Zanzibar prince of Bel Air really stupid haircut

---

hey,

yesterday when i woke up i went to meet hassan, my friend from the ferry, early at 8am down in stone town by the marketplace. he was there when i got there wearing a fez already ready to go so we took off on a dala-dala mini bus across the island east to his village of makunduchi. he was eager for me to see where he lives and what he does in the day, and to meet his family and friends. we jumped crammed into the back of a sawed off van with twenty barefoot men and twenty masked woman and rode clear across town and out into the jungle, stopping about every fifty feet to pick up people and their heavy loads, giant bags of yams needing to be lifted onto the roof, and with the help of a sixty year old man who could climb like a monkey up on top to catch them and tie them down. for most of the ride through the city he stayed up on the roof and sometimes he would swing back down into the back while we were driving. we passed a community constructed soley of tires near the outskirts of the city, little girls clambering around in dirty dresses clutching funny dolls and boys the size of men pushing wheelbarrels of bricks down the sidewalk and singing. hassan, my friend, was curious the definition of fun and i told him it was things like this, but for him things like this are just things like this, and i had a hard time to define fun for him. as we left town the police pulled us over, our little van pulling a home made wooden frame and wood benches on wheels stuffed with people, people hanging off, people on the roof and people with hammers hammering in loose nails, but the police let us on. they were inspecting it for safety and it had passed the test.

we made makunduchi village after about an hours worth of weaving and bumping highspeed down the road, dodging little children and old men and able bodied men and chickens (and hitting one chicken). hassan took me to his home, a little mud rock and stick build shack with corogated metal roof ten feet by ten feet. we only stopped in to say a quick hello to his sister, who was preparing a lunch. his brother's old motorbike was out back leaning against the house, so we took it, and i drove out into the jungle to search for his father who grows yams. hassan on the back of the bike warned me of the brakes which there were none of as we chugged along a little dirt path deeper and deeper into big green leaves and red dirt and funny little shacks. in front of a shack labeled "new modern barbershop" we stopped, his best friend and football buddy runs a haircutting business here, two old couches, a stereo, hiphop music and a pair of scissors. i was forced into the chair, the young barber was eager to cut "the white man hair" even for "no cost" and so now i have a sort of bowl fade nineteen eighty eight ZANZIBAR prince of belair black man really stupid haircut. we continued on, i convinced everyone that i was fond of the cut, we went to see his grandma next who was busy washing sand off strings of seaweed and gigling with her ancient friends. she runs a seaweed racket, they collect it, clean it, dry it and then ship it off. these four seaweed woman looked to be each over one hundred years old. his father was still nowhere to be found.

on the way back to hassans home, the police came out of nowhere behind us riding fast on a rusty old vespa scooter, two of them, and pulled us over. they did not like the shape of our single helmet that we shared, although it was the only helmet i have seen since coming here, and although neither of these police men were wearing one, they wrote out a ticket for five dollars worth of shilling. hassan went into a fit, suspecting the cops of picking on me for knowing that i was good for the cash, which i was. i thought hassan was going to end up in the pen for the night the way he fought the ticket, but it turns out that out here in the middle of nowhere the police are just old friends with fancy hats who know white kids like me don't mind this sort of thing too much, and who don't mind local kids like hassan getting red in the face a bit. back at his home, his sister brought out a bowl of rice and two bowls of curry. green curry eggplant and onion, and red curry beans of some sort and the best thing i have tasted, so we ate, and bananas for desert from the tree in the yard. we left the house and i was very grateful and we looked around once more for his father before getting back on the bus. as we were loading into the front seat, which hassan had managed to get us through having gone to school with the driver, out of the jungle came running his dad, like a wild monkey, carrying yams and other things. the friendly man was glad to see hassan and gave me the traditional very strange slow motion low-five that is customary here. the bus jolted to a start and we began to depart and hassan's dad came up to the window quick and tossed us up a grilled ear of corn for the journey.

and now i am back in bububu, some strange adventures, zanzibar!

to climb mount kilamanjaro is quite expensive, and safaris are too, because of park permits, so i dont think i will do either. but i have been thinking about buying a motorcycle. they are cheap, i only worry if there are enough fuel stations and places to sleep between here and cape town.

also hassan is twenty three and is on the second division football (soccer) team, a team that the government of zanzibar funds, and buys all of their players a piece of land and a mountain bike.

love jasper

---