Abdulrazak Gurnah

We were supposed to do more interviews at Ben Bella today, but didn’t go because we figured the Tuesday girls were also informed to come next week.

SUGAR CANE JUICE: We had some sugar cane juice today from the street. They have these machines that squeeze the juice out of the sugar cane stalks. I wonder whether the machines are made especially for that purpose or if they have other uses. While it seems like a fairly specialized piece of machinery (and probably expensive, especially for a food vendor), perhaps it is so necessary that it turns into a good investment.

LAUNDRY: I did laundry for the first time today. The place we live has a washer, which is basically a small machine that spins your clothes around to get them soapy – you fill it with water, then put in clothes, then detergent, and turn on the machine. Then you rinse the clothes with water in a bucket and put them in a spinner which spins them around. Then you hang them up on the line to dry.

I just finished reading the book Desertion, which was written by a native Zanzibari, Abdulrazak Gurnah. He now works at the University of Kent, but the book described some sights in Stonetown that we have visited, a bit of Zanzibar history, and had some great character development that depicted the role of women. It was a great book to learn more about the culture on Zanzibar and how it came to have so many different flavors. It was influenced by many places, such as India and the Middle East, through ports of trade, religion and colonialism. It truly has its own unique cultures.

I especially liked one description of the streets of Stonetown because I thought it accurately described our adventures through the alleyways:

“The street was narrow and deep in shadow at that time of the afternoon, and the house stood across the top of it, making a junction. Another street ran in front of the house in both directions, although that street too would be forced to twist and turn to avoid other houses and so on. That was how the old town was built, short narrow streets and deep humming silences. If you rode a bicycle down these streets, your thumb constantly worked the warning bell and your fingers stroked the bicycle brakes.”

Word of the day:
Pilipili – chili