A sunny, azure day in Stone Town.
A breeze from the Indian Ocean, warm and light, only mildly helping to stir the clinging humidity.
At street level: the honking of boda bodas, vendors selling roasted peanuts and fresh coconut, sugar cane, and sticky mango juice. Others hawk handmade “Hakuna Matata” keychains.
I duck off the main road into an alleyway. I have nothing else on my to-do list besides wandering and seeing whatever there is to be seen.
Stone Town is a maze of windows and fabled wooden doors. The doors and their intricate carvings are closed against the intrusive gaze of the pedestrian traffic. One floor up, though, the windows open up to the world and sky above. Privacy, it seems, is a question of one’s height above street or sea level.
What Once Was, Stone Town, Tanzania, 2023. © Rémy Ngamije.
***
A row of windows with their shutters fanning out towards tomorrow, with the present and past behind their glass panes.
I have always harboured a fascination with windows—not for what they let in, but because of what they do not. My photography archives have numerous pictures of windows in various states of openness and either partial or total shuttering. I think of all the stories lurking behind a swaying curtain or the carefully modulated slits of blinds.
What Once Was, Stone Town, Tanzania, 2023. © Rémy Ngamije.
***
Besides windows I am drawn to the height of things and the places from which we look out at the world.
A balcony overlooking a street: it is detailed with intricate patternwork from its tiles and, in a corner, an air-conditioning unit whirs to supplement Mother Nature’s inadequate sighs.
What Once Was, Stone Town, Tanzania, 2023. © Rémy Ngamije.
***
An apartment block, greyed and ageing with the passage of time. But, still alive with activity. Neighbours pulling drying clothes into apartments and calling to each other through windows. Taraab and tezeta spill out of a top floor apartment, sonic offerings that are both foreign and familiar to my ear.
What Once Was, Stone Town, Tanzania, 2023. © Rémy Ngamije.
***
Later, when thinking about my walks through Stone Town, I realise nostalgia is the middle ground—the window, sometimes fully open, sometimes not—between knowing that what once was will never be again and the hope for what could—not should—be.
POSTSCRIPT:
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