Shortly after arriving in Zanzibar, amid the "mzungu" tourist callouts and my glazed-eyed wandering through the streets of Stone Town, one man made a point of taking his time with me.
To be fair, time is exactly what he had to spare: easily 300 pounds, he parked himself in a lone chair in front of his shop near Darajani market every day - from early morning until late night - selling whatever the Pemba trucks were kind enough to deliver. Octopus, squid, six-foot marlins, 150-pound stingrays... you name it, he's got it - fresh off the boat.
Of course, he didn't have to do much moving - his crew did all the work for him as he watched from his storefront chair, occasionally calling out orders for where to stash a stingray or barking at fishermen selling overpriced octopus. His laugh, like his voice, deep and jolly, with an infectious white-toothed smile all the more noticeable against his coffee-black skin. A wave of the finger, a nod of the head, his commands obeyed. The Don of Darajani.
In the days of my early Swahili, he walked me through all kinds of basics. He knew I didn't eat much fish - I've never bought anything but bottled water from him - but he was just genuinely interested in learning about Canada. Every day, my VIP seat next to him was reserved for a quick discussion in increasingly complex Swahili. I'd hear his booming voice call out to me on the run back from basketball, and he'd motion to one of his crewmembers to fetch me a fresh young coconut or pineapple as we sat down to talk.
One night, after bringing my camera to a wedding, he caught me on the walk home and asked me to take a picture of the crew, who had just closed up shop for the day. Between the night light and their dark skin, the picture didn't turn out, and when he asked for a copy in subsequent days and weeks, I just kept telling him I'd bring the camera another day and take a better picture.
So last Friday, when he asked once again when I'd bring the picture, I told him: "Later, later" in the comfort of bringing it sometime this week, maybe next week, maybe next month... sometime before I left for home.
Which made it all the more painful when I was jogging to basketball the next morning, only to have a dozen strangers stop me and tell me my friend was hit by a truck on the way home from work. Dead.
This picture, the one that didn't turn out, is the picture he never got to see. On the far right, stationed in his storefront throne, is the Don of Darajani. A framed copy of it nows hangs on the store wall - it was meant as a gift for his family, but I was unanimously warned by his crewmembers: "Mapema, rafiki yangu, mapema" - too soon, my friend, too soon.
He was easily one of my best friends in Zanzibar. We hung out every day, chatting about everything and anything: life in Zanzibar, life in Canada, the best and worst times to catch octopus, the importance of education, the acceptable degrees of drunk, family, friends, whatever...
And now I'm sick to my stomach that I was so embarrassed, this long into our friendship, that I neglected the most important conversation: asking his name.
Tomorrow isn't always there. So do what you were planning on putting off until tomorrow, today (it usually isn't that much of a hassle).
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