A DINNER PARTY at the filmmaker’s flat in Stone Town still comes up for me when I think about what it felt like to live as a foreigner—among other foreigners—attempting to belong. The invitation felt like a key that would unlock closed doors to rooms and worlds still out of reach to me.
I remember walking to the party with my boyfriend at the time, sloshing around a jar of freshly squeezed mango juice we’d prepared as an offering. I thought the filmmaker was super cool—she had this air about her of ease and wonder—and I wanted to show her that the two of us could show up as ideal guests, loving each other and anyone else we met.
At the door, the filmmaker kissed us on both cheeks as we took off our shoes and then climbed the stairs to the living room, where we sat on the floor with other guests on colorful floral mats with trays of food laid out before us, a feast.
That night, I met a young photographer from London, a German aid worker based in Sudan, a Dutch missionary with a shock of white hair, a Black South African music promoter, an Egyptian broadcaster working for the local state television station, a Black-American mother of two teenagers, who sat against a wall with headphones on and tablets in their laps, and a young Pakistani Canadian woman working in education with Aga Khan.
“What are the five objects you’d take with you if your house was burning down?” was the question each of us was meant to answer, but I was too distracted by the fact that my local boyfriend was chain smoking out on the verandah and refused to come in, not even for a moment, to talk to the other guests, in English as the franca. His lingua was Swahili and preferred to stick with it, even though he understood everything.
At one point I got up to coax him out of the darkness and back into the brightly lit room where stories were spilling into the night, and he did return, but only to slouch against a wall and fall asleep. When it was getting late and it was time to go, I had to nudge him awake to tell him it was time to get going, back to the flat we shared down the road.
The Dutch missionary gave me a quizzical look, as if to say, “are you OK?” Yes, I’m fine, we’re fine, the man is just a little tipsy from the wine us foreigners drink—his body can’t absorb it, the liquid lingers in his skin—he’ll be fine, we’ll be fine. He’d had many glasses of wine out there on the verandah with his smokes, probably to deal with the social anxiety all of us felt that night but wouldn’t state.
And so we got home and kicked off our flip-flops and discussed the evening briefly, before he announced that he would never attend another dinner party like that again. When I asked him why, he told me it was because he had nothing to say to anyone there, and would prefer to sit in the park he fondly referred to as “Peace of Love,” where the men sat on old tires and smoked spliffs under a huge tree with giant leaves, shielding them from the street.
I was disappointed but I can’t say I was surprised—he embarrassed me and I realized I’d have much preferred to show up alone to the dinner party—it pained me to watch him feel so alone in a room full of interesting people that had nothing in common except the trade winds that blew us all here.
I ran into the Egyptian broadcaster one night at the sea, holding hands with a woman wearing a very tight mini skirt and a white tube top, high heels, a face painted like a glamorous clown. What on earth was this bond? He shook my hand sheepishly and told me he would be going home soon. The revolution back home had made it impossible to stay in the state-sponsored gig on the islands. I wished him well, but he wouldn’t look up at me when we said our goodbyes.
I visited the Dutch missionary at the infirmary when he suffered a terrible bout of malaria that made his brain swell. Thank god his children thought to fly him back to Europe just in time—it turns out he would have absolutely died had he not gone home for treatment. It was odd to see him so weak there on his cot when I went to visit. I still remember how this man used to greet me on the street and shake my hand with such intensity, it nearly broke my bones, with all that gusto.
I’m not friends with any of these people anymore—not even acquaintances—all of us have spun to our various spots on the globe. I stayed in touch with the filmmaker for a while, raising her sweet son who wore a mohawk when I knew him, but even she has been lost to time and memory, though I’m sure she’s out there making her films, or something creative, anyway.
And I’m certainly not in touch anymore with my ex—who I’ve heard through the grapevine has suffered much and likely grown very little since the days we were together—sad, but true (enough).
With some, I could say I would know how to reach if I needed to get in touch, but all of us are different people now, gathering in new cities and states of being, under different skies.
But I still think of how I hopeful I felt at the filmmaker’s dinner party that night—how full of promise—how full of trust—in what the night could offer me as a newcomer to a city I would spend a decade trying to call home.
I remember walking to the party with my boyfriend at the time, sloshing around a jar of freshly squeezed mango juice we’d prepared as an offering. I thought the filmmaker was super cool—she had this air about her of ease and wonder—and I wanted to show her that the two of us could show up as ideal guests, loving each other and anyone else we met.
At the door, the filmmaker kissed us on both cheeks as we took off our shoes and then climbed the stairs to the living room, where we sat on the floor with other guests on colorful floral mats with trays of food laid out before us, a feast.
That night, I met a young photographer from London, a German aid worker based in Sudan, a Dutch missionary with a shock of white hair, a Black South African music promoter, an Egyptian broadcaster working for the local state television station, a Black-American mother of two teenagers, who sat against a wall with headphones on and tablets in their laps, and a young Pakistani Canadian woman working in education with Aga Khan.
“What are the five objects you’d take with you if your house was burning down?” was the question each of us was meant to answer, but I was too distracted by the fact that my local boyfriend was chain smoking out on the verandah and refused to come in, not even for a moment, to talk to the other guests, in English as the franca. His lingua was Swahili and preferred to stick with it, even though he understood everything.
At one point I got up to coax him out of the darkness and back into the brightly lit room where stories were spilling into the night, and he did return, but only to slouch against a wall and fall asleep. When it was getting late and it was time to go, I had to nudge him awake to tell him it was time to get going, back to the flat we shared down the road.
The Dutch missionary gave me a quizzical look, as if to say, “are you OK?” Yes, I’m fine, we’re fine, the man is just a little tipsy from the wine us foreigners drink—his body can’t absorb it, the liquid lingers in his skin—he’ll be fine, we’ll be fine. He’d had many glasses of wine out there on the verandah with his smokes, probably to deal with the social anxiety all of us felt that night but wouldn’t state.
And so we got home and kicked off our flip-flops and discussed the evening briefly, before he announced that he would never attend another dinner party like that again. When I asked him why, he told me it was because he had nothing to say to anyone there, and would prefer to sit in the park he fondly referred to as “Peace of Love,” where the men sat on old tires and smoked spliffs under a huge tree with giant leaves, shielding them from the street.
I was disappointed but I can’t say I was surprised—he embarrassed me and I realized I’d have much preferred to show up alone to the dinner party—it pained me to watch him feel so alone in a room full of interesting people that had nothing in common except the trade winds that blew us all here.
I ran into the Egyptian broadcaster one night at the sea, holding hands with a woman wearing a very tight mini skirt and a white tube top, high heels, a face painted like a glamorous clown. What on earth was this bond? He shook my hand sheepishly and told me he would be going home soon. The revolution back home had made it impossible to stay in the state-sponsored gig on the islands. I wished him well, but he wouldn’t look up at me when we said our goodbyes.
I visited the Dutch missionary at the infirmary when he suffered a terrible bout of malaria that made his brain swell. Thank god his children thought to fly him back to Europe just in time—it turns out he would have absolutely died had he not gone home for treatment. It was odd to see him so weak there on his cot when I went to visit. I still remember how this man used to greet me on the street and shake my hand with such intensity, it nearly broke my bones, with all that gusto.
I’m not friends with any of these people anymore—not even acquaintances—all of us have spun to our various spots on the globe. I stayed in touch with the filmmaker for a while, raising her sweet son who wore a mohawk when I knew him, but even she has been lost to time and memory, though I’m sure she’s out there making her films, or something creative, anyway.
And I’m certainly not in touch anymore with my ex—who I’ve heard through the grapevine has suffered much and likely grown very little since the days we were together—sad, but true (enough).
With some, I could say I would know how to reach if I needed to get in touch, but all of us are different people now, gathering in new cities and states of being, under different skies.
But I still think of how I hopeful I felt at the filmmaker’s dinner party that night—how full of promise—how full of trust—in what the night could offer me as a newcomer to a city I would spend a decade trying to call home.
