The Most Stunningly Beautiful Girl...

The most stunningly beautiful girl I've ever seen in real life, I met at an internet cafe in Zanzibar town.
There are certain places whose names evoke the mysteries of the far corners of the world and the fabulous riches or exotic beauty our imaginations hope to discover there. Bora-Bora, Bali, Persia, Rio, Fiji, and Zanzibar are some of mine, (notice how many end in vowels?) Just the way the names sound rolling off my tongue promises wondrous adventures. We can all think of places that excite our minds and tempt our senses, I bet yours have exotic names too.
Zanzibar had been an Indian Ocean and Far East trade hub for spices, gold, ivory, and slaves for 800 years before the Portuguese stumbled over it in the 16th century and it remained a crossroads of commerce under all the countries that have controlled the island ever since. Stonetown, the oldest part of its largest city and port named Zanzibar town, is a maze of skinny, winding cobblestone streets whose Arabic style buildings seem to rise up and almost meet overhead, dimming the passages below. Scooters barely squeeze by the merchants displaying their goods on low tables and rugs, but every so often, you wander into a sunny courtyard or tiny green park.
With my diving finished for the day, and seasalt crystallizing in my eyelashes, I stopped into a tiny internet cafe for a glass of fresh juice and on hour or two of contact with the modern world. . I remembered I had until a 31 Dec. deadline to complete a DAN Instructor update online and I worked my way through its 75 pages, trying and mostly succeeding in not getting caught too blatantly visually eavesdropping on the surfers next to me. Of course I had noticed her when she stepped through the door, even the fans pushing the warm air around the room paused their sweeps for another look. I concentrated even harder on my own screen as she sat down next to me, testing my strength not to gawk at her like every other guy around her was doing and probably had been doing since she hit puberty.
That's why I jumped when she tapped my arm, "Are you a Dive Instructor?"
So I'm not the only one who looks on other people's screens! "Yes," I replied, "at least until I quit my job to go traveling. Are you a diver too?"
She has her Open Water and is friends with a girl who teaches at a dive shop in Ras Nungwi, the island's northernmost point where I'd been trying fruitlessly to find a room for weeks. It turns out her friend is pulling her hair out, trying to handle a group of 130 Swedes visiting for the New Year who want to get certified, (no wonder I can't find a room there!) and is desperately looking for help.
"Shoot, I wish you'd found me yesterday," (truer words have never been spoken,) and visions of a place to stay, free diving and a chance to teach the Swedish Bikini Team will remain forever unfulfilled - I had just bought a plane ticket to Arusha for the next day. Even though I very regretfully declined and couldn't help her friend, we kept chatting and after I finished the update, (I think. I hope DAN will let me know...,) I found myself in the cafe across the street, listening to her sultry voice and trying to place her enticing accent. She has long wavy dark hair insouciantly (I've always wanted to use that word,) gathered up in a clip, dark-golden olive skin, and a big glint of mischief and intelligence shining from her deep brown eyes. I realized that without a doubt, Nadine is the most stunning woman I've ever seen outside of a magazine or movie screen. And she eclipses most of them, too.
Ahhh, Zanzibar... we trade backgrounds and stories. Mine, you know. Hers? Single and dumped like me. "Mostly from the UK," with an Irish Mom and Pakistani Dad (now I get that accent.) She's spent the last six months here in Zanzibar volunteering with HIV+ children, (a saint too!) She's impressed by my GVI project and the AIDS volunteering I did with Triad Health Project back in Greensboro. Next stop? Amsterdam with friends just fell through, so it's off to Buenos Aires on her own to work on her Spanish and learn to tango. "Hey, I just did that!" She wishes she were going on a safari too, and tells me how much I will love Rome and Barcelona - another person in love with that city, what is it about Barca?!
For an hour she's been ignoring her chirping cell, but I need to catch a share Dala Dala across the island at 5, and her friends are waiting... So with the goodbyes I get the European cheek kiss, but three times - left, right, left - what does that mean? I thought it was just two? Then she asks if I have a cell# while traveling but I don't so I give her my email instead, (so if this post suddenly disappears - you'll know why.) As I cross the street, I look back to a warm smile and a fingertip wave from the hand holding her cell to her ear.
Ahh, Zanzibar...
Nakupenda,
Clement