Zanzibar leader takes Gullah tour

President, first lady find similarities to own nation

Diane Knich/staff

Alphonso Brown of Gullah Tours (left) tells Zanzibar President Amani Karume and first lady and Shadya Karume about the Old Slave Mart on Saturday in Charleston. President Karume gave the commencement address Friday at South Carolina State.

The president and first lady of Zanzibar laughed when their Gullah tour guide told old stories of people using curses and voodoo against their enemies.

First lady Shadya Karumesaid they were almost the same stories she hears back home.

President Amani Karume said both cultures use the phrase "putting a fix" on somebody to describe using black magic.

The Karumes and more than 20 officials from South Carolina State University and Zanzibar, took one of Alphonso Brown's Gullah tours Saturday.

President Karume gave the commencement address at S.C. State Friday. He and the other officials spent time visiting Charleston on Saturday.

Brown, a Charleston native who has owned and operated Gullah Tours since 1985, took the group to Gallery Chuma to see Gullah art and learn about sweet grass baskets, and to the Old Slave Mart Museum. Along the way, he pointed out wrought iron gates by Charleston's renowned master blacksmith Philip Simmons and the slave quarters of many old Charleston homes.

The Karumes said they were impressed with the city's architecture.

And they were surprised how similar the Old Slave Mart was to a slave market in their country. Zanzibar, a semiautonomous island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Tanzania, has a market where slaves from the African mainland were sold to traders who later sold them in the Middle East, Shadya Karume said.

S.C. State leaders forged their relationship the Karumes through working with them on a project to develop culturally sensitive textbooks for secondary students in Zanzibar. The project was funded with $5 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development's Textbooks and Learning Materials Program.

Reach Diane Knich at 937-5491 or dknich@postandcourier.com.