1 day in Zanzibar

Amazing, fantastic pictures.

Beautiful essay.

Wow- thanks so much, Gregor. Your captions helped me learn something about Zanzibar (I knew nothing about the country) and the photos are so powerful. I hope you’ll share more of your work with us here on Matador.

Spectacular. I want to go. Now!

Gorgeous!

Lovely compilation !

Insightful – great pics!

Beautiful images Gregor !

Wow! Incredible. Such deep focus on shot 2. Thanks for sharing these here!

wow, great images here and on your website much more.
I like image #4 is super, wish to visit that place.

Bravo! I know the tense issues you likely faced during the shoot and I high five you for getting it done in a remarkable fashion.. Bravo Bravo Bravo from one professional to another..

Awesome pics! They tell a great story. I can see Zanzibar hooked you. Looks like a photographer’s paradise.

Thanks GR for a great slideshow. Reminds me of my last trip to Zanzibar – it’s really a beautiful place.

@Julie: in fact, Zanzibar is part of Tanzania (the current name of which is actually shortened from the original, more cumbersome name – the “Tanzania and Zanzibar Independant Association” (Tan. Zan. I. A.))

Zanzibar is one of my favourite places on Earth. Such a mix of cultures and a beautiful setting. Off to check out the pics on your website now!

I love your pictures! You capture Zanzibar really well. I spent 4 days there in March 2008 and you bring back so many memories from my trip! Such a gorgeous island! I had to walk out of the fish market, I couldn’t stand the smell and almost dry reached, you are brave to spend enough time in there to take photos.

Gorgeous photos! They increase my desire to see Zanzibar

[...] Tanzania: I didn’t get the sense from Gregor Rohrig’s beautiful Photo Essay: One Day in Zanzibar that the island was in the full moon party bracket. Maybe we should ask him to head back and shoot [...]

Your photographs are beautiful and very expressive, tempting many to want to experience the Island for themselves. However the caption under number 14 that says “[Zanzibar] … was the hub of the slave trade for all of East Africa, and more than one million souls were bought and sold during that time” is nothing less than an ugly missionary propaganda that caused the slaughter of more than 12 thousand innocent Muslims in two days between 11th and 12th January, 1964, by the invading mercenaries from Tanganyika — a month after Zanzibar’s independence from the British — This was followed by imprisonment, torture and disappearance of hundreds more and and exile of thousands of Zanzibaris to other parts of the world.

In East Africa the biggest slave trade was not in Zanzibar but in Mozambique, under the rule of the Portuguese, that is why we have today more than 80 million people of African descent in Brazil alone. Other slave markets existed in Tanganyika and Kenya as well until well into the 20th Century while the sale of slaves to Christians in Zanzibar was halted in 1822 as a result of a treaty between the Sultan Said bin Sultan and the British because of the treatment of African slaves in Europe and the Americas.

Ridiculous figures are thrown around so as to inflate the number of slaves sold in Zanzibar and we are told that millions were shipped to Oman. If so many millions of slaves were sent there, why is the population of Oman right now less than two million and in that population we do not see many people of African descent? Has there been a disappearing act? Save for a few wealthy sheiks, why would anyone in his right mind take a slave to the Arabia desert where food was scarce!

St. Monica Church as well as other missionaries in Zanzibar have started their propaganda against Arabs a long time ago and by the 1930s the slave trade issue into a big moneymaking enterprise; indeed with their propaganda they have scored points against Muslims, but in that process they lost their souls as they became the instigators of and responsible for the massacres that took place in1964 and much of the ugly acts that followed. By the way, please read Jonathon Glassman’s chapter titled “Racial Violence, Universal History and and Echoes of Abolition in Twentieth-Century Zanzibar” in Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic, edited by Derek R. Peterson. Glassman proves beyond any shadow of doubt that the St. Monica with its basement was built long after the slave market was closed in Zanzibar and the basement was for keeping medicines because it was cooler than in rooms above surface.

All the best,
Ibrahim Noor

I am supporting Ibrahim Noor’s point on the deliberate misconceptualization of Zanzibar history. And thi comment “…in fact, Zanzibar is part of Tanzania (the current name of which is actually shortened from the original, more cumbersome name – the “Tanzania and Zanzibar Independant Association” (Tan. Zan. I.A).” from Andrew Farrand dated October 29, 2009
is but one of those misconceptualizations. The name Tanzania does not come from that merge, but from the name Tanganyika (former Tanzania Mainland) and Azania (the east coast of Africa) for the dream of the Union architect was to swallow the whole coast into Tanganyika’s stomach.

`Fresh water is scarce in Zanzibar` You must be kiding there no fresh water in the world like Zanzibar if you bore a hall of three
metres any where in Zanzibar you get fresh water, You know that domestic water is drikble and free of charge, yes free no bills only connection charges you pay and that is it.
What you see is irresponsible Zanzibaris they allow animals to work arround and pulute beaches.

Wonderful pictures. Made me feel quite nostalgic for Zanzibar.

Good day Zanzibaris and Zanzibar-loving people(Wajamaa),

Comment on how ‘Tanzania’ name was created.

I was in Zanzibar during the independence of Tanganyika as well as during the Jan 1964 revolution and the merging( Muungano) of Zanzibar and Tanganyika.
There was a contest ( if my memory seems correct, by the ‘The Nationalist’ newspaper)in April 1964 to suggest a suitable name for this new union.

The popular names floated were: Tangibar,Tanzan.
However, Tanzania was chosen as it was more’Kiswahili’ than others.
This is a factual recollection of events.

Sincerely
Mukesh Gajaria