By Kenzy Samir
When I was in Zanzibar, I met a man unlike anyone I’d encountered before. He stood tall, draped in vivid red scarves—layers I later learned were called shuka—with flashes of yellow flickering like flame beneath the folds. A wooden stick rested calmly in his hand. His posture was poised but never rigid, and his gaze had the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly who he was, no matter who was watching.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was speaking to someone from the Maasai tribe. He asked me about my friend—several times—but I gently steered the conversation back to him. I wanted to understand. Not just document. He told me their wealth was measured in cattle. That a man could marry as many wives as he could provide for. That the brilliant red he wore wasn’t only tradition—it was protection. A shield against wild animals. Against invisibility.
We stood on the edge of a sun-scorched path, children’s laughter echoing from nearby fields. There was a smell of earth and charcoal, like firewood burned halfway through a story. The breeze carried it lightly between us, alongside the rhythmic ringing of distant cowbells.
Every part of him felt like a walking story. My hand reached for my phone more than once.
But I didn’t take the photo.
Something about the red held me back.
A memory—soft but firm—rose up. That famous photograph of the Afghan girl. Sharbat Gula. Her piercing green eyes framed by a weathered red scarf. A portrait so powerful, it became iconic. The “Third World’s Mona Lisa,” they called it. Steve McCurry, the photographer, received acclaim. But Gula? She received nothing. Years later, she said she never consented. That the photo brought more pain than good.
Her red scarf, his red shuka—centuries apart, cultures apart, yet both bearing the weight of being seen but not heard. Of becoming image without agency.
I paused.
Would this photo truly honor him—or just satisfy me? Would I be capturing connection or extracting it?
I remembered what we’d been told in class: travel journalism is not just about access—it’s about responsibility. We are guests in someone else’s story, and with that comes a duty not just to record, but to respect.
I asked him if I could take a portrait. He smiled, politely, and shook his head. “No, thank you,” he
said in practiced English. “But we can talk more.”
So we did.
We didn’t land in a floating villa. We landed in Malé, the capital—less postcard-perfect, more real. But then came a three-day islandhopping tour: shell necklaces, sunburns, turquoise water—and a friendly shark we didn’t realize we were swimming beside.
It was a difficult time in my life. And somehow, this trip—spontaneous and sun-drenched—felt like a quiet gift from the universe. Proof that joy still finds you.
My gaze shifts to a pomegranate-shaped magnet from Armenia. Gold letters, bright red paint. It was a short ski trip, and yes, I was the problem. An instructor politely told me I should leave the beginner slope because I was, in his words, “a danger to the children.”
My friends and I still laugh—especially at the one who claimed she’d be a skiing prodigy, only to spend most of the trip upside down. I was bad, too. But at least I never boasted. Next to it, a flame-shaped magnet from Azerbaijan. Another winter escape—but with complications.
One of my friends, traveling on a refugee passport, was denied entry. She had to go back home while we continued on. Her absence hung in the air, in the photos, in everything we experienced. Some magnets hold stories we don’t retell—not because we’ve forgotten, but because we know someone else missed out.
Then, a carved wooden mask: Zanzibar. Hakuna Matata, it reads. And yes, they actually say that. It was meant to be a volunteer trip— helping build a school—but it became something bigger.
This article is part of the practical work carried out by students on the Master’s Degree in Travel Journalism at the School of Travel Journalism.