One Night in Zanzibar

Previously on Hadithi ya Alfajiri Safi, Yasmina went through several misadventures throughout Egypt from car problems to a full-blown drama involving Imtiaz's past relationship before travelling to Zanzibar Island with her friends.

One day, Yasmina woke up in a hotel room in the city of Zanzibar, to the staff greeting her.

She then asked the staff about her friends' whereabouts and they told her that they're staying at a different hotel a few minutes away from the hotel where she was staying at the whole night.

After dressing into a headscarf and abaya in addition to checking out of the hotel with her bag, Yasmina headed to the different hotel in search for her friends.

While on the way, she heard an adhan from a faraway mosque and headed to the mosque in order to pray.

By the time she got out of the mosque, she found out that her bag was stolen and one of the locals told her that a boy named Rajab stole her bag, which led to her getting to a fight with him.

Just as Rajab was about to hit her, Bakari showed up kicking him to the ground and holding her stolen bag.

Yasmina tried to punch Bakari, but he tried to grab her wrists, only for her to grab his arms and throw him to the ground before grabbing her bag and running away from the scene.

Meanwhile, while Yasmina was walking towards the hotel to find her friends, she heard a group of locals whispering to themselves in both Swahili and English.

"So, umemwona? Hiyo ni Yasmina. Shukrani kwake, tulimwondoa mwidzi who stole from us for years. (So, have you seen her? That's Yasmina. Thanks to her, we got rid of the thief who stole from us for years.)", one of them said.

"It's a good thing that yuko hapa na sio mbaya hata kidogo. (It's a good thing that she's here and is not bad at all.)", the other responded.

After hearing from them, she headed to the other hotel, where she saw Yara, Bruno, Yatomi and Nate waving at her while sitting in one of the tables.

"Yasmina, here's a chair for you to sit on.", Bruno said, while smiling at her, who then sat on the chair he placed for her.

After they had a great time, just as they were about to head to bed, they saw a letter on the top of one of the beds.

"Hey, where did Imran go?", Nate asked.

Yara showed Nate the letter she grabbed from the bed.

"If you want to find Imran, give us 10,000 shillings so we can free him."

Upon reading the letter, everyone got shocked and found out that Imran was kidnapped by a group of delinquents.

Soon, everyone began making plans to save Imran from his kidnappers.

The next day, Yasmina teamed up with her friends to find Imran and save him from his kidnappers, who took him to a secret location within a village in the northern part of the island before fleeing to Pemba Island on a fishing boat.

As soon as they arrived to the village, Yara asked the villagers if they had seen Imran and most of them had no clue who he is, except for a woman, who personally knew one of the kidnappers.

"I know where they're holding Imran hostage. They're in Pemba, so if you want to find him, you can find someone who can bring you all there.", the woman said.

Upon listening to the woman's advice, they went to the beach, where Nate asked a local man to bring him and his friends to Pemba with a fishing boat, to which the man took them on a boat in exchange for money.

As soon as they arrived in Pemba Island, they asked a fisherman if she had seen Imran and to their surprise, she told them that she has seen Imran with the kidnappers, who spoke a dialect of Malagasy.

Just as they were talking about the situation, Imran showed up running with a torn burqa he stole from one of the kidnappers' older sisters and the bag they stole from him.

"Imran, thank god you made it free. What happened?", Yasmina asked.

Imran then explained to her that the kidnappers saw him on his way to his hotel room in Zanzibar to join Yara, Nate, Bruno and Yatomi after praying at the same mosque as Yasmina and used it as an opportunity to steal his bag before kidnapping him and taking him to this place.

"So why are you wearing a burqa?", Yara responded.

"They forced me to remove my kanzu and my kofia, so while they were away, I used this as an opportunity to steal one of their older sisters' burqa."

Soon, one of the kidnappers' older sisters overheard their conversation and saw Imran wearing her burqa.

She then tried to grab the burqa by force, only for Imran to remove it, accidentally exposing himself in his black tank top and underwear to everyone's shock that he quickly dressed himself in a secondhand kanzu to cover his body out of embarrassment.

He then proceeded to flee to Zanzibar with Yasmina, Yara, Nate, Bruno and Yatomi on a fishing boat, where they stayed at a completely different hotel for the night.

The next day, Yara turned on the TV, only to find out that Imran's kidnappers were arrested for fraud, theft and kidnapping.

After eating breakfast and leaving the hotel, the six of them were now in a beach in the southern Zanzibar.

Bruno then said to Yatomi and Yasmina in Portuguese "Agora que salvamos Zanzibar de uma gangue, o que devemos fazer durante esta viagem? (Now that we saved Zanzibar from a gang, what should we do throughout this trip in the islands?)"

Suddenly, Shaban told them in Swahili that something bad is going on in mainland Tanzania and showed them a video that he saved on the phone.

"It's not safe for you all to stay in Zanzibar.", he said before telling them to go to his boat.

By the time Bruno, Yatomi, Yasmina, Yara, Nate and Imran got on the boat, Shaban gave them life jackets for them to wear and put a life jacket on himself before leaving the shores of Zanzibar by boat.

Several hours later, Yasmina found herself washed ashore in a beach of Anjouan.

She then got up from the ground and began sitting on the sand.

"Was it really that one night in Zanzibar? But wait, where are my friends?"

As Yasmina walked through the beach, she saw a young man with curly hair.

"Eliakim, have you seen my friends?", Yasmina asked the man.

"Yes. I know where they are. Follow me.", he responded.

Yasmina and Eliakim walked to an another beach, where they saw Yara, Bruno, Yatomi, Nate and Imran sitting on the ground.

"Wait, what happened? Why are we in Anjouan?" Bruno asked.

Imran explained to Bruno that the boat they were on a few minutes before capsized near Anjouan and that Shaban was nowhere to be found.

After being stranded in Mutsamudu for a few days, Yasmina and her friends headed towards the city of Domoni, where they were at a beach once again, and saw a large fishing boat to the point where Eliakim decided to take them in and they all headed towards a nearby island.

"I hope that this boat doesn't get capsized like the last one did in Zanzibar.", says Nate.

"For real though.", says Imran.

Will Yasmina and her friends somehow manage to reach the nearby island without Eliakim's boat being capsized on the way? Find out next time in Hadithi ya Alfajiri Safi!

To be continued...