Hungry but happy in Tanzania

I have been mad about books, food, places and people since I was somewhere around speaking age, and I presume this may be normal behaviour. But veering slightly away (from normalcy), I have set myself several missions related to my passions. Most of my intended goals are private, but visiting 50 countries before I turn 50 is an oft-repeated and publicly declared one.

In fulfilment, I landed in the lovely little island of Zanzibar with boundless joy and bookish fascination, but without credit cards or spending money (yes, yes, wallets do get left behind). Admittedly I didn’t qualify for the title at that time, but veteran travellers always carry emergency money and I found Dh800 to last me a week. My room was paid for, but I had to pay for everything else.

The sights took precedence over meals and without any hesitation I dished out money for an assortment of trips, leaving me with very little in hand.

An adventurous and admittedly abnormal mind has no limits and I carefully considered my possibilities, which included offering to assist any chef and proposing to Abdullah the boatman — gorgeous to boot — and sailing into the sunset. Oh, the possibilities were endless…

But I chose to survive Africa with food management.

This patented concept involves a combination of activities — pocketing a muffin at breakfast, eating the banana intended for a monkey, accepting coffee from tour guides, dividing a Snickers bar into four and making it last four days and practising mindfulness by eating a single strand of pot noodles at a time. (This can take 55 minutes, but you feel quite full.)

Zanzibar has staked a special place in my life. For it is here that I discovered, and discarded, hunger.