The Mwaka Kogwa Festival in the town of Makunduchi in south Zanzibar is the local "New Year" - celebrating the end of the old growing season and the beginning of a new one.

The festival takes place in July-August (depending on the moon) and lasts for four days, but the first day is the most interesting. The theme is purification. The locals want to start the new year with a clean sheet, and the logical solution is for all the men in the village to beat each other up with big banana stalks. It's Zanzibar's answer to paintballing.

It might sound painful and a bit confusing, but actually nobody gets hurt. The banana stalks split on contact and after a while they disintegrate. At this point, the fiercely-duelling combatants leave the field with big grins.

The festival actually originates in Persia and is designed to get rid of all feuds and arguments through the ritualised act of aggression. A straw house is also burnt and the worries of the past year are meant to burn away with it.

Throughout the day, the women of the village accompany proceedings with song and dance. This is strongly influenced by the Middle East - unsurprising since this part of the world has been trading with other countries on the Indian Ocean for centuries.

At the end of the day, the villagers return home to prepare for the New Year, while you can head back to the other delights that Zanzibar has to offer: the twisting alleys and shady squares of Stone Town or the stunning tropical beaches.