Zanzibar.

We’ve been walking for 20 minutes along a blazing hot freshly tarmac-ed road toward what most would describe as a roadside shack.  Now drenched mostly in sweat but emboldened by the prospect of a noon meal, we wash our hands from an orange water cooler just a meter from the side of the road, all dust covered from the passing traffic.  The blacktop drops off abruptly on both sides to deep red dusty soil and a row of similar shacks clustered together tightly and divided by corrugated steel or make-shift potato sack fabric, or for that matter anything else that could be used to segregate one shack from the other.  The roof, should you be so gracious to call it one, is stretched fabric over a coarse lumber frame.  We look for an open table, others occupied by locals of varying professions--a group of young, local men from a scuba diving school, some taxi drivers, and couple of female backpackers. We find an open table and consider ourselves lucky to be out of the oppressive sunlight from a cloudless sky, but unfortunately also devoid of any sort of breeze. It's forever a balancing act to find “the best” table here.  But it’s above 100 degrees Fahrenheit so any shade is welcome.

Our table is a white, plastic, pre-formed table with a shiny blue plastic tablecloth, all ripped along the edges and still alerting us to a previous diner’s meal with a scattering of food remnants. A bit of rice, something greasy and an empty clear plastic glass without a straw. The chairs are either the same molded white plastic “Made in China” stackers ubiquitous worldwide, or some makeshift wooden benches, painted blue but long since faded and filthy. Someone comes along and abruptly wipes our table “clean.”  The rag looks dingier than the tablecloth.

Since it is our fourth straight day of attending this roadside restaurant, Mama Africa, a tall, proud Zanzibari woman with a serious gaze, nods and smiles ever so slightly as we sit and scan our surroundings.  I don’t recall her features much because her personality is far outmatched by our server of our last three meetings.  She enjoys serving us (I think) only because we always leave a bit more than the bill when we pay, but I’m beginning to think it might be something else.  Is it simply because we are a novelty, or perhaps she enjoys her job? I ponder this just long enough for her to complete her rounds delivering--methodically--another table’s meal.

She approaches our table slowly, her shoulders effortlessly in a pose of perfect posture, one that would make any mother proud. She is not old, but she looks old.  Perhaps 25 or 30, and nearly emaciated her face is hidden from my eyes because as she bends at the waist, again deliberately, she acknowledges my wife first, places both elbows and forearms fully down on the table and now turns her face to me.  Her lips are thin and crimpled but with ease and ever so gradually, a grin to a wide smile materializes and her lips become taunt, displaying her fluoride-stained teeth. It is such a captivating smile.  It is no fault of her own that her teeth are stained brown like a slab of white marble with brown veins running through.  We learn it is because the tap water on the island has a high fluoride content. Her smile is so wide, so out of proportion with her slim face and so complete in its sincerity, it may be the most striking I’ve seen in decades.  She fixes me with that warm stare I’ve become accustomed to every day since I arrived on the island, and awaits, without so much as a single word, for us to speak first.  There is no rush in her stare, never mind that all the tables are full.  I order the same exact meal I have for days in a row.  Chicken Pilau. It is something of legends.

Zanzibar has an illustrious history and since I am no historian, I will not attempt to recount it.  Suffice to say it was a major trading route for spices for 400 years.  And so, I have tried several times to emulate this recipe as best as possible, although humbly acknowledging no competition with Mama Africa’s.  I can only hope you enjoy it as much as I do.