Portraits from Tanzania
Tanzania’s most beautiful energy resides within its own people. No better way to illustrate this vibrant energy than capturing most expressive faces.
Ibrahim was one of the energetic youth of Zanzibar that captivated my attention. I met him on a boat working as an assistant on the nearshore coast of Stone Town. I noticed that every time he was done with his daily work, he headed to a smaller boat near where he worked, for the night. As most of his days were spent in the sea, I rarely saw him on the mainland. That kind of routine made me curious about how he ended up living like that, especially for someone with such young age.
Curious to hear his story, I jumped into the conversation with him, so he told me about the sudden & unfortunate death of his parents at an early age, and ever since he had to deal with the struggles of life by himself. Moving across Tanzania fishermen villages and cities to make a living and support himself with ever greater energy and enthusiasm to survive!
I still remember the day when Ifa, one of the locals of Zanzibar, introduced me to his family. I felt privileged to see their little lovely private place, With the members of the family busy with their daily routine, they were not even surprised by my unexpected visit. Hearing “Karibu” ( welcome ) from Ifa’s mother sitting near the entrance of the house, felt so unique to me, especially because it was my first real contact with a Tanzania family. I replayed “Karibu,” ... she looked at me and raised her right hand, and quickly turned her head to check for the beautiful being I photographed in the photo below, who was playing with whatever she found around, and most probably wondering why I was holding a strange object in front of her.
Here’s a photo of Ifa with his son; I had photographed just before we left his lovely family. I can’t thank him enough for the wonderful time we spent in Stone Town, and definitely, couldn’t ask for any better start of my journey in Tanzania.
99 % of the Zanzibar population adheres to the Muslim faith. Hence, Islam represents only the third of what people In Tanzania practices as a belief, the other two-thirds are Christians and other religions of indigenous people. It was midday on a Friday when I met one of the locals heading to the mosque. We had a quick conversation while we both were piling up our groceries, an opportunity came to ask him if he won’t mind if I photographed him, he accepted with enthusiasm... He said “of course my friend from Morocco... the country of Mustafa Hadji.” we laughed, shook hands, and eventually, each one of us took a separate path!
Nothing more satisfying than discovering the last captured photo shoot: a genuine natural smile of a random guy in his small grocery in Stone Town, Tanzania.
Two young Massai I photographed while wandering around the small streets of Stone Town. The first detail that grabbed my attention staring at their faces, I noticed two circles on the cheeks, in addition to the one on the forehead. The only explanation I got from locals was that’s an embedded tradition in the tribe; it also allows to easily distinguishing a real Massai from fake ones, as the image of Massai nowadays in Africa is used more to get easy money from tourists. Hence, my curiosity was not entirely fulfilled about the three circles mystery!
Such photo could easily be miss interpreted and even wrongly manipulated, Thus, it would be just another layer on top of all the stereotypes that people have from a country or a group of individuals the photo shoot wasn’t put in its right natural context.
Both Tanzania and Kenya are the two nations that Maasai’s tribes still live in. To be a Maasai is also being part of one of the world’s greatest warrior cultures, and one of the significant responsibilities of a warrior is to be able to protect their families and their feedstock from the surrounding threats, and being in Africa, one of the biggest perils are the predators.
Maasai are known for their ability and their courage they have to kill a Lion only by their own hands using like these knives in the photo below, called Seme. Looking to the importance of such arms, it easily became an essential part of the Maasai’s culture, and by respect from Tanzania’s government to the tribes who are still living and confronting the changing world, is to let them carry still those Knives even in the middle of cities. It’s an exception just for the Massai.
Besides, Tanzania is on my top list of the safest countries I have ever seen, and inevitably, you will be positively affected by the beautiful souls of the people of such mesmerizing country(s)!
Each one of us has his/her daily routine beneath our-so called- modern societies. It starts with getting up early morning, heading to the office, work for hours, return home and get some shuteye to be fully rested for the next working day, to do just the same!
This daily monotonous routine became unfortunately unquestionable. Even worse: a lot of people are taking it for granted how comfortable their boring life is.
I photographed this guy in a harbor in Stone Town trying to catch up as much fish as he could, by only using these two buckets while diving in the nearshore sea, in order to sell his catch later on during the day, which was the case for a lot of people I saw that very early morning.
That image stacked in my mind and made me think how a daily routine can be challenging for others; Indeed, a tough way to earn a living, hence, it is far from being a daily monotonous routine!
This Portrait was taken in a very early morning, a random’ Stone Town fellow has chosen or ended up living in a boat, waking up to the sound of waves and breeze of the ocean as living Alarm !
Portrait of a kid standing upon the bright white sand of Kizimkazi beach; Apparently very proud of his well handmade car toy.
This is how big & natural your smile becomes, when you distance yourself from the nosy cities. Being in wild nature surrounded by crystal clear beaches and having a walk every morning within the high palms of coconuts on your way to school. That’s briefly the everyday life of this Tanzania young student.
A sunny day on a Dhow, which is an old boat used to carry heavy items in Indian Ocean. This person is one of the helmsmen I photographed just getting up from a nap, on our way back to the main Island.
A kid was enjoying & celebrating his thirty minutes break, exactly the way it should be, right before turning back to his class.
I’ve never seen nor witnessed such joy & natural happiness drawn on kids faces, until the day I took this photo. I had the opportunity to celebrate the end of Ramadan with these kids , full of energy, joy, dancing, laughing and eventually swimming until the last fasting sunset of the year !
I couldn’t see any better way to wrap up Tanzania photo series than with a shoot in the heart of Moshi, which’s a town located in northern Tanzania. When I first arrived at this deserted old Train station, It suddenly felt like entirely another country, definitely not an African one; and it seems the whole environment was a set built to shoot one of the Western movies in the early 20th century. Mother Nature coincidence helped me to take those photos just before the call to Friday midday prayer, when people heading to the mosque with their prayer rug in hand, which made the whole scene even more surreal.
