On the trip to see the now retired Archbishop of Tanzania who was later Bishop of Zanzibar, we saw the cells where the slaves were left before being auctioned off. We saw the pit where they would stand, sunken into the ground so all the potential buyers could look down and see and assess. On the two hour ferry ride back to the mainland, I wrote the following in an email to a friend who had made this journey before....I am on a ship on the Indian Ocean--a rough crossing from Zanzibar today to the mainland. Surrounded by Africans, East Indians and a few tourists--the air is filled with the smell of vomiting and body sweat. The sound of retching and children sobbing...we have been to the diocesan offices in Zanzibar--no shopping...not a tourist trip...the offices have been robbed in the night despite having a security guard. The sense of discrimination the Christians feel as such a minority.
I know that it is no comparison to what those who had experienced many years ago, experienced after their capture. experienced as they were loaded into ships at the coast of the mainland and taken to Zanzibar for selling....and perhaps loaded into other ships to be taken to other countries....but as I hear the people's agony and stuggle to keep from throwing up at the very sound of the retching, I see the young ship's steward take a woman's little girl to comfort her while the mother throws up....as I see him walk the aisles amongst the people, holding the trusting little girl and handing out plastic bags, I pray that in each of those people's lives who were sold into slavery, there was at least one moment of kindness, one moment of hope, one sign that they had not been abandoned....I pray...
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