IMAGES: Beyond the Narrow Streets
Trip Start
Aug 18, 2005
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23
26
Trip End
Feb 20, 2006
Stonetown, Zanzibar,
Tanzania
Thursday, December 29, 2005
But other features also catch my eye, like the sign posted outside the Beit-El-Ajaib (House of Wonders) a ceremonial mansion-now-turned-museum, built for the 19th-century Zanzibari Sultan Barghash Bin Said, which reads:
"GENERAL NOTICE TO VISITORS
About dress code & public modesty:
Dress at least to the knee, avoid skimpy and revealing clothes.
01-Star
About street love:
Avoid mouth-kissing each other in public
Otherwise enjoy yourself, have a nice visit, and thank you for your cooperation.
We kindly request your collaboration on preserving delicate traditions of our Zanzibari culture."
Despite these attempts and having been named a World Heritage site in 2000, Stonetown is changing.
From its roots as a fishing village in 950 A.D., it remains a precious gem of cross-cultural exchange. Arabic, Indian, British influences are divulged in the architecture, some of which is crumbling and some of which is carefully being restored. In times past, this centre was a focus of trade with Indian, China and the Persian Gulf. The legacy of colonial Portugal, Britain and Germany also litter the landscape.
Virtually more than any other place I have visited in Africa thus far, today it's tourists lining the streets and waterfront of Stonetown. Both a pleasure and a plight, we undoubtedly form another source of change for the layers that make up Unguja (the local name for Zanzibar).
In the short time I spend strolling the streets and sights of Stonetown, it seems that today the culture that thrives is the diversity of the local community, which both keeps old traditions and adopts new habits.
