How To Leave Paje. Chapter Finale. Or maybe not. Who knows.

After five months of waking up in bunk beds, dorm beds, guest rooms, tents,  cohabiting with snoring people, wild life and bed bugs, you do develop a morning fugue state – a post-waking up reality slap. It really takes you a while to realize where you are -  and when you do find out, it still is on the border between good and bad dream, reality and imaginary facts. The unknown is exciting and thrilling, yet there is nothing that feels like coming back to familiar places. Why? It feels right.

Riding this big boat from Dar er Salaam to Stone Town and anxiously waiting for ocean horizon to turn into city line. Stepping off this big boat, walking along the coastline, embracing the frontier feeling – between the rule of the ocean and the rule of the man. Crossing the frontier line and entering the narrow, cramped streets of  Stone Town. Arriving in Paje. So miss Ania? What is the chapter finale about? It is not about #paradise #island and #real #zanzibar #experience. It is about good people and their everyday life.

Leonie is a true free spirit, a world traveller and explorer, who discovered her roots here, in Zanzibar. She falls asleep and wakes up as Mama Nelson - a guardian angel and teacher of life. She teaches the best there is in the west world, big wide world, and the Paje swag. As boss kazi, she rules the backpackers heaven – the one and only New Teddy’s Place. Now, let us be honest here, bringing out the heavenly vibes, delivering lovable space and relaxed foster home for world wanderers might, now and then, require stepping into the gates of hell and cutting out pieces of your own heart. She puts them both together, the West and the Swahili culture, using the energy operating on German fuel and Swahili heart.

Me and Nelson, Leonie’s viciously beautiful son, we didn’t start off so well.  I mean, what do I know about kids and their world?  Yet, to brake the interpersonal ice, the little one decided to walk on me in the shower and ask me to shake my bum bum.  It was all the way down from here – we’d watching dolphins, sea turtles, whales, submarine boats and spaceships. We’d play music at imaginary barbecue while he’d be singing existential songs about dreadlocks and Jah. I loved it out there, in Nelson’s world, where there is a link between rules of everyday life and Fireman Sam. He’d wish for me that I’d be a cool boy – a token of appreciation from the grownup kid. Something I wouldn’t mind becoming in my next life, really. 

I’d be arriving in Paje, coming and going back, yet every time, despite discovering new things and finding out more and more about this place, I’d find myself knowing less, or – nothing at all. When I arrived this time - penniless, tired and weary, these two gave me more than big comfy bed, my own room and my own space – they let me be and wanted nothing back. Through the windows of their home and through their eyes I saw something very special about the rhythm of the island heart beats and living the life. 

What is this exactly? Now, my dear friends, this is something you need to find out. In your place, where your heart is, in your own time.