An island is only isolated if you can't use your iPhone.

Last night was Zanzibar's fourth blackout in two weeks.

In Canada, it’s fair to say we take electricity for granted. On those extremely rare occasions where we lose power, everyone’s usually in the same boat – enjoying the nostalgia of lighting candles and having conversations that aren’t distracted by the TV, and comforted by the implied knowledge that an hour later everything will be back to normal.

Back in May, Zanzibar had a month-long blackout. Some businesses survived by running expensive generators; others just closed up shop. No computers, no TV, no lights, no fridge, no fans, no A/C. A glimpse into life in centuries past, except much worse since our lives revolve around the presumption that these things will work.

It puts our dependency on technology in perspective. Spend today imagining the effect of a long-term blackout in your city. The obvious ones – computers and TV and electric heaters – would be a pain in the ass, but tolerable as you remember the fun of the outdoors and the comfort of hot cocoa.

The one thing I think we’d all struggle with is communication. No e-mails or Facebook would only be the beginning. Your cell phone would be toast. You’d try to take advantage of the relic that is your parents’ landline until you realize you don’t know anyone’s number (they’re all memorized in your cell’s contact list). Technology might not be our direct friend, but it's the direct link to our friends, and we could expect prolonged periods of loneliness and isolation without it.

Fear not: there are no blackouts coming to destroy your electronic life. But it’s worth putting in perspective how much of your life is dependent on your ability to plug in. It's worth remembering that the entire system crumbles if you remove a single element. And just maybe, it’s worth taking a couple of conscious steps towards freeing yourself from the clutches of technology – even just for peace of mind.

How much bargaining is too much?

Once again, pardon my absence. This time, I feel like it’s justified, since I was nursing a fight with malaria for the last week. Couldn’t have been at a worse time, really, since I was supposed to host a HIV awareness workshop for any member of staff associated with the Aga Khan Development Network – a pretty big group.

The workshop went on, but not without some emergency power-puking near the halftime mark: by the end of it, I was curled into the foetal position on a mat outside the door. Luckily, four injections later I am back to the white ball of energy my co-workers and basketball teammates expect.

The tourists are back in full swing at this point despite the sporadic torrential storms of the short rain season. There’s a stark contrast between the two main groups of tourists that visit Zanzibar: the wealthy elite, who pay outrageous money (up to US$1,000 per night) for all-inclusive resort packages on the beaches of the East Coast; and the deal-hunting backpackers, who scamper through Stone Town bargaining down every price regardless of the original quote.

As a Stone Town resident, I’m regularly frustrated by the abundance of the latter. Don’t get me wrong, I love backpacking and I love bargaining. But ultimately, there’s a difference between getting ripped off, and ripping off the salesman who’s too desperate to say no to your final price.

This simple graph illustrates the price of “stuff” in the market in nearly any African or Asian country. By market, I mean any store without walls: the food market, souvenirs, street meat, clothes, whatever.Obviously, the longer you stay and bitch about the price, the lower the price gets. This makes perfect sense, because a few passers-by don’t know about bargaining and simply accept the first price offered to them (to the profit and delight of the salesman). Unfortunately, this rarely happens.

Salesmen are almost always middlemen. Farmers are too busy tending their crops to sell them, just as wood carvers and sewers are too busy working. As a result, nearly every salesman pays the local market rate for whatever they are selling, then hopes to sell it at a small premium to make enough money to feed his family.

With that in mind, let’s put this price curve in the context of the item’s cost to the salesman, which obviously doesn’t get any cheaper for him. Every extra dollar he sells it for is an extra dollar in his pocket - worth noting since a backpacker bargaining from $4 to $3.50 is saving about 14%, but if the item cost $3 he is cutting the salesman’s profits in half.Now I’m all about bargaining and not getting ripped off. But in my opinion there comes a point when backpackers take it too far. They have a tendency of hammering down prices to absurd levels, well below a “fair” price just to test their bargaining abilities. I mean, at some point, when you’re paying $1 for a hand-carved necklace, is the extra 10 cents really anything but ego-stroking?

My personal favourite is when backpackers tell the locals they are “poor” travellers to gain sympathy, when the locals fully understand that the price of a return plane ticket to Zanzibar costs more than they would likely make in 10 years. Buddy, don’t bother.

Although we all have different backgrounds, North Americans and Europeans come from privilege. We can’t empathize with people who have endured true poverty – scraping to make enough money to feed yourself or your family.

Don’t get me wrong, I will walk away from some guy doubling the price because of the colour of my skin… But I try to have the decency to know when enough is enough: a massive portion of thick-cut fries and salad for 80 cents might be a rip off to a local, but you won’t catch me complaining.

No treats here... purely tricks.

So it turns out I’m an international jackass.

Which is comforting, because at times I thought it was only in Canada. Halloween helped prove me wrong, though: in a last-minute desperate attempt at pulling together a costume without spending money, I dressed as a ‘70s version of Boris Becker (with matching six-inch white shorts and an electric fly swatter as a racket).

… which is a jackass move in Canada, but at least people will laugh it off. In mostly Muslim Zanzibar, the joke was lost on people, who thought I was gay or just a total loser. Kiswahili saved absolutely nothing. It was a night awkwardly spent sitting down as much as possible, and drinking as much as possible to forget the awkwardness of the situation (which didn’t work). Also didn’t help that Halloween costumes were a bit scarce – of 200 people at the bar, I’d say a dozen had costumes – meaning most people just assumed that guy with the tiny white shorts was carrying around an electric fly swatter in case the mosquitoes started to creep near my upper thighs.

The blessing in disguise is that three German tourists happened to be partying at the same bar, and absolutely loved my tribute to their tennis hero. In between death glances and me covering my junk, these proud gentlemen were always there to cheer me on.

Other than Halloween in Zanzibar, it was a fairly standard week: plenty of work, plenty of learning Kiswahili, and no Internet. As such, I’ve decided to delve into the basics of food here in Zanzibar. As far as mannerisms, men usually eat before women, and most everything is eaten with your hands – occasionally a pain since Muslim cultures designates that you only use your right hand to eat (although you are allowed to use both for tearing apart tougher stuff like chicken).

The food here is wonderful, albeit interestingly different. For starters, you can get plenty of classic food for very cheap: fresh fruits and veggies, bread, eggs, tea, fish and meat. For a premium price, you can get an even wider variety: cereal, chocolate bars, cheese, peanut butter, and even Pringles. Unfortunately, where a loaf of bread costs 30 cents and a small box of cereal costs $6, it’s best to stick to the basics.

Luckily, the basic afford a nice variety of tastes not readily available at home. One simple delight is a fresh dafu, or young coconut, whereby you lop the top off and drink the coconut juice (which hasn’t yet turned into milk). After you finish, the salesman will gut the insides for you for a slimier (but heartier) snack to finish it off. The whole thing costs about 30 cents, and it’s usually a pretty fun social setting right after work.

Another cheap local snack is muhogo, or cassava. Vendors will barbeque these large roots and sell them for between 10-20 cents for what essentially tastes like a baked potato, loaded with spicy salts. It’s a killer snack and locals lose their minds if they see you eating it.

Cashews are supposed to be cheap, but it seems as though they’re only sold to tourists so the prices are quite high. Instead, you can pay five cents for a little bag of fresh peanuts almost anywhere you go. You can recognize the salesmen because they all rhythmically jangle a handful of small coins to attract your attention, then lift a tray full of peanut packs for your convenience.

The list of quick, cheap treats goes on: sliced pineapple, watermelon and jackfruit; pre-bagged popcorn; dates; and incredible sugar cane juice (vendors use these giant steel machines to help extract fresh sugar cane juice, which they strain with ice and serve).

For meals, street food is a beauty. The cheap local favourite is rojo, which is a stew or soup of sorts that literally translates to “gravy” – rather appropriate, since I’m pretty sure it’s the reheated remains of the grease they used to cook their meat skewers. Whatever it is, it’s delicious, and you mix it potatoes, meat, hard-boiled eggs and even salad for about $1 per serving.

A personal favourite, available almost everywhere, is called chipsi mayai. Essentially, it’s a french fry omelette. The chef tosses a serving of pre-cooked fries into a pan, then adds two eggs and cooks it – optionally with pieces of beef or chicken, and always topped with ketchup, spices and salad. A heart attack sandwich, but just so damn good.

Meat is a riskier venture, since cooking it yourself involves selecting your own cuts of meat from the butcher (which usually consists of a guy in a window with a full cow hanging from the ceiling, ready to slice) and there are plenty of fatty pieces in the meat you need to work around. Alternatively, you can buy chicken, but unless you want to pay the premium price for pre-cooked skewers, you’re gonna have to kill and skin that sucker yourself. I’ve convinced myself I’ll do it eventually, but I’m definitely procrastinating.

The other day, my local street food chefs demanded that I roll through with a camera, so we had a pretty wild photo shoot. I’ll post the pictures on Facebook when I get some decent Internet – your guess is as good as mine.

All told, the food is unreal, and if you’re smart you can feed yourself for a week for the cost of one meal at a tourist restaurant. Recently, I started buying potatoes, peppers, carrots, onions and tomatoes in bulk to throw together some mean stirfry, which is entirely easier on the budget – and healthier than eating rojo and chipsi mayai six days a week. It was getting to the point that a concerned group of local fish salesmen were sitting me down and telling me to cut down, since my eating habits would turn me into a buana mvivu (“lazy gentleman”).

What I wouldn’t give for a bag of Sour Patch Kids right now…