... and of all the dream you are the only thing I have left.

(In Dar-es-Salaam)

Everybody sat at the airplane and I was still at the boarding gate's security checkpoint.

‘And her? Is she your wife?’ Asks the officer who had been holding me up for the last ten minutes.

‘No, he is too young to marry.’

‘Definitely too young to marry.’ I say.

‘But marriage is a good thing!’ Says the first.

‘Yes, marriage is a good thing,’ I say, putting on my belt.

‘It brings many good things,’ he says.

‘Many good things.’ I say.

‘Marriage brings responsibility,’ he says.

‘Well, responsibility is still a big word for me.’

‘But you can not be the president if you are not married.’

‘And that is all the reasons that I ever needed.’ The airplane staff come to pry me away.

‘My friend, what about your shoes?’ I heard him shouting after me, but I was already too far down the sleeve to answer.

--

(In Gatwick, with security)

‘Oh, I don’t mind. As long as they don’t send me to Guantanamo for too long.’

‘Yeah, well, I hope you have your orange suit ready.’

‘Will I get my one phone call?’

‘Probably not, we take all your rights away.’

--

(In Gatwick, in a police interview with Mr. Abbot)

‘What do you usually use your bag for?’

‘Carrying stuff.’

‘Hmm. Ask a dumb question. And have you been in trouble with the Police in England before?’

Time's up and this is the last post from Vamizi. I want to thank a few people on my way out:

thank you to all the guests that have drunk at the bar - the grumpy ones, the complicated ones, the simple ones, the laid back ones, the flirty ones. I know most of you loved me in the evening and hated me in the morning, and I admit that maybe Jaeger isn't the best drink to have when you're asking to be sobered up.

thank you to all the Vamizi staff, too many to name, who have made my stay here so great - the people at the dive centre, bar, restaurant, kitchen, housekeeping etc and to all of the senior staff. Nobody was just a colleague and everybody was more than a friend.

thank you to all the people who have contributed to the blog - to the critics (Dad, Julia, Mom, Sophia, Tomas and Will) and to the twins and Marsalgado for all the publicity that they did for me. A special thank you to Ines who was there to give me that gentle push over the edge.

thank you to all the readers, from Washington to Bombay, who took their time to read what I wrote.

‘God, if I knew there was a magical, one-eyed, sodomizing vampire out there, I’d be terrified!’ - Eli

The tides are coming up: a wave just swept over this sandcastle’s wall. Eli’s departure yesterday made me realise how close to leaving I am myself - how fast time flew. Four days to go now.

I tried writing about how important he'd been to my time on the island. It ended up sounding like a funeral speech.

All I want to say is that I'll see you soon old man. I'm sure.

Nothing like the sea

--

Kathy the yoga teacher was in the dive center today. She was saying:

'So, now I have to find a yoga instructor for the guest, who's like cousin to the queen -'

'Which queen?' I asked.

'Gosh, I don't know. The queen of England?'

'But I thought she was Indian!'

'The queen of England?' Kathy asked, surprised.

'Guys,' Eli said. 'This was such a stoner moment.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'It's getting blogged.'

Aldeia, Vamizi

--

All the marinheiros were sitting around a torn sail, fixing it. Nuro, leading and watching them, said:

‘Did you hear of what happened in Pemba back in 2004? There is this madala, this old man. Two robbers went into his house, right? They checked it out and they stole his suitcase and three small wooden cases, all carved up like they do them in Moeda. They thought there’d be gold in them, or jewels or coins. They get home and they open them up. Moment they open the first case, a huge wind starts blowing - howling! They close the case and it stops. Then they open the second case, and rain starts pouring down. When they opened the third case, this storm hits, - what do you call storms?’

‘Ladu.’

‘Yeah, ladu. Thunders flying everywhere. So they closed all the cases and went to the police station and said: I’m sorry, we’re robbers and we took these cases from the madala and this is what happened. When the police came for him he looked them dead in the eyes and said ‘if you take me to prison, I swear that it will rain every single day until my sentence is served.’ They had to let him go. Some guys are ‘manning fodidos’ like that.’ (untranslatable)

The rainbirds have been singing for two days now. Today, it rained, hard and heavy. The sky turned black. The sea turned grey.

Rainbirds never lie.

Where have you gone?

--

There was a magazine at the office. The words ‘Stressed out?’ were heavily circled, an article on an ‘Emergency anti-anxiety eating plan’. On the same cover, two other articles considered ‘is 5 a day enough to fight cancer?’ and ‘Swine Flu: are we facing another health crisis?’

Seems to me the source of your stress is probably all that reading you’ve been doing.

Someone else's island

--

I feel like I’m in a real great point in my life. During my last couple of years, I felt a bit like the motorcycle boy. But now, I want to do everything. The list is endless. I have so many stupid ideas.

Nothing lasts forever.

Never.

My god is better than your god

--

‘Tell me, Jack-’

‘Yes, Leo?’

‘What was that subsidiary I had to let go of the other day?’

‘Wasn’t it The Island, sir?’

‘Oh yes, that was the one. Fetched a very decent price too.’

I am too easily impressed by the wealthy, I bask in their glorious presence in a sort of giddy idolatry. When under these spells, I tend to forget what a funny race rich people really are.

Don't go to Heaven by yourself

--

‘That is life,’ said the pilot with his thick French accent.

‘C’est la vie!’ We all translated for him, laughing. We didn't do it in chorus but we were not far off.

‘Or we have another saying: ‘life is a mess. La vie est un bordel.’

'Life is a brothel?'

'Ah, yes.'

‘So true. And sometimes you work in the brothel, and sometimes you go in it with the money.’

Philosophy, in different languages. There was more to this dialogue but it trailed off into sexual analogies too graphic to be published.

My parents came over last week, this post is all theirs:

My mum and my bad sunglasses: two very important assets in my life.

Kissing Kingfish

--

‘I just don’t want you to go crazy, you know? Living in an island, detached from everything, takes its toll on you.’

‘Ha! Dad, I survived three years in Hull, I can survive anything.’

‘You survived?’ He asked, skeptical eyebrows raised.

‘You did your time,’ my mother said, ‘but I think it did some damage. You didn’t come out unscathed - or unchanged.’

'Thanks for getting my shoe,' was all Cinderella said.

It was the first time she spoke to me. It was the last time too.

--

(We're all just) Passing by

Rashid in 'House of Fine Art'

(Was it Oscar Wilde who said 'Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth'?)

--

Rashid is a third generation Zanzibarian, of Indian descent. He told me he did three things:

"I sell African art, I dream, and I write." Mostly, he writes about his dreams. Short sentences that he comes up with in his deepest sleep. He used to have his writings pinned to the walls of his shop, all over the place. But people kept trying to buy them, and he'd just let them take it. He gave all his writings away. He talks against those who milk tourists.

"They say 'antiques from Zanzibar' but it is not true. We have no masks here, no statues. And they try to sell ironwork as 'authentic Zanzibar silver'. We have no silver. They buy a whole set back in India - rings, necklace, earrings of fake silver for five dollars. And then they sell just one ring for fifty, as Zanzibar antique. Why don't they say it is from India? It is from Arabia?"

"They are making money," I say. He looks at me hurt, like he wasn't expecting me to state the obvious.

"They are making much shillings, but it will soon go away. Me? I am making little shillings, but it will last a long time. And I tell you something. We were all born to die. Why not die well?"

Somebody call a doctor, this disease is killing me.

On that note,

"nobody lives for ever."

(Pictures from This Isn't Happiness - isn't that ironic?)

The Anglican Christ Church Cathedral

"You're now standing at the former slave market site, the world's last open slave market and notorious place, where slaves from East and Central Africa regions were bought and sold. [...]

The Cathedral stands exactly on the site of the former slave market and the high altar marks the location of the old whipping post." (Sign outside Cathedral entrance)

--

I was told to sit down outside a random curio shop. Ali, the Lebanese, was resting on a sculpted bench as his daughters discovered new uses for the Masai weapons sold there. The owner of the shop watched helplessly.

"You must feel really guilt," Ali told me. His eyes were amber and deep - not unlike an old lion's. "What you Portuguese, the English, the Spaniards did here was horrible. And then you say it is some Arab sheik's fault. No Arab has founded a country on the shoulders of slaves. All of you did. But now you have machines, you don't need the slaves any more. You discard them - and their memory. Can you throw away the guilt so easily? - In the end, we will all be judged. It is a matter of days, now, not years."

And don't I know it.

--

'Thank you for getting my shoe,' was all Cinderella could say and truly it made for a curious farewell.

From Postsecret

--

Stonetown is a maze, confusing and chaotic and impossible to navigate. For three days I wandered/wondered having no clue where I was going. If I tried to reach somewhere, I'd have to walk for hours, in circles. If I doubled back on myself, I would never end up where I started. Every morning I felt I knew it a little bit better, that that day would be different. It never was.

--

Ali's Alley

Threshold

--

'My friend, are you lost?' Somebody asked me in the street and I smiled. Everybody in Stonetown is lost, in one way or another. But I wasn't, not just then. How could I be lost if I had nowhere to go?

Captain Jackson and his seafood stand

Sugar Cane Juice

In the Market

--

I was sitting at the fountain, watching the people at the night-market and noticed that my silent shadow, my little mute companion who had sat next to me and watched me for an hour, had disappeared. I could not tell if he had been gone long.

No later than I realised he was missing, he came back with a wallet in his hand. He sat by my side, counted the money and smiled a devilish grin.

Let’s call him Aladdin.

Late One Night:

“In Stonetown, you a’safe.” Said Fuahim, the Rastafari, as he led me through the city’s alleys, late one night. “You walk here, a tourist is like a king or queen. This is paradise, man. I want you to know nobody can touch you and I want you to go home and announce it. Know what I mean? Here, we are all friends. No enemies, man. If I touch you and you scream 'thief' I will be killed by the people right here on the street. Need some ganja my friend? I can set you very local prices.”

Doors of Zanzibar:

In Zanzibar, new doors and a few old doors feel smooth, as smooth as the first day they were carved. But the most impressive doors are those old, weathered doors with a million cracks, dented and sliced. Beauty is never found in perfection.

Richard's head popped over the cantina's ledge.

'Are you ready?'

'Ready for what?'

'The plane's going after all. Are you ready?'

'No, brew, I haven't even packed!'

'The plane's leaving in fifty-three minutes and you're sitting there having lunch?'

Chessire Smile (That old devil moon)

--

I've been grounded. Plane's been rerouted. That's the last time I announce anything on the blog.

(-Famous Last Words)

Two halves of one sky

--

It is time for me to leave the island again. There's something very familiar about departures. It's not the packing, and it's not where you're going or when you're coming back. It's a special, cold, biting freedom. It's a sublime vertigo that is in the raising of the anchors and the unfurling of the sails; in boarding the plane or catching the train.

I'll be going tomorrow, but I won't take long.

‘Brew, I always used to say I wouldn’t live past 27. I meant it to. Now, now I figure I’m living on borrowed time.’

We all are, I suppose.

"I demand Euphoria!" by Bill Watterson

"Incidentally..." by Charles Schulz

‘Like Anna [Karenina], he felt torn between two contradictory forces – between a sense of vitality which grasps at life (Anna was ‘too eager to live’), and a sense of life’s pointlessness and tragedy.’ Marshall on Leo Tolstoy in Demanding the Impossible

You came to me this morning and you handled me like meat.

You’d have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet.

My mirrored twin, my next of kin,

I’d know you in my sleep and who but you would take me in,
a thousand kisses deep.

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat,

you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet,

who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique,

with all he is, and all he was,
A thousand kisses deep.

I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat,

to pose all hot and high behind the veils of shear deceit,

our perfect porn aristocrat so elegant and cheap,

I’m old but I’m still into that,
A thousand kisses deep.

I’m good at love, I’m good at hate, its in between I freeze.

Been working out, but its too late, it’s been too late for years.

But you look good, you really do, they love you on the street.

If I could move I’d kneel for you,
a thousand kisses deep.

The autumn moved across your skin, got something in my eye,

a light that doesn’t need to live, and doesn’t need to die.

A riddle in the book of love, obscure and obsolete,

until witnessed there in time and blood,
A thousand kisses deep.

And I'm still working with the wine, still dancing cheek to cheek,

the band is playing Auld Lang Syne, but the heart will not retreat.

I ran with Diz and I sang with Ray, I never had their sweep,

but once or twice they let me play
A thousand kisses deep.

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat,

y'see I'm just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet,

who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique,

with all he is, and all he was,
A thousand kisses deep.

But you don’t need to hear me now,

and every word I speak, it counts against me anyhow,

A thousand kisses deep.

-Leonard Cohen

Apocalypse Now

--

‘Rashid, welcome back. How was your holiday?’

‘It was normal. I left my house because my wife was too pregnant. Also, my daughter was afflicted by demons. You know, the Satanadas? But we hired the curandeiras to dance around her for two days and she got a bit better.’

We, Three Kings

(Stewart King, Eli Lang and me)

--

Hand held high above my head, I broke to the surface. We swam towards each other, spit out our regulators, removed our masks.

‘That is definitely a dive spot,’ Eli said. A dive spot nobody had dived before.

‘What shall we call it?’ I asked, back on the boat.

‘There were those three hills down there, and there’s the three of us, I reckon the three kings, or maybe three hills.’ Stewart said.

‘I like the three kings,’ Eli agreed.

Though with no crown to show for it, we were all made kings today, and there’s a throne for each one of us on the bottom of this sea.

Celebrating two months of Barefoot Luxury

(it's not about the luxury)

--

‘You’re going to become an alcoholic, man,’ said the manager, with a disgruntled, hopeless sigh as he threw himself onto the couch. The abstinent yoga teacher was present so I contained the urge to say thank you. ‘Tell me something,' he said, 'what do you want to do with your life?’

‘To live it,’ I said. His jaw slackened and tightened, repeatedly. He chewed on my words, tasting them.

‘That’s a pretty good answer,’ he conceded, at last.

"What the -?"

--

I saw a python wrapped around a little bird the other day. It ate it whole. I had half expected it to spit a few feathers out, like Sylvester would, but it didn’t even give the bird that satisfaction.

I was reminded of this helpless little bird when I read the news today.

(Hey kid,)Don't get lost in heaven

--

‘A desperate man does desperate things’ said Richard only just missing the famous line. ‘And I am desperate. I walk by the kitchen. I can smell the bacon, I can hear the bacon, I can see all those lovely strips of bacon. But I can’t touch it and I can’t taste it. A month without bacon! At night I lie in bed and my head spends hours making plans.' It was Thursday and he had been talking about bacon for about a week.

Yesterday Richard ate a bacon sandwich and can now sleep again.

'They can't possibly have drunk this much...'

(Stock-take, the next morning)

--

God gave us hangovers so we could tell the difference between a good and a bad night.

Like a Stranger, Doors of Perception

A Weaver, weaving

--

Guests often ask me if I could live in an island like this forever. If there’s nothing that I miss about civilization.

I miss television, supermarkets and shopping malls.

(Like a boat that can't sail)

--

‘You are only jealous,’ Paulo, diver, said.

‘No, bro, I’m not jealous,’ Pic, human resources, replied.

‘You are man. I have a job that I love. I live like I want to. No stress. I have food, alcohol, a bed and the ocean here. Women at the village when I want. You spend your days in the office and your nights watching Tv.’

‘You mustn’t brag so much. That all ends if you die.’

‘So what? I could die today, no regrets, no remorse. When I die, I die. I had a good run while I was in the game.’