kwanza … on the first day treat your guest like a king; to rice and meat. Of course, on the tenth day, when he’s overstayed his welcome, with kicks and blows chuck him out. It is our first day, and he’d love to feed us. We’ve had lunch. The invitation is politely refused, with a profusion of thanks.
At one time, there used to live and trade here nine Shamsi and seven Bhatia families, the two rival communities on either side of the swamp. Diwali and Idd were celebrated jointly and with great pomp, with processions, dances and feasts; surely a sign, as any, of prosperity and stability. The trade in gum and hides was brisk. To the south, about fifteen miles away at Kitmangau, was another similarly prosperous settlement of Asians. The caravans from Kilwa stopped for rest at either of these two stations, transforming the already busy scene into a bustling one …
Perhaps the only visible signs of that period are the ruins of a building, away from the main village. The roof is gone, as are most of the walls. Close by is a huge mbuyu tree, and behind, an old grass-grown cemetery with a few rounded remains of headstones. It is the part of the village no one ever goes to; there is at least one ghost resident there. An eerie feeling descends upon the whole town as grey twilight, grimmaghrab, approaches. Then the sun is behind the trees and the sea is dark—but not silent. It is a time that invokes fear in the young and inspires prayer from the old. Mbuyu trees abound in that area. And who doesn’t know the mbuyu, the huge mbuyu with its shade like a cool room under the burning sun, but alas picked by solitary djinns, especially of the variety who like to pray, for their special abode? You would not dare to pass under it at maghrab, lest you step on the sensitive shadow of the ethereal one and are turned into an albino, if nothing worse. And only the most ignorant or the most obtuse would stop to urinate in its inviting shade and risk letting loose a stream on that stern soul as it kneels in pious obeisance. The wrath of such a defiled djinn is terrible. Sometimes at night, at exactly midnight, it was said that you could hear the footsteps of someone walking on the road in that village. No mortal is around at that ungodly hour. My young grandmother Moti, sleepless in her lonely bed, would quietly lower one hand from the sheets, pick up a chappal and smack the floor once, twice with it. The footsteps would recede, hurrying away. I have often wondered: did she ever stop to enquire, before giving up hope, if the approaching footsteps were those of her husband’s ghost returning?
The building used to be the Shamsi mosque. In 1912, one December morning at five-thirty, Mukhi Dhanji Govindji left the mosque and set out for his house. He took a diversion to walk by the beach, as was his custom, lingered at the water for a while, looking out into the ocean: waves beat on the shore, the sun was rising on the horizon, the fishermen were preparing to set out. Having cast his customary glance at the elemental vastness, as though his earlier meditations at the mosque were not quite enough, he turned inland, walking along the street. It was still dark in the village. As he approached the house, men leapt out from an alley, carrying curved Arab daggers and, going behind him and in front of him, stabbed him in the stomach, in the arms, the chest, the back. He did not have time tocall out. A little later he was found by a vendor of breakfast delicacies who was preparing to set out from house to house, calling out her first “Eeeeeeeeeh vitumbuaaaaaaa!” Seeing the man crumpled up at the side of the road, blood and all, she ran up and down the street in panic, crying, “Aaiiiii! Sharriffu has been killed!”
The murderers were not found. The crime was attributed to three men who, it was said, had camped outside the village, or at a neighbouring village, committed their deed at dawn and gone back to Dar.
A few years before, the Shamsi
At one time, there used to live and trade here nine Shamsi and seven Bhatia families, the two rival communities on either side of the swamp. Diwali and Idd were celebrated jointly and with great pomp, with processions, dances and feasts; surely a sign, as any, of prosperity and stability. The trade in gum and hides was brisk. To the south, about fifteen miles away at Kitmangau, was another similarly prosperous settlement of Asians. The caravans from Kilwa stopped for rest at either of these two stations, transforming the already busy scene into a bustling one …
Perhaps the only visible signs of that period are the ruins of a building, away from the main village. The roof is gone, as are most of the walls. Close by is a huge mbuyu tree, and behind, an old grass-grown cemetery with a few rounded remains of headstones. It is the part of the village no one ever goes to; there is at least one ghost resident there. An eerie feeling descends upon the whole town as grey twilight, grimmaghrab, approaches. Then the sun is behind the trees and the sea is dark—but not silent. It is a time that invokes fear in the young and inspires prayer from the old. Mbuyu trees abound in that area. And who doesn’t know the mbuyu, the huge mbuyu with its shade like a cool room under the burning sun, but alas picked by solitary djinns, especially of the variety who like to pray, for their special abode? You would not dare to pass under it at maghrab, lest you step on the sensitive shadow of the ethereal one and are turned into an albino, if nothing worse. And only the most ignorant or the most obtuse would stop to urinate in its inviting shade and risk letting loose a stream on that stern soul as it kneels in pious obeisance. The wrath of such a defiled djinn is terrible. Sometimes at night, at exactly midnight, it was said that you could hear the footsteps of someone walking on the road in that village. No mortal is around at that ungodly hour. My young grandmother Moti, sleepless in her lonely bed, would quietly lower one hand from the sheets, pick up a chappal and smack the floor once, twice with it. The footsteps would recede, hurrying away. I have often wondered: did she ever stop to enquire, before giving up hope, if the approaching footsteps were those of her husband’s ghost returning?
The building used to be the Shamsi mosque. In 1912, one December morning at five-thirty, Mukhi Dhanji Govindji left the mosque and set out for his house. He took a diversion to walk by the beach, as was his custom, lingered at the water for a while, looking out into the ocean: waves beat on the shore, the sun was rising on the horizon, the fishermen were preparing to set out. Having cast his customary glance at the elemental vastness, as though his earlier meditations at the mosque were not quite enough, he turned inland, walking along the street. It was still dark in the village. As he approached the house, men leapt out from an alley, carrying curved Arab daggers and, going behind him and in front of him, stabbed him in the stomach, in the arms, the chest, the back. He did not have time tocall out. A little later he was found by a vendor of breakfast delicacies who was preparing to set out from house to house, calling out her first “Eeeeeeeeeh vitumbuaaaaaaa!” Seeing the man crumpled up at the side of the road, blood and all, she ran up and down the street in panic, crying, “Aaiiiii! Sharriffu has been killed!”
The murderers were not found. The crime was attributed to three men who, it was said, had camped outside the village, or at a neighbouring village, committed their deed at dawn and gone back to Dar.
A few years before, the Shamsi
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