Remember my story about the Tanzanian humor? Here is the second installment – excerpts from “Zanzibar Popular Jokes”, copyright by Amir A. Mohammed, in recognition of the fact that “most advanced countries have recognized the human need for comedies and laughter in their public life”. The author and I hope that “you will all be excited to read the book with appalling laughter”. Here is a sample of G-rated jokes – if you want the really racy ones, you’ll have to borrow my paper copy. Spelling and punctuation as printed.

A short-sighted man was standing in the balcony on the second floor of a storey house, when he noticed a short lady standing on the ground floor. He tried to seduce her to come upstairs to no avail. So he decided to follow her where she was standing, but when he came closer to her. The lady was in fact an empty drum.

During a school examination here in Zanzibar a student was questioned in the test paper, what is your mother tongue?. The student thought deeply how to answer the question, then he tried to imagine his mother’s tongue, his answer was “pink”.

In 1994, one prominent CCM political leader came to address a CCM political rally here in Zanzibar, In his speech, he became so emotional and went too far to claim openly that if any CCM leader leaves his party (CCM), he must be tally crazy, but after just one year he himself left his party (CCM).

In order to keep himself busy and pre occupied, a man in Pemba Island was constantly mailing letters to his own address and he goes to the Post Office to collect them himself. What an idea to fight boredom.

A young man once met a pretty lady in a shop. He was soon attracted by the charm and beauty of that lady. The lady was wearing a gold necklace on her neck which was carved like a small aeroplane. The young man expressed his love to her by saying. “I love your aeroplane and your air port also”.

I’m planning to show the book around the office and see if people laugh. I still suspect that something is missing from the jokes because of translation. What do you think? Do you know of other cultures with similar humor?