Caption: Ferry crossing off the mainland port of Dar-es-Salaam. Photograph: © Susan Abraham.
Lanky, slightly reserved, polite and soft-spoken, that was my Zanzibar friend, Salum Abdallah. Salum had a toddler son and thrived for years as a professional tour guide.
Considering the island’s conservative Muslim culture, Salum was used to foreigners and their liberal ways. He enjoyed taking tourists through the routine of the town’s ancient history and architectural heritage sites that made for a former slave colony. He was unassuming but well-versed with all that went on.
The council problems, the sudden power cuts, the high instances of police corruption he often had to deal with when manouvering his Land Cruiser into the faraway resorts and forests on rough dirt roads. Zanzibar stayed the poorer cousin to Tanzania’s mainland amenities. Life was often hard for its farmers, shopkeepers and fisherfolk.
Without tourism, the island would be finished. Sometimes, political disagreements would mean that rubbish stayed uncollected for days on end or that water supply ran short without warning. Yet, hardly one to complain, Salum banked on an infectious sense of humour for the odd joke.
A wry smile, a shoulder shrug or a shake of the head was the most he offered in the way of complaint! The pleasant guide remained thankful for a decent working class life and took everything in his stride.
What I especially loved about Salum was his shy accent. The English-talking Zanzibar resident as a whole, almost always owns a lilting accent to a seemingly rushed torrent of English words. This commands in itself, a strange, dreamlike quality I rarely come across when I hear a speaking voice.
Hence, Salum was no different. So much tenderness appeared to be alluded to his speech. Salum spoke fast and bearing that hypnotic sing-song tone that would easily subdue an accent I am now far more used to in everyday life
… the whimsical Irish dialect.
What fun we had the last time, Salum’s cousin Lewa Katana and myself took the Fast Ferry Catamaran to meet him. We arrived halfway through a misty morning and spent the whole day together. I watched the funny episodes of greedy traffic policemen trying a bribe or two off the ever-patient Salum.
Still, these incidents would command a colourful tale of their own.
We pretended to be lost as we snaked our way along the winding maze that made for Zanzibar’s quaint Stone Town. We strolled into irresistible bazaars, intimate cafes and bustling marketplaces. We sat on park benches overlooking the smooth creamy coastline. We gazed at the idyllic Zanzibar waters shelled by a palette of tranquil and bewitching aquamarine shades.
I had been to peer at the old prisons, dungeons and churches on earlier trips.
Now, I sat content to spin dreams.
Then we went once more as we always did to the Spice Islands where Salum’s friend, Fernando who named himself such after a devout admiration for the Spanish, waited for us. Fernando and his group of friends were dressed up in harlequin colours to ensure a memorable fancy time. Clownish and lovable, Fernando had us cracked up with big grins, while highlighting explicit sexual secrets that were attributed to discreet portions of the special spices. These were said to be craved by breastfeeding mothers, lustful maidens and hopeful spinsters on the island.
Naturally, there was enough room for whispered bawdy jokes, if not that sudden peal of laughter.
Salum had promised to take me to Pemba, another lesser-known island off the United Republic of Tanzania, famed for its scuba-diving and fishing. I learnt so much from Salum..the rivalries and fierce competitive spirit for instance that was often evident between the people of Zanzibar and Pemba, so as to secure more favour from the Tanzanian Government.
A few days ago, an overloaded ferry off the mainland port of Dar es Salaam failed to battle strong currents and sank. I recognised the ferry or rather, catamaran. I often saw it sail past the bay windows of my hotel suite where I always stayed in Dar. There is something very resilient about the older ferries and the industrious people that clamber upon the ramshackle vehicles…the mothers…the working market women and fishermen’s wives. The childen going to school, the hawkers, traders and the odd backpacker. Sometimes, even the wealthy swanned in with their stylish four-wheelers or tour drivers with their safari vans.
This ferry was on its way to Pemba and had picked up hordes of Zanzibar folk beforehand after leaving Dar es Salaam harbour. 250 people drowned and I believe up to this moment, that divers continue to search the turbulent waters for another 300 missing bodies. I thought of Salum and prayed that everything was well.
This morning, I was woken to a cell phone bleep that announced a hasty email from Lewa.
It said to my horror, that Salum having boarded the ill-fated ferry, had drowned. Remember our friend who took us to Jozan Forest to see the Colombus Monkeys in Zanzibar, Lewa wrote. He has died, Susan. He is among the 240 people who have died in the ferry that sunk early saturday morning.
If I’m not mistaken, the ferry was carrying locals and a Zanzibar friend I knew well had embarked it.
It was a strange way for life to have conveyed a secret essence to my destiny, while leaping upon my downcast mood. I did not realise until this tragic incident how closely I had aligned myself to a completely foreign culture in Tanzania. I had walked straight into the hearts of its people. I had not done the tourist thing. I had not visited Africa just to buy a T-shirt which would advertise I had been. I had not made brief use of the adventure sports and left. But I had returned time and time again to a culture that bore absolutely no bearing to all that I was ever familiar with. And now, I had made real friends and pronounced roots. For news of Salum to reach me, I considered it a miracle.
How often when we travel do we know what happens to the people who make a mark on our lives and yet we leave so casually behind. But I know. Yes, I do.
Goodbye Salum Abdallah. I shall remember you with great fervour and longing when I next step into the shores of Zanzibar. RIP. – susan abraham
