIG OOPS!!! We had inadvertently
broken a law by walking along the beach next to state house, i.e. the
president’s beach/vacation home...EEEEKK!! We smiled a LOT, pled ignorance +
limited Swahili, and got away with a friendly warning…WHEW!!! Thankfully Steph waited
until he had walked away to say she thought his gun looked like a toy. Right
next to the state house, a.k.a. the scene of trespass, is the hospital…so we
did manage to get a glimpse of our work home for the next 10 weeks.
Around midday, we decided to go get lunch at
one of the restaurants our unofficial tour guide from the previous day had
pointed out as clean, safe, decent, affordable options for us. They were all in
the vicinity of Darajani, an open-air
market that we had walked part of the way through with him. Armed with the
requisite tourist map, we headed in what we thought was the right direction and
promptly got lost. You would think an $8 map would come with the warning that very
few, if any, of the streets are actually marked…so not to rely on the map much
(AT ALL)…but I suppose then they wouldn’t be able to sell vary many to
unsuspecting tourists. :-/ At least we had the overwhelming aromas of endless
piles of seafood, dozens of exotic fruits, various vegetables, many chickens
(live or dead…your choice), and other foods for sale, to keep our senses alert
while we were lost. Oh, and the flies too, of course...TIA.
We eventually managed to find our way through
the market, and of course immediately wanted out of there. Thankfully the
restaurant we were looking for was on the same street, so relatively easy to
find. Stephanie ordered beef pilau and
was pretty disappointed that there was so little beef in it. Apparently just a
few days in Kenya had gotten her accustomed to eating meat – and a lot of it –
at every meal.
That evening, we braved the open air food
carts at Forodhani. Think of it as a
large open area – like a town square, with benches, a gazebo, a couple of
cafés, and a small park where people can relax and hang out for as long as they
want. And they do. All. Day. Every. Day. Well…in the evenings, it’s filled with
food vendors who set up tables and charcoal grills around the square and sell mishkaki (skewers) of chicken, beef, and
various kinds of seafood: shrimp, scallops, marlin, snapper, octopus, squid
(whole ones), prawns (also whole…with eyeballs…YUM!!), mussels, shark,
barracuda, tuna, kingfish, swordfish, and spiced lobster, just to name a few. There’s
also Zanzibar Pizza…which is an interesting concoction of your choice of meat (chicken,
octopus, pretty much any kind of seafood, or ground beef), egg, mayonnaise, shredded
cabbage/tomato/veggie mix, and cheese…think “Laughing Cow” cheese – that kind.
All this is mixed together and put on a rolled out piece of dough, which is
then pan-fried. There are also fruit versions of this pizza, and they all seem
to come with Nutella; so Mango-Nutella, Banana-Nutella, Coconut-Nutella, etc.
The moment you walk into the area around Forodhani (i.e. when you’re about half a
block away), people start aggressively trying to sell you stuff. For us,
because of where our apartment is located and who/what we walk by on our way to/from,
the offers usually go something like this: Taxi? Ice-cream? Taxi? (mind
you…we’re just crossing the street…), and repeat in reverse, multiplied by too many
taxi drivers and ice cream vendors to count. Then, we get to the actual food
carts, and it’s a free-for-all! Every table has at least 5-6 people (all guys)
working at it, and they ask, cajole, and plead for us to “just come see my
food…just look.” If you make the mistake of stepping up to a table (just to
see, of course), more often than not, a [paper] plate is shoved into your hand,
and before you know it, you’ve got at least 5 skewers of various kinds of meat
piled on, ready to go onto the grill – to be reheated – along with one or more
of the endless types of carbs available (chips, a.k.a. French fries, chapati,
Zanzibar chapati/bread [yep, there’s a difference], corn etc.), then dressed up
with salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber), and drizzled with various concoctions
of chili sauce. One can also get samosas, falafel, boiled eggs, fried
bananas/plantains, fresh fruit, and many other things I haven’t been brave
enough to try yet.
We’ve wised up some since our first trip to Foro and now have a regular table/set of
guys we go to…when we feel up to it. Although, lately, we’ve started a couple
of almost fights at “our table” between one guy who has decided that Maggie and
Steph are HIS regulars and the other guys. If the girls take a plate from someone
else, he just grabs the plate from his “buddy” – food and all – and shoves them
back all the while yelling threatening things at the poor other guy(s)…or he
once just fixed another plate for Maggie ignoring the one she already had. Not
to worry, he’s always all smiles and nods by the time he turns back to us! Sigh.
I guess the positive take on all this is that thankfully, none of us has gotten
food poisoning…not really, LOL;-/ I guess our tummies became “local” pretty
quick! (Knocking on every piece of wood in the apartment as I write this!!!)
One evening, as we walked home from Forodhani, some random dude says: “Spice
Girls!! Hi….” This is just one of the many nicknames we’ve gotten –
individually and as a trio, all of them a source of daily entertainment and
giggles. I have to say, as nicknames go, it was pretty fitting: Maggie is Posh,
Steph is Sporty, and I’m definitely Scary…this is one place it pays to be able
to put on a “don’t mess with me” face! We take turns being Ginger, depending on
our level of sassiness on a particular day. Although…we may just each rotate
and take turns being all the different Spice Girls. It’ll keep folks guessing!
The BEST parts of Forodhani are that it’s by the water and has free Wi-Fi. Oh, and
[luckily for Steph] there’s beef…plenty of it!
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