Africa, a different world: Part 2
Zanzibar
For the second part of our trip, we visited Zanzibar, an island in Tanzania known for its beautiful beaches and tropical climate — a perfect spot for seaside vacations. Plus, it’s the birthplace of Freddie Mercury. Being it a tourist destination, we didn’t have guides or ‘babysitters,’ allowing us more opportunities to interact with the locals. This was a contrast to our experience in Kenya, where I felt more isolated from the local people.
From the moment we arrived on the island, there was a different vibe. People seemed happier, and ‘Hakuna Matata’ (‘No worries’) was a phrase we heard everywhere, which was amazing. Initially, I thought they were using the phrase from ‘The Lion King’ to be tourist-friendly. I had always thought it was a Disney creation, but it turns out to be a common Swahili greeting. Childhood ruined.
Tourism being the main source of income, Zanzibar appeared more developed than most parts of Kenya. Generally, it seemed that people in Zanzibar could aspire to a better quality of life, thanks to the jobs and opportunities that tourism brings. This, I believe, is one of the reasons why the locals seemed happier.
Religion
In contrast to Kenya where Christianity is the predominant religion, most people in Tanzania are Muslims. This cultural difference was noticeable, especially at the beaches, where tourist women without burkas needed to stand perverts and disapproving looks from locals.
It’s a well-known fact that in Islam, men are allowed up to four wives (still don’t understand why four). I remember discussing this with Muslims during another trip saying that the religion permits it, but it’s not common. I even heard the joke of “one wife is enough” more than once. However, in Zanzibar, the story seemed different.
When riding a taxi, I had the chance to talk with the drivers. A good trick to start a genuine conversation with them, or any male African, was asking which team of the Premier League they supported. This was super effective, as football is hugely popular in Kenya and Zanzibar, probably the whole of Africa. This approach often shifted the dynamic of the conversation, making it less transactional.
When the conversations were friendly enough, I was asking uncomfortable questions, such as asking about their number of wives. Surprisingly, many taxi drivers proudly claimed to have three or four wives.
One conversation with a young driver, around 16–17 years old, was particularly shocking. He shared that he had three stepmothers and a poor relationship with his father. His father didn’t spend much time with him or his family. That was obvious, as his father needed to work to maintain three homes. Yet, despite his own experiences with an absent father, he aspired to have four wives himself. He was saving money because he needed to offer at least 1.200 Euros to the father of the girl that wants to marry. Sounds like modern slavery to me. He was also saying that he wanted a European wife. I was joking with him saying that European girls also like to have several husbands.
I’m not a big fan of religion as I believe in many cases it slows down the development of the country. However, I also see its value as a source of hope and comfort for those who are struggling. Religion provides a sense of purpose and meaning, which can be crucial in difficult times. Interestingly, football seemed to play a similar role as religion in the community. Away from the tourist areas, I witnessed locals gathering to watch games, inspired by stories of top African players with humble beginnings. I met a guy who wanted to sell me something and when we started talking about football he ended up excitedly showing me photos and videos of his friend who went to the USA for MLS tryouts. He was so excited about showing videos of his friend that he even forgot that he was selling something.
Bad bad service
The customer service in Zanzibar was often slow and inefficient, yet the staff always wore a smile, which I liked to think was genuine. They kept saying ‘No problem, Hakuna Matata’, but ironically, there was always a problem. In restaurants, when we asked for something extra like napkins, more bread, or water, there was a high chance that they wouldn’t bring it. The staff would agree to bring the items, but they often never arrived, or sometimes something completely different would be brought instead. I think this is because they don’t see any benefit in bringing extra items. After all, you’ve already paid for the food, so anything extra would be viewed as free.
In the north of the island, most taxi drivers had tablets installed in their cars and would watch videos while driving. That’s illegal in most countries around the world, but it seemed they didn’t give a damn about it. For them, the essence of taxi service is simply to take you from point A to B; as long as they accomplish that, nothing else seems to matter.
By the end of the trip, I hated the phrase ‘Hakuna Matata’ because it was often used as an excuse when things went wrong. I found myself repeatedly confirming requests two or three times to ensure they were correctly understood.
Boat trip
One day, we booked a boat trip to Naupenda beach through a local agency. This beach’s unique feature is that it’s a sandbank in the middle of the water, accessible only by boat. In the morning, the beach is reachable, but by evening, it’s completely submerged. The snorkeling there is fantastic, and the photos are amazing.
The trip was magical until our journey back. Our teenage captain hurried us back to the boat for the twenty-minute ride to the shore. Unlike the other boats, we took a different route. The captain speeded up, frequently checking the gasoline tank. We were traveling through a low-tide area, feeling how constantly the boat was scratching the bottom of the sea. I felt a rush of adrenaline from the speed and the waves hitting the boat, yet it never crossed my mind that we might be in danger.
Suddenly, we hit a sandbar, and the boat stopped moving. Waves continued to hit us, pushing the boat further onto the sand. Everybody was panicking as the water was getting inside the boat. We were a group of ten people, half of whom were seniors. The boat had only three life jackets, including one for children. We prioritized giving these jackets to the older individuals who were not strong swimmers as we attempted to swim away from the boat.
Everybody tried to gather their belongings and leave the boat. We were in low tide, so we were able to stand up, but the problem was that the sea bottom was full of urchins. Many of us got stung when leaving the boat. With the beach still kilometers away, swimming to shore wasn’t feasible.
Other boats, noticing our accident began to approach, but we had to swim a few hundred meters through the low tide to reach them.
During the chaos, our captain chose to gather the rented snorkeling equipment instead of assisting us. He instructed us to swim to the nearby boats for safety. This was a poor judgment from him, especially since some of the ladies were close to drowning. He chose to stay and collect the equipment to avoid losing the deposit, rather than help the people in need.
Eventually, we all managed to reach another boat, but the new boat was carrying double the passenger limit. There was a lot of tension as it seemed that the new boat could also sink because of the weight. The experienced captain of this second boat, not a teenager, managed to calm everyone and navigated us to the nearest beach. The new captain explained that all the captains are aware of the low tide in that area, which is why they take the long route that goes around it. I realized later that our captain wanted to save gasoline by using a direct route.
Once we reached the shore, our relief quickly turned to anger toward both the captain and the travel agency. Our phones had been damaged by water, some clothing was lost, and several of us suffered from painful urchin stings. On our way to the travel agency, we stopped at a pharmacy, where they recommended applying mango juice to the urchin thorns. Initially, I suspected they were simply trying to sell us the fruit, but after hearing the same advice at several other pharmacies, we decided to buy a kilogram of mangos. With the mangos in hand, we then headed to the travel agency’s office.
Back at the agency, we met the owner, a big older woman. We explained the situation, and she promised to resolve everything while sending a ‘doctor’ to treat our injuries. At that moment, we believed that the agency would take full responsibility for the incident, but we were so wrong.
First, they sent a “doctor” to our hotel. He was simply a man in a white coat, carrying a briefcase full of mangos. This turned out to be the quickest medical check-up I’ve ever had. He examined the thorns on my leg, then took a mango from his briefcase, squeezed it with a needle, and applied the juice to the thorns, claiming they would be gone by the next day, which was bullshit. The thorns remained, and it wasn’t until weeks later, back in Prague, that a doctor managed to remove some of them with tweezers, while the rest were eventually absorbed by my body. To this day, I’m puzzled as to why they believed the mango would be effective. Even after researching, I found no information linking mango juice with the treatment of sea urchin thorns.
We returned to the travel agency to discuss a refund and the loss of our belongings. The lady in charge informed us that she could only refund half of the money, as the rest was used to pay the ‘doctor.’ Regarding our belongings, she refused any compensation, claiming it was our fault for bringing them onto the boat. She even argued that we were not entitled to any refund at all since we did get to Naupenda Beach, as if getting safely back was not part of the service we paid for. When we threatened to involve the police, she didn’t give a fuck. When we said that people could have died, she replied:
“You are not in Europe, you are in Africa, people die every day”.
We were shocked by her response. It seemed as if we had different values and understanding of what life is worth.
Police station experience
Visiting the local police station was an eye-opening experience. The building itself was a modest one-story structure, with about ten rooms, all in poor condition. Piles of papers on nearly every table, yet not a single computer was in sight. The walls were full of stains as if they hadn’t been painted in decades. There were even walls used as blackboards to write notes. One wall even contained a whole bullet-point cheat sheet of how to run the interrogation, with the first question saying “Ask the name of the interrogator?”. Probably to help the officer in case he forgets. Well, at least, you knew what was ahead of you.
After we introduced ourselves and described our issue, the detective agreed to join us at the travel agency to talk with the owner. With no police vehicles available, we took a taxi to the agency, covering the fare ourselves. At the agency, a discussion between the detective and the owner quickly escalated from English to Swahili. I couldn’t understand their conversation, but from their body language and gestures, it appeared that the agency owner had little respect for the police authority, and the detective seemed rather submissive.
The discussion ended with the owner’s firm refusal to return our money, leading the detective to open an official investigation. This would involve taking statements from us, the agency owner, and the missing boat captain, who was not responding to the phone calls. We were leaving the next day, so we had already given up with the idea of getting the money back and we only wanted to get the official report of the investigation to claim all our belongings to our insurance. We agreed to return to the station the next day to provide our statements. After the meeting, we once again found ourselves in a taxi, covering not only our fare back to the hotel but also the fare for the detective’s return to the station.
At the police station the next day, we wrote our statements on paper. The detective took these to another room to type them up on a computer — finally, there was one. It took them one hour to transcribe 200 words. Time was tight, and we began to worry about missing our flight. When receiving the document the detective mentioned, “The boss is asking if he is going to receive something as he speeded the whole process for you”. I’m sure the boss was himself. This was the most direct bribe request I had ever heard, and I have had many. We were in a hurry, so we gave him 10 USD and left.
On the way to the airport, we reviewed the document only to discover that most of the names were misspelled and the statement had a lot of typos. Ultimately, it was useless for our insurance claim. In the end, we only left a nasty review on Google.
Lottery of birth
All my complaints are insignificant when you consider the history of Tanzania and Kenya. The behavior and the bad service make sense considering the struggles they faced. Zanzibar was a hub for the East African slave trade, a marketplace for human lives, with slavery legally persisting until 1897. Even after its abolition, the transition to freedom was a long and complex process. Many former slaves continued to live under their masters’ roofs, either because they didn’t know what to do as freedmen or due to corrupt practices like police bribery. My experience of receiving a bribe request from a Zanzibar detective in 2018 made me reflect on the levels of corruption that persisted after abolition.
And even when the so-called ‘good’ slave owners released their slaves, what were these new freemen supposed to do? Having known nothing but slavery their entire lives, many chose to stay with their former masters. This changed with the new generations but the pace of the shift was slower than in other places.
Zanzibar was a colony of Britain until 1963, soon followed by the Zanzibar Revolution, which resulted in the death of over 20,000 people. The island has suffered a lot in recent times. The colonization is supposed to be over but now is present in different forms nowadays.
During our time in Kenya, we visited a Dutch flower farm, which claimed to supply about 80% of Europe’s roses. Given the size of their fields, this might be true. Generally, it’s positive when international businesses invest in developing countries, as it can improve job opportunities and the quality of life. However, this particular region faced a water shortage issue and the roses need constant water to grow. The use of inorganic chemicals in these farms led to further pollution of the water sources, impacting both local agriculture and supplies of potable water. In times of water shortage, these farms were prioritized over the local population’s need for drinking water. Watering roses was more important than providing drinking water to their own people.
Reflections from a Journey
While in Kenya, our guide shared his dream of going to Europe. I was about to offer to show him around Prague over some beers but quickly realized the depth of his aspiration. He was seeking a better life for himself and his family, not to get drunk with me; besides, he didn’t even drink alcohol.
Flights to Europe from central-east Africa are super expensive, and even if he could save the money, getting a visa would be the real tough part. He’d likely have to go through the black market, spending even more money. And if he somehow makes it to Europe, he’d be jobless and probably not able to speak the local language. Chances are, he’d end up working under the table. Plus, he’d always have the constant fear of being deported. For a regular African guy trying to chase a better life in Europe, the road is incredibly tough. And for African women, it’s even harder because of the extra threat of being raped and generally poorer access to education and opportunities.
On my first visit to Paris, I was surprised to find that Africans selling souvenirs at tourist sites spoke many languages. They would ask where you were from and then speak the language of that place. Most of them could hold a basic conversation in at least three or four languages. Impressed, I mentioned to one of them how good Africans are with languages, and he replied, ‘No, my friend, we don’t have a choice; we need to learn those languages.
We live in different worlds; we perceive tragedies differently because our levels of sensitivity have evolved. It seems as if the value of human life is considered lesser in that part of the world. I’m not implying that everyone in Kenya and Zanzibar has these struggles. There are many affluent individuals with opportunities to advance, yet the harsh reality is that the majority of the population faces a difficult existence, for which the Western world has significant responsibility. Slavery and colonization played a crucial role in the instability of the region. The blame isn’t solely on developed nations; local governments also share the responsibility. This issue is complex and requires a comprehensive solution for improvement. Aid programs from UNESCO and other NGOs are great, but they fall short. I believe we still owe them a great deal.
Wrapping up this adventure in Kenya and Zanzibar, I’m shocked by how big and diverse this world is. From the hustle of the markets to the tranquility of the beaches, every moment was a new lesson in resilience and beauty. It’s been an eye-opener for sure, teaching me about life’s different shades and the power of keeping your spirits up, no matter what. ‘Hakuna Matata’ isn’t just a catchy phrase; it’s a real vibe here — a reminder that life’s full of ups and downs, and we’ve just got to roll with them. This trip? It’s been one heck of a ride, a colorful mix of challenges and awesome moments that I won’t forget.
Thanks to Gabriela Rodriguez for reviewing and improving this text.
