Escapade 8-The Muslim Woman

I must admit that I have spoken with very few African Muslim woman from Zanzibar in my life.  I know that must come as a shock to everyone, but it is true.  This particular Muslim woman both confirmed and refuted many my  beliefs.  First of all, she was divorced, happily so.  I imagined this to be a rare feat here, until she added that her mother has been divorced five times and her grandmother....nine.  And "no," neither are Zanzibar movie stars.  She married very young and years later realized her mistake and applied for a divorce, very similar to how it's done in America.  I was shocked, believing that this occured very rarely here and that perhaps only the husband could petition for the divorce.  In fact, her husband refused at first, before realizing he had no choice. 

It was truly refreshing and amazing to hear a women from this culture speak so openly about her life.  I even took her out for her first Chinese meal at Pagoda Chinese in Stone Town to hear more about her life.  A while back, her mother and her opened a cooperative, owned and opperated by woman.  They began with three seamstresses and now employ almost fifty woman, giving them a place to work for themselves in a country where this is very rare.  The sew (or stitch or weave-I'm not sure which is which) pillow cases for the most part, but also dresses, bags and assorted other items.  After visiting her shop, I learned that each woman receives 20% of the money when one of her items is sold.  The rest goes into the business itself.  The women there seemed very happy to have the opportunity to work such a place.  It was a home away from home for them.

The Muslim woman later spoke about her life in a society dominated by men.  She began to speak about the difficulty in finding a nice Muslim man in Zanzibar, as I went into rabbinic mode to comfort her.  I told her not to worry.  I explained that it really had nothing to do with Muslim men-All men are like that I assured her.  My rabbinic skills must be rusty, because it didn't seem to help for some reason.

She certainly opened my eyes to the realities of Muslim society here.  She had really decided that she didn't want to marry again, because she would more than likely now be a second, third or even fourth wife.  It would be like starting over again as a young person, and she didn't want to be regulated to that role.  I admitted that I didn't want to be a second wife either, but that I was a little hurt that I hadn't received any offers to be one though.  It's always nice to be asked. 

On an island that is almost exclusively Muslim, it really was interesting to hear a bit about the inner workings in their socieity. 

The next day, I went on a spice tour of the island.  Zanzibar at one time was the spice trading center for East Africa and Arabia, and so we walked along a tourist spice plantation as guides showed us the different spices used for export and internal use.  Surprisingly, the roots, leaves, bark, and fruit truly smelled like some of the products we use in the U.S.  I can't remember the names of the spices, as I don't use any of them in my cooking or eating.

Several people had mentioned a private island off the northeast coast of Zanzibar, where the water was just fabulously blue.  So, I headed out early the next morning for Nungwi, a beach resort town on the northern tip of Zanizibar, where I would immediately catch a boat to go snorkeling by Mnemba, a private island used by people such as Bill Gates, when they want to get away from it all.