Comoran

Currently most demands for regularisation are from the Comoran families of babies who are born on Mayotte and therefore French.

Again, the young Comoran man asked: “Is this Greece?”

You can trace the cultures that mingled in Zanzibar through Mr. Abdela’s lineage: He is a native Zanzibari of Comoran, Indian and Arab descent, who spent much of his life in England before returning to Stone Town 16 years ago.

Outside in the glaring dusty street, ragged boys hawk trays of samosas and Comoran women with laden baskets on their heads file down to the port.

“She is not at all a nice young woman! She takes after the mother, who was no seamstress but a bar girl, plain and simple, and she drinks and smokes rongony all day long. Harena acts innocent, but she starts fights, even with bottles, right in the road. Now that Hans has disappeared, she goes from one white man to another, except when she is working changing money for those Comoran hoodlums. We’ve all seen her in the café, counting out stacks of cash.”