Que?

I have no idea if that's how it's spelt but Althea and I just met Manuel from Fawlty Towers in a cafe just across the road from here in Chagga St. He's short and utterly inept, but comically inept, so it didn't really matter. When we arrived Althea asked him for rice and lentils, so he went through their entire rice repertoire (wali kuku, wali beef, wali etc etc) three times before he finally understood what she wanted; methinks he might be a tad deaf. Wali kuku seemed to be his favourite, so I asked for that rather than go through the whole rigmarole (sp?) one more time. Later, Althea asked for a Sprite, so he turned to me:

"Soda?"
"Sprite."
"Maji?" ("Water?")
"Sprite."
"Okay."

Ten minutes later he comes back with a bottle of water and no Sprite. Then he has to disappear across the road again for two Sprites.

Not so funny was the man in the Internet cafe this morning. There were lots of virus messages coming up on the computer, and I ended up losing what I wrote. Then when I told him he just said there are no viruses (or should that be viri?) on his system. Prat.

Anyway, what I lost bore some resemblance (albeit vague) to the following:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!! How am I going to cope when I go home?! I'm going to wonder why I get funny looks when I greet random people on the street/haggle at supermarket checkouts/come out with one of many Swahili catchphrases. Yesterday I helped Ian (who has been a volunteer in Uganda) buy his ferry ticket in Zanzibar, and I kept repeating the prices to him in Swahili, forgetting that he doesn't understand.

Continued all this week to look around the souvenir shops in Stone Town. On Thursday afternoon we stepped out of Zanzibar Gallery, a very interesting yet extortionate shop at the start of what I like to called Tourist Alley, when we were approached by a couple of men hoping to be helpful (and hence, be paid for it). They explained to us what we knew already: namely, that Zanzibar Gallery is obscenely expensive and you can get much better value elsewhere. So naturally, we spent the next half an hour annoying one of them by going in every expensive-looking shop we came across, and ignoring many of his suggestions.

Eventually we lost him by spending an hour in one of the curio shops towards the end of the alley. I can't remember what it's called but it boasts the most impressive array of crap I have ever encountered. A knife-lover's paradise, it was also home to some very interesting piggy banks. They were the head and shoulders of a broadly-smiling black man, with his arm out infront. You put your coin on the hand, and then press a lever on the back; the arm tips the coin into the mouth (which opens) and his eyes roll back in his head. If you turn the little fellow round to look at his back, you see in proud white capital letters: "THE JOLLY NIGGER BANK". A real find (no, I didn't buy it).

On Wednesday evening we went to Mercury's (named after Freddie, who was born in Zanzibar). Nice, but a bit pricey; the menu includes a short history of his life (not for sale - it's actually written in the front page), at the end of which is the statement: "Courtesy of the Queen". That was nice of her.

I bumped into Angry Man in Forodhani Gardens again on Monday evening - he seemed much more cheerful this time but told me to "remember this face". I don't think I'm going to forget now. He was much friendlier again when I bumped into him repeatedly yesterday morning down Tourist Alley, too. Especially when I told him I was leaving (just kidding).

Picked my stuff up from Vende's house this morning - he says he lives "in the city" but it's actually some way out, albeit in a very nice area; he is Chagga, after all (the tribe from Kilimanjaro region: you always find them where there's money).

Hannah and I came up with another good t-shirt idea today (the ailments one died because there isn't enough time and it's too complicated). We thought we'd counter the constant approaches of flycatchers and taxi drivers who shout, "Hello, my friend!" by having a t-shirt reading "**** off, my friend" on the front and, I thought later, "I SAID **** OFF!!" on the back. What do you think?