Went to Stone Town to fix my broken iPhone. The driver’s car broke too so we got it fixed at a mechanic in the scorching sun. Then this guy called Abdullah unscrewed the dozen miniature screws of my iPhone 6 display, inserted an authentic-looking but Hong Kong copy touch screen display, added a tempered glass cover, and charged a whopping 70 euros in Tanzanian shillings, cash: a wallet-thick wad of money I first extracted out of an ATM.
Then the driver took me to a spice farm for lunch where a guy climbed up a coconut tree to serenade for me, another guy decorated me with hand-woven jewelry and a crown, and a third guy made me eat a lot of fruit.
No, this was not a weird dream but a real day on Zanzibar.
(Zanzibar, Tanzania; August 2017)
