Downtown Pongwe

Seeing as we hadn't had the chance to see much of the real life of Zanzibar outside our walks around Old Town, we decided to ask our hotel host to walk us around the nearest village.

Pongwe, to the north east, is a small village still mostly deviated from the tourist itinerary of the island and was an interesting view of how the everyday zanzibari lives.

This was a place very different from the urban Stone Town. With dirt roads, roaming chickens and goats through the open backyards and lack of any commercial activity, this was something else.

Ali, our guide, explained to us that he had lived there for many years since moving from Dar Es Salaam and introduced us to some of the people in the village.

Uninvited, we showed up at somebody's home and were received with broad smiles and the invitation to share some potato and cassava. People here are kind, they enjoy sharing and were happy to have us hang around and ask questions about the way of living.

In Pongwe things move slowly and most of the economical activities either revolve around the sea or around the up and coming tourist industry.

The women farm seaweed and sell it by the kg for many kinds of applications. It implies caring daily for the seaweed or mwani which is farmed by the shoreline on the low tide, an activity which means working around the tides and walking far in the muddy and rocky low tide beach floor. For less than 40 cents of a dollar per kg, the women also carry the fresh seaweed to the shore and dry it until it is ready to be sold. According to the locals this is a good activity for the women as there are very few other jobs to be had and this allows them to have a steady income which is complementary to the daily chores around the house.

The men, on the other hand, mostly fish at night using traditional boats called “dhow” and are expected to bring home a considerable part of the income generated. It is perhaps due to this dysphasia in the hours of work that during the day only women appear to be working while the men are mostly relaxing at home or someplace cool.

Pongwe, despite being a small town, does indeed have its own primary school which we decided to visit.

Though limited in resources, this Islamic school had properly built school rooms complete with roofs, blackboards and school chairs that reminded me of the historical chairs my mother told me about from the 60's in Portugal. An encouraging sight which was made further nice by the great big football field by the school. These children can both learn and play which is a step ahead of many others.

Tourism however, was definitely beginning to bloom in this village and we decided to confer with some locals by the corner shop about what this meant for them.

With new jobs opening up at hotels and homestays around the village and several constructions requiring local labour already initiated, tourism seems to be welcomed by all, especially at a time when the little existing volume is reduced due to the pandemic.

I myself come from a place which has been bursting with newly found tourist jobs and often think about how some of the private beauty has been lost for good and exchanged by foreign capital.

All in all, Pongwe was all of the slow paced little town which it had promised to be. With locals living mostly from traditional sources of income and life not rushing anybody.

I hope to one day return and see if and how the growing tourism has changed this place and whether all will be happy with what is to come.