I ran for the first time in weeks on Tuesday. I went with two other women travelers who I met through my homestay. We headed out at six to avoid both the heat and crowds. I sweated through the run in my khaki capris because bare knees are inappropriate here (Zanzibar is 95% Muslim). I’ve found that after only spending a few weeks here I have a completely new standard of decency. I find myself feeling somewhat scandalized when I occasionally see other tourists in shorts and tank tops.
The pace was slow, (a slog, you might say), but it felt great to be running. We ran past the soccer fields where local teams were practicing. Beside one field was a basketball court filled with women doing calisthenics. They all were completely clothed in black, from head covering (called a bui-bui here) to ankle-length skirt, and wearing sneakers. Along the way we received plenty of attention in the form of stares and various greetings, including “Jambo!”, “Hello ladies where you come from?”, “Taxi?”, “Habari?” (How are you?), and “Mzungo” (white person).
On Wednesday we had a break from classes so that we could spend the day doing independent research for our yearlong portfolio projects. For the focus of my research I have decided to explore how culturally important foods and food traditions have been affected by globalization.
In the morning I interviewed one of my professors about the food culture of Zanzibar. I came away with the idea that an extensive web of rituals and traditions surrounding meals and food here have helped keep the appearance of convenience, processed, and imported foods in Zanzibar at bay. One practice I found particularly interesting involves food shopping. Every morning it is the duty of the man of the house to go to the market with a basket to buy the food for that day. He drops the basket off for his wife at home before going to work. If the man does not buy food, he has no right to expect to have anything to eat that day. If this is the case, and the woman must feed herself and her children, she will go to her mother’s house to eat and the man will get nothing. Take that!
That afternoon I went to a friend’s homestay to cook with Mariam, the woman who cooks for the household. The menu for dinner was fried rice. It was not the typical Swahili recipe I had hoped for (I was thinking more along the lines of pilau and fish in coconut curry sauce), but I nevertheless learned what cooking looks like in a Swahili kitchen. I chopped vegetables on a mat on the floor, sitting on a footstool. Outside, Mariam boiled water on a wood fire. We cooked the vegetables on large propane burner on the floor of the tiny kitchen, and added them to the rice in a pressure cooker. Aside from the cut up hot dog slices which I picked out, it was delicious.
