Michamvi Zanzibar: Accidentally Smooth

Michamvi Zanzibar: Accidentally Smooth.
Dec 22

People here in Zanzibar are not so tied to technology, so they are not so busy with nothing, yet, and they have time for other people.  Do you ever/always feel like there are not enough hours in the day?  There seems to be too many hours in the day here.  If you need to go somewhere to do something, and it will take you an hour to go there and back, but you do not really know how to get there because you are new, someone local will for sure take you.  I am not talking about touts who are out to make money off of you.  I am talking about the local people who just want to help out and take you around to do your chores out of the goodness of their heart.  It is not about finances.  It is because they are kind and do not have anything to do until 15:00.  Even when I do not have anything to do until 15:00, I still have 60 things that I could/should be doing.  Somehow, we have it all wrong with the way we are in our busy western way of thinking, and we are forgetting about the decency of humanity in our selfishness.  I am as guilty as anyone.  Occasionally I am in a conversation with someone and I wish the conversation would end just so that I can get to my phone because there is a message I want to send to someone or a photo that I want to post.  How sad and disgusting it is what we are evolving into.  One becomes really aware of it in a part of the world less fortunate, because people in less fortunate places care about other people.  Yet, we live in our comfortable western world with our easy lives, access to money, and possessions, but we do not even bother to get to know our neighbours because it would be weird to knock on their door….

There is something that I like about that modern bike against the shack housing.

I went into the village to buy some mangoes for my breakfasts and some water.  I stopped at a small hut for lunch where many locals were eating and I ordered ‘Chips Mayai’ which meant that they needed to cook two eggs for my meal.  The young guy who was the cook handed a small shovel to a child who was about 10 year of age.  The child went running away with it and came back two minutes later with a shovel full of hot ashes charcoal from wood that was burning somewhere.  It was dumped into a small metal tray and on top of that a frying pan was placed with chips and then the eggs were cooked inside the pan.  It was amazing.

Charcoal dumped into the metal tray by the shovel to cook eggs and chips.

I was Accidentally Smooth today.  When I got back to my bungalow, Shaka asked me if I wanted my room cleaned.  I said it would be nice, so he sent over a guy to clean it who has been my friend here and I have had a beer with.  The guy went into the bathroom.  When I went in there to check on him he was on his hands and knees in the room with a wet rag and soap, washing everything from the floor to the toilet.  It made me feel really terrible, because this guy is my friend, and he was on his hands and knees cleaning the outside of my toilet.  I told him to stop and that it was clean enough, and that all I wanted was clean sheets and that as soon as he was finished that I wanted him to go outside and enjoy the day.  Sometimes it is uncomfortable to be caught in the middle here between being a tourist and trying to hang out with the local people.

Flowers on the bed. Flower power. Accidental smooth

What I mean by Accidentally Smooth is that then I came back to my bungalow later in the evening, there was a fancy green flower arch around the entrance of my terrace that had a dozen flowers attached to it, and on the bed was a pot with beautiful flowers in it.  I was with Ms. Tanzanian Pageant and when she noticed the flowers on the bed she assumed I had them put there for her and thanked me profusely for the wonderful gesture.  I was Accidentally Smooth with flower power.  Accidentally Smooth turned into quite a night…