Spread Your Wings
Journey From Zanzibar, Zanzibar
S1 • E6 Mar 31, 1978
For over 2,500 years, wooden sailboats called dhows have been built in Zanzibar to carry cargoes of cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon from the “Spice Island” to the ports of East Africa, India and China. This is the story of fourteen-year-old Silima Juma, who begins his apprenticeship to a master dhow builder during his school vacation. If dhows are well made and maintained, they can last for eighty or even 100 years. The sun, palm trees and wide beaches make a spectacular setting for the joyous launching of the sixty-foot dhows, in celebrations involving the entire village.