Firing Myself in Tanzania

One morning when I was at work in Zanzibar a man came to the front desk and asked, “Is this Dar es Salaam?” His English was heavily bombarded with the tones of his original language and so I assumed I had misheard him. Both of us were foreigners in this space, me from California and he - from somewhere in North-Eastern Asia. The visitor approached the desk while looking around the room the way a child might the first time seeing a life-size replica of T Rex.

I was standing at the entrance to Ngome Kongwe – a fort built in the late 16th century by Omani Arabs to keep out Portuguese intruders. Today this Old Fort is used for the annual Zanzibar International Film Festival. It was still early in the day, most of the patrons were coming to purchase their tickets for that evenings events or to ask questions about upcoming film screenings.

The man blocked the front desk while locals and internationals waited behind him. He repeated the question, to which I informed him to walk to the front door and gaze 40 miles across the sea to the mainland if he wanted to know where Dar es Salaam was. The other ticket sellers smirked in disbelief. It wasn’t as if one could have taken a wrong turn on a freeway and end up in Zanzibar. It took work to get here – you had to either pay extra money to fly to the island or take a two hour ferry boat ride from mainland Tanzania. When I asked him how he had arrived on the island he began to gain a stronger awareness of his surroundings when he asked, “Oh, is this stone city?” Although he got the first word in the name correct, for some reason my working friends and I all bust out in hysterical unison. I tried to hold it together upon informing him that this was “StoneTown” not “stone city”. Had he been kidnapped by pirates and let loose on the shores of this paradise? How had he arrived here? I continued to ask questions but he lost interest and returned to the street.

When I arrived in Zanzibar to attend the cinematographic fair that celebrates the cultures of the Indian Ocean, I had no idea that I would be working, I mean, volunteering there. It all began my first night on the continent of Africa when, despite the fact that I was utterly energyless from a two day journey across three continents, my friend and I had a meeting with the head of the festival for an interview. Even though we assumed we would engage in 30-minute conversation, the festival leader decided to put us to work as jury assistants. When not assisting the jury I was to stand at the Old Fort threshold, collecting shillings from the foreign festival attendees.

Zanzibar, for those of you who do not know, is a semi-autonomous archipelago off the coast of Dar es Salaam. Once it’s own country, in 1964 it joined Tanganyika to form the nation of Tanzania. Zanzibar (Unguja), also known as the spice island is a Swahili speaking isle that attracts global visitors to the film and music festivals held in February and early summer, as well as to the paradisiacal beaches. Last July, at the 11th annual Ziff, I had been put into selling tickets in exchange for a staff pass to the festival. At first it was exciting to work with a group of Swahili speakers, who freaked me out with their rapid fire Swahili that had me convinced my entire year of previous study had been in vain. Every time they began a conversation I begged that they spoke “pole pole” so that I might understand a phrase or two. After I got over the initial nervousness to speak I began to have my first real conversations in Swahili. When not at the desk my new friends would yell at me, “Ashura!” They’d say my Swahili name and tell me to come back to work.

One evening while selling tickets a Tanzanian man asked that I tell someone on his cell phone what was being shown that evening. I gave the description of Theresa Prata’s cinematographic interpretation of Mia Couto’s amazing novel “Sleepwalking Land”. When I asked whom I was talking with the speaker announced that this was “Radio Tanzania”. The host requested my information and the Radio Tanzania liaison had never thought to inform me that I was being broadcasted as I spoke. Later that week when I spoke to the BBC I was prepared!

It was dazzling to have a group of co-workers my first week in a foreign country. Even though it began as a challenge to communicate as I was new to their language and the women I worked with knew only a few phrases of my native tongue, we bonded instantly and they helped me figure out the system of separating the tickets for locals and foreigners and where to stash the money I received, which I was responsible for.

In the first few mornings my friend Agazit and I were called to staff meetings, which we thought sounded cool, but it was a bloody nightmare. There were people from all over the world working for the festival, including a pompous Argentinean who runs Africala in Mexico City. No one seemed to have any clue what their co-workers were doing, each individual was hard pressed to hand off their assignments to the next person. My friend and I were sent to “assist the jury”. At this point I hadn’t seen anything in the country – other than the buildings between the flat where I was staying in town and the Old Fort and the hotels that I had to visit to sort out the problems of the Jury members.

There were 12 jury members in total and each assistant (there were three of us) were assigned to 4 people. First of all, these people didn’t need “assistants”, or maybe that is my independent self talking. When I go to another country - I figure things out on my own. I carry my own bags and figure out what sorts of attractions are available before questioning the people in my host country about where to go. Suggestions, of course, I always ask, but who did these people think they were? Weren’t they capable of taking their bags to the taxi in order to switch hotels? Couldn’t they feed themselves?

Mainly the jury members where sweet hearts, but there was this Princessy British chick who had that kiss-kiss plasticness about her. When she met me she swore that she “knew my work” and complained about everything. We had just arrived in the country and were sent to show the guests around town. This, I thought, was quite hilarious, as I had no clue where anything was. I tried to get assigned to the jury members from Cameroon, Mozambique and Kenya who were nowhere near as demanding as the ones from England and Italy.

A few days into the festival I slipped away unnoticed, with my badge in tow, hoping to see what the city actually looked like. I got lost in the maze of streets, felicitous to find myself outside the fort. Why let the jury members bother me with yet another task I was unable to fulfill? Although my ticket coworkers would ask me why I wasn’t selling any more stubs, they are the only ones I showed my face to. At night, during the screenings, I ducked behind wooden statues and stone walls every time I saw one of the illusive film judges heading my way.