My Zanzibar Revolution
An Excerpt from My Zanziber Revolution, a memoir
“Once on Zanzibar, I quickly formed a feeling of familiarity with the place and the people. The town was a warren of narrow streets that ran between high walls of houses with dark, heavy wood doors ornamented with fixtures of gleaming brass, or cool doorways that opened onto cool interiors, and open spaces of bright tropical trees and lush green foliage. The atmosphere was swollen with heat, and sensual, and busy with wild birds of exotic blues and reds and yellows, dipping and flying high, crying as they went, noisy with the sounds of shouting brown barefoot boys, bicycle bells, honking horns. The air was thick with the smell of curry, herbs, fish, sweet food, garlic. Sometimes you heard wailing music. It was humid and languorous, but also electric: There was a promise to all the color and noise and bustle, anticipation among the restless humid bodies that seemed to go unrealized. You got up every day with a sense of expectancy, and every night you went to bed somehow unfulfilled. It was a place ripe with conspiracies that died on the vine.”