TIA Brother by Sir John Swärd

The journey to Zan Zibar was a quite comfortable one. Me and my family flew to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya via London from Stockholm. From Kenya we got on to a small charming propeller aircraft who flew us to the small, aged airport of Zanzibar.


There is only a two hour difference between Zanzibar and Sweden, something wich makes the trip a whole lot easier since you don't have to turn the entire day around. However when we first arrived we were all very tired, not just only from the flight but also from the one and a half hour drive on unmade road. And belive me when I say unmade road, there were 1,5 meter deep wholes in the "road" filled with water. No ordinary car could last on those roads more then a week. It is still a mystery for me of how we managed to get to the hotel. But I guess it's what they say TIA (This Is Africa). But don't get me wrong, I love it.


We stayed at a small hotel in a village by the beach, the views were nothing less but stunning. The turquoise water, the palm trees, the finly ground sand and ofcourse, the hammocks. However this is not what made Zanzibar so special to me. The thing that made Zanzibar so fantastic to me is the genuineness of the society and the people, the people are all so very friendly and kindhearted.



The night of the second day I decided to find a place to play football. After a five minute walk I found it. The field consisted of washstands as goalposts and a rope as the crossbar. Somehow I asked them to play even though I didn't speak the langauge, but again, it's what they say, football is the language that everyone speaks and I couldn't agree more. We played there every day at five a clock until seven when it was praying time.

The next day when I walked into the village, everyone stared shouting something. I looked around to see why when I realized they were shouting my name! I had become one of them, for the next week I socialized with the people in the village. And we became very good friends.

We did all sorts of stuff and they even brought me home to their houses. When we left the last day I have me "best friend" my football shoes as a thank you.

Unfortunatly there are cons aswell. The food and the service was terrible. You order a coke and fifteen minutes later you get a beer. You note the misstake, but there was no idea since thewaitor/waitress were stoned! (TIA) :p. The chefs were probably high too since the food tasted awfull and all of us got food poisned.

Nonetheless Zanzibar is a wonderfull place, trust me.



After a week we took the one hour drive down to Stonetown, the "capital" of Zanzibar. It looked like Stonetown hadn't changed since the conoliaismen. The houses were all very old, but beautiful nonetheless. We hired a "local" guide, ofcourse high, but good anyway. He guided us through Stonetown and showed us everything including the house where legendary singer Freddie Mecury was born.



Finally, Zanzibar is, as mentioned, a wonderful place and I strongly recomend you to go there if you want adventure and genuinity.



TIA bro. Peace out.