Wether it was the heat of the day after the humid canopy of the Spice farm or the rumbling along of the car with Usef, Old Stone town was another experience. A maze of narrow streets tumbled behind the imposing old palace building. It stood like a forgotten broken era facing the sea and hiding all behind it. The streets were heaving with people moving everywhere and scrambling to make a living. There was the old man on the bicycle with a front basket full of green coconuts. It was stop me and buy a drink. Young coconuts have a delicious almost clear milk, and the curio shops, passed by from all the Muslim girls and busy men but haunted by the few westerners who all looked like ageing hippies. I wondered if I did as well ?Hordes of uniformed school children threaded between quieter streets with only women and babies sat on steps in the shade of the day. The lively art shop man who beckoned everyone in to see hundreds of Tingatinga paintings and there were cotton strips with batique wax scenes that his mum had made. Simple and beautiful. Needless to say I bought some and the care he took to roll them up and tape them in newspaper made me feel special.
It was the market that shook me first, the long meat hall was hung with Halal joints, open to the flies and often the seller was sat cross legged on the table with them, on the opposite side was the fish. So many different sorts from Octopus to huge monkfish were slabbed out on rough wooden crates, some on the floor and some on the stalls. The fruit and veg stalls seemed so much better and so full of colour, okra,mango, big plantains hanging like giant bananas and tiny ladies finger bananas that were still green.
The heavens opened then and tarpaulins dripped streams of water everywhere. It was the first rain I had seen but it didn’t seem to bother my guide as we trudged through to the old Anglican cathedral. My guide trotted out the story of the alter, where the last open slave market in the world was. I froze a bit, here am I , a white woman from Liverpool England and even though it was decades before I was born, I felt I was carrying some of the responsibility. The slaves were shipped in by the Arabs and tied to a tree and whipped, lined up in order of size and whipped to see which ones had more mettle. It was only in 1873 that the British outlawed it. The slaves had been herded into cellars with no food or toilets and the old whipping tree is now marked by a white marble circle surrounded by red to remember the bloodshed.
It crossed my mind that there is still covert slavery all over he world. But how can we stop it, is it that abject poverty makes some people feel that certain options are their only hope? And if so, it can only help if we educate, educate, educate. Especially the girls because they educate the children. I felt so privileged in this busy town and suddenly seeing all the little school uniforms traipsing about helped me think we were on the right path.
It was another amazing day and I had dinner to look forward to , and a second day of diving before heading off to Zambia and Zimbabwe. The African sky would follow me.