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Piko in Paje – ancient Swahili lady lessons on pleasure and pain
“Siri ya mtungi aijuae kata.” The secret of the water pitcher is only known by its ladle. — Swahili proverb Where did you learn about sex ? I mean, not just about sex, but about pleasure? My sex...
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Alphabet power and orthographic ghosts: The short story of Swahili script
In Swahili, uhai means “life.” In Hebrew, it’s chai. In Arabic, it’s haiya. So there it is, life itself braided into three languages entangled with my own history as an American Jew strangely drawn to...
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Stitched secrets, public poetics: My obsession with kanga text/iles in East...
Nipende Kwa Nia Nipate Kutulia/Love Me So I Can Calm Down Already Some people think it was my love for a certain local fisherman that brought me back to Zanzibar. True, I did fall in love. But it was...
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Maji, maji, where’s my maji? Living with Zanzibar’s severe water crisis
Zanzibar Water Well, 1908 I just had another flurry of rude text message exchanges with my landlord, Mohammed. The subject? Maji. (Water). No running water now for days. No shower. No cooking. No...
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Flies and Floods: a Jewish passover in Zanzibar
Mah Nishtana Halailah Hazeh? Why is this night different from all other nights? Maybe because I was celebrating the Jewish holiday of Passover on the predominantly Muslim island of Zanzibar. As far as...
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Occupy Stone Town, Zanzibar?
I should be working right now. But I am preoccupied by the occupations. All around the world, from New York City to Rome, Boston to Barcelona, Miami to Moscow, every day citizens have organized to...
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Speaking truth to power
When we listen to our favorite musicians, click on a Youtube video, share a link, float on a sound cloud from one good song to the next, we don’t usually think about what it took to make that song...
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Changing Stories, Stories for Change
We know a good story can change us. But can our stories really change society? Writers, poets, journalists, arts educators, and cultural activists based in and around Dar es Salaam, Tanzania convened...
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