We were forewarned but didn’t quite expect it to happen to us... this was of course prior to our arrival in Zanzibar.
With Zanzibar being an almost completely Muslim island, they have strict laws and restrictions on sharing other faiths. When we first arrived, one local missionary warned us that no matter what, their government would be aware of our every move i.e; Where we stayed, who we were and probably what we ate for breakfast! Well, He was right. Mostly.
One week into our stay, we had a knock at the door during one of our worship times. Not knowing who it could be,the girls on our team quickly concealed all of our Bibles and all other Christian materials laying around the house and went to hide their rooms ( their heads were uncovered which is a big "no no" in a Muslim community of course!). Two government officials were standing there demanding to see our passports and to ask us a few questions. For the next two hours, while the women waited, the men proceeded to interrogate us guys on our purpose for being there, who we were & what exactly we were doing. They tried threatening us with expulsion from the island & eventually tried to extract a bribe from us but we held fast to our innocence! Eventually when the men left, we contacted some of the locals who were able to sort out our "situation" and clear the rest of our stay!
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