The Nahodha's Chest

My father bought this Arab chest off a nahodha, the captain of an ocean-going dhow, in Zanzibar harbour some time in the 1930s, so it's a good ninety years old. The nahodahs would buy a new sea chest each year while loading in the ports of the Persian Gulf and then sell it along the East African coast - see earlier blog post about the chest here.

It has always been a good place to 'park' things so it was in use yesterday lunchtime, with a couple of celebratory bottles, a laptop and a speaker on it - and I suddenly wondered what on earth the nahodha would have thought if he'd seen his chest.

The bottles of wine, both from France, he'd have understood as trade goods. The laptop and speaker would have seemed like minor miracles - which, when I think of it, they are - but I don't think it would have taken him too long to catch on to some of their more simple functions. I say that having seen how totally at home his descendants in places like Tanzania are with the technology they access through their mobile phones. Finally, he wouldn't have been phased by the electricity that runs the laptop: the Gulf Arabs were frequent visitors to the offices where my mother worked, coming in, not on business but to see the Beit al Ajaib's electric lift.

Finally, I hope he'd have been pleased to see that his chest has been given years of love. We keep it as a memento of my parents' time on Zanzibar, the place where they met and married.