“Zanzibar”. Looking Back…

Arriving at the beautiful Zanzibar the land of the spices and the stone town. Driving through the half paved half mud streets surrounded with enormous tall palm trees and plenty of farms and plantations.  Just green every were. Actually green and turquoise every where, the Island of Zanzibar is surrounded with turquoise water and white sandy beaches and authentic villages. People hanging everywhere, walking down the streets, markets selling everything you can imagine. food, clothing, spices….

The contradictions in Zanzibar has proved to be everywhere, from the expensive resorts  to the next extremely poor villages spreading one after the other, reminding you that you are in Africa.

The rich soil of Zanzibar together with the tropical climate, ensures that almost any kind of plants can grow in Zanzibar. Locals say that even if you chopped your finger and stick it in the ground, it will grow. Zanzibar exports their spices all over the world, the tourism is grown rapidly, but 90% of the 1 million population in Zanzibar lives in poverty.

Visiting several villages in Zanzibar is one thing, photographing them is another.. No matter how many things you plan and you take under consideration, new issues arise once you get there. I had made my plans to photograph local communities and villages along the way. I had booked my guides and had split my plan in two parts. Villages and spice plantations at the first day , beaches and stone town at the second day.

During the planning of my trip I never thought of two things. First was the extreme heat and humidity. Going from 7 degrees to 37 in one day could give a shock to your body… if you push it. Second was that most of the local people of Zanzibar refused to be photographed!! That caught me by surprise.

We have arranged for the first full day there to spend visiting local communities and photographing them. Out of all the villages we visited, we were only able to photograph in two villages only.

The reason behind their denial? First, they were very poor and they were asking for money in return for photographs, and next, Zanzibar is 90% muslims and photographing them especially women and kids was a not acceptable.

Thinking later one of my mistake was that I didn’t think of having small change of shilling with me to offer to anybody I was taking his/her picture. At least this way, I would probably be able to take some of the photos I wanted plus  I would help some people.

Our guide was trying to be very helpful and protective, and didn’t want us to spend money so most of his negotiations ended up with no success.

in Kibera slums in Kenya, we were able to photograph through the slum without issues. Within the schools and orphanages was a different story since we did some donations and they were excited.

Here there was no school or orphanages in our visit, and the only way to be able to photograph is handle thing by one on one negotiations for each photograph which couldn’t work well..

Still if i had calculated it from the beginning I would have taken with me lots of change in shilling and I’m pretty sure that would have giving me some more photographic chances.

Zanzibar has a lot of photographic opportunities. It has some amazing beaches that its not only the white sand and the blue waters but it’s also their fishing villages with their traditional boats spread all over the blue ocean that can lead you into photographic delirium . if you don’t got one from the sun heat first.:)

colorful mosaic of people covered by their vibrant colored dresses and scarfs,

and the Stone town, a world heritage site with its old ruined houses remnant from the days of the slave trade.

For me, Zanzibar is a real African gem. A gem that needs at least one week to ten days visit and even more if you want to produce a serious body of photographic work. I would definitely like and hopefully will go back again. It is dangerously beautiful and I feel I only got a small taste.