Keram is a popular game in Tanzania. İt is like square snooker table with cloth pockets at each corner. Rules are also similar to snooker. Cameraman, my little friend Musa.
Seaweed and Shellfish
At low tide, the wide beach provides for the local industry – seaweed farming – during the day you can see women and children pick the young weed. The seaweed is loaded into heavy sacks and carried up the beach to dry. It is then sent for processing in a nearby factory and made into many products for export. You can also see shellfish collectors at low tide, little families gather at low tide to scrabble in the sand for cockles and small shellfish.
Fishing, Coconut and Fire Wood:
For the most part, the men fish; in their beautiful and practical dhows (see Fishermen blog post). The villagers have another important resource – the coconut palms that are such a feature of Zanzibar. Every scrap of the coconut palm is used – from the leaves, which are woven into walls and roofs, to the husks (buried in mounds on the seashore to mature, and then processed into hemp for ropes etc.) and of course the nut itself which is a valuable source of nutrition.
The villages inside the island mainly depend on fire wood collecting, they load their motorcycles and sell them. They also earn from farming agricultural products.
There are many children around, they are all curious and come to you. They are the real colours of the island. Unfortunately diseases like HIV/AIDS are leaving kids orphaned and in charge of their households at very young ages.
Jambo!!!
There are many ways to say hello in so many languages, to me, this is the best. You already start to smile when you are saying it. İt is a strange thing here if you walk by someone without a "Jambo!"
Religion:
Most of the people in Zanzibar are Muslims and all towns and villages have mosques. Visitors to Zanzibar Town cannot fail to hear the evocative sound of the muezzins calling people to payer from the minarets. There are also small populations of Christians and Hindus. However, since these people living with nature, not stucked in the cities like most of us, religion does not have a predominant affect in daily life. Nobody is interested in your religion. However for photographers, better ask the old people before photographing them, they mostly don't like to be photographed and get aggressive if you do so. I had a problem in stone town.
İf you see children, just go and approach them, they will welcome you with smiley faces.
A dancing class on the beach at the sun set: