Telling Her Stories

“Use your enemy to catch the snake”.

Painted onto a wall near jaws corner, the peeling words could have been there for as many hundreds of years as the city itself.

The words are on a wall in Stone Town, Zanzibar. A protected UNNESCO World Heritage Site. It was here in the alleys that I lived for five months. Bicycles click past, shooting their bells into the thick of people in the narrow streets. I press against a wall to let them pass. It takes a while to tell the different alleys from each other. The writing on the wall helps.

It’s Saturday night and Jaws corner is flooded in light, flying ants, men and one television. It’s a PSL football match. At Forodhani night food market, in the gritty yellow oil lamp light, others listen to the match on radio. The market suddenly explodes with back slapping and whoops as their team scores.

Near Darajani market you can find the biggest football scoreboard in the city. Spanning two walls, it’s kept up to date and open to suggestions. It’s easy to understand that football is a big part of life for Zanzibari men. Strategically dotted around Stone Town are smaller black boards advertising fixtures, venues and times.

The next day and the alleyways thrump with music – taarab, bongo flava, hip hop. On a corner somewhere in Stone Town you will find a wall with the graffiti words “Never Die” painted onto the wall.

Down these same streets walk boys in skinny jeans, sneakers, shirts with swag, hip hop caps – these kids have street cred. Apparently so do their city walls.

At sunset the call to pray chants in the night air. Walking home late that night, in the stilled alleys, I see tidily written over a door, “Allah, God of all”. The walls still echo with the day’s activities and if you listen carefully you can hear the stories of the island that have been told, and are still told, each day with the first cup of coffee. The island goes to sleep, ready to begin the day with the first call to prayer. This is the writing on the wall.