Final Weekend

This past weekend--our last in Moshi--was an absolute whirlwind. It's hard to believe that later this week, it will be over for us here in Tanzania. Moshi was certainly the focal point of the trip, and it certainly has not been dissapointing. Everyone here has been so welcome and appreciative, and leaving is certainly going to be very difficult.

More to come soon...

The High Road to Usangi

This weekend, Becca and I decided to put some tourism in "volunteer tourism" and head into the Pare Mountains to hike Mt. Kindoroko, the highest peak in the Northern Pare range. Best for us, Usangi (the village at the base of Kindoroko) is only about 2-3 hours by bus from Moshi.

For the first hour or so of the ride, the bus followed the Dar es Salaam-Arusha highway, but then it turned off onto a dirt road and began to climb into the mountains. The next 90 mintues covered only about 25km of horizontal distance...but quite a bit of vertical. The plains along the highway quickly gave way to a much greener landscape, and the hillside was covered with terraced plantings of bannanas, sugar cane, cassava, and yams. One thing that is so interesting about the Pare (and Usumbara) mountains here in Tanzania, as opposed to most ranges in the United States, is that they are densely populated. According to my guidebook, the population density in both these ranges is over 300 people per square kilometer. That means that the paths that hikers used are shared by villagers to get to their homes and schools. We always think that we need hiking boots and trekking poles to climb, but the people who walk past you are in flip flops carrying huge sacks of flour on their heads while talking on their cell phones.

All of the tourism in Usangi is operated as a "cultural tourism" program through a secondary school in the village. The headmaster of the school (Mr. Kangeru) runs the program, and everyone we saw on the bus asked us, "Oh, are you going to see Mr. Kangeru?" Even our bus driver, as soon as we got on in Moshi, said, "Mr. Kangeru?" And it was the headmaster himself who came out of the school to greet us and explain the program.

The next day (Saturday), we met our guide in the morning and headed up the mountain. For the first half of the trek up, you pick your way along trails that are frequented by the people who live there, even passing a primary school that must be at over 1500m. Thankfully, there were very few convenient places where Becca could wait, and so we both made it the whole way to the top. The unique part of the trip is the way down: The guide has a laundry list of interesting places and people to visit. We chose to taste some traditional beer and to visit a local healer.

When speaking with the healer, I asked him if it mattered for his work--which includes praying to the ancestors--whether the people he was healing were Muslims or Christians. He repliedthat it did not matter the daily religion of the patient, that the traditional religion was around first, and the organized book religions are just acoutrements to the spirit world that has always existed. He laughed as he told us that "many" leaders from other traditions come to him to be healed or to receive protection from witchcraft. (I tried to buy a small anti-witchcraft charm for my dorm room, but it was really expensive!)

One of the most important aspects of the entire trip is the "Village Development Fee" charged by Mr. Kangeru and the school. This fee--about $2 per person per day of trekking--is deposited into the coffers of the local government here in Usangi. Although we didn't receive any information as to where exactly the money was going, it was nice to know that Usangi was taking some steps to force some of the money brought in by tourism to stay in the village. All too often, the money that tourists spend never makes it to the people whose natural resources and land are being walked all over. Instead, I think that the friendliness and smiles on the part of the people who showed us where to go and asked if we were going to see Mr. Kangeru were due, at least in some small part, to the fact that he has set up a program that allows tourists to do more than simply erode the village paths.

Smooth Sailing in Majengo

There's not much news here in Majengo. Becca and I have been busy teaching and trying to speak Swahili. So far this week, our lessons have focused on counting, ending up with a rousing march around the classroom to "The Ants Go Marching." (I really wanted number three to be "take a pee" but wiser heads prevailed and number three still stops to "climb a tree.") We miss everyone! And if anyone sees my brother before he leaves for school, give him a big hug for me!

NGO Without Borders

NGO Without Borders: Providing HIV/AIDS orphans and widows with food, shelter, healthcare, education and microfinance loans. Specializing in Serengeti safaris and Kilimanjaro treks. Also Barack Obama regional headquarters.

This isn't the name of an actual safari company cum NGO here in Moshi, but it might as well be. Every entrepreneur we meet on the street seems to be from some new NGO that wants us to "fund" them by climing Kilimanjaro. (He's also probably wearing a Barack Obama pin.) This is simultaneously off-putting and absolutely hilarious, as they certainly have travelers like us well-pegged. Who woudn't want to help as noble a mission as the one above, especially if all you need to do is go on a luxury vacation?

Two examples: In Zanzibar, we were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon Barack himself, running for an unspecified local office. After an impressive speach about the value of education, in which he lifted lines from Martin Luther King, Jr., Julius Nyerere, and Obama himself, we were asked to sign a petition, with plenty of personal information, to put him on the ballot. How exactly an Obama impersonator would get on a Tanzanian ballot with a petition full of foreign signatures is still unclear to us. Granted, we also don't know what they were trying to sell us as we have yet to receive an email. Nevertheless, it was good to know that "change we can believe in" had made it to Zanzibar.

Here in Moshi, one of our first weekends in town, a man approached us asking if we were volunteers. When we said yes he proceded to tell us all about his NGO, which specializes in teaching teenagers about safe sex. After a somewhat drawn out conversation about another American volunteer he knows (for whom he took our email address), he asked us if we had any interest in climbing the mountain with him.

These interactions have left us wondering, is telling us exactly what we want to hear really disengenuous, or are they just being good businessmen? Is a hawker who "gives us a discount" because we support Barack Obama being slimy? Although our sense of morality may be initially challenged by this appropriation of causes we all believe in, is it really so different from the fundraising schemes used by Western organizations with which we are more familiar?

The other day we met some volunteers traveling with an NGO from the UK. They had each fundraised a substantial amount for this organization, and in exchange the NGO brought them to Tanzania to see some of the projects their money will fund, climb Kilimanjaro, and spend a week in Zanzibar. The leaders, professional development workers, seem to believe that this marriage between philanthropy and holiday is a model that works. They have been able to fund great local organizations here in Moshi. . . so who are we to argue?

Nonetheless, it makes us wonder why this model is so successful. Why do we feel too guilty to travel here just for a vacation? Everyone seems to feel the need to help, whether they book with a "porter friendly" safari company, or come for the whole summer to volunteer at a local nursery school. Nobody chooses their Versailles tour guide based on whether they teach sexual health education in the Banlieux.

However, let's not let our cynicism be misleading. We clearly believe that we do have something to offer, or we wouldn't be here...

Here in Majengo

It's been a week now since we got to Moshi/Majengo, and things are going really well. Moshi is a town of about 100,000 people, just south of Mt. Kilimanjaro. On clear days, you can see the mountain from the town center (we haven't caught a glimpse of it yet, but then again, we haven't really been looking). We're staying about 20 mintues (walking) from Moshi center in a small town called Majengo, and working at an English-medium nursery school there called the Step-Up Center. The school is a place where, for a small fee, elementary and nursery school students are taught a normal curriculum as well as English. Most children only get access to English either in expensive private schools or in secondary school. However, classes in the government secondary schools are in English, while, in the government elementary schools, classes are in Swahili. University is also taught exclusively in English. Getting a "step-up" on English-language instruction allows these students much better access to higher education, as they can actually understand their teachers' instructions.

So every day, Becca and I get up early and walk two minutes down the road to the school, where we are trying our best to help the students learn the alphabet. It's difficult, as some of the students are as young as three-and-a-half. Besides, the Tanzanian teachers are really excellent, and they hardly need the help of a couple of Americans who barely speak Swahili. Nonetheless, little kids are sponges for language, and even by speaking to them in a little English and giving them some one-on-one instuction, hopefully we are imparting on them a little bit of concrete knowledge. Besides, I am hoping that by just giving the students, and perhaps more importantly in the long run, the teachers, access to an American who cares about Tanzanians and who is trying to bridge the gap between the two cultures, I can open up doors both for the Tanzanian students and (someday) my own students.

Becca and I are staying at a gust house called the Mississippi Lodge. The woman who runs the lodge, mama, has really taken us in, albeit in her own gruff way. Although we have been trying to cook for ourselves, she has insisted on "helping us," which, in reality, means cooking delicious Tanzanian dishes for us as she sits us down to eat next to her own sons. As it's winter here, she even berated us for not wearing coats as we left the lodge the other day! We have our own little room, and we bought a couple of dishes, a loaf of bread, some peanut butter, and some instant coffee.

Saba Saba

After coming back from Kilwa, Sam and I still had one more day of weekend because of the national holiday Saba Saba (Seven Seven, because it’s the 7th of July). Schools and businesses close, and people from all over the country converge on Dar for a huge week-long trade fair. Our host father’s mother even flew in from Moshi!

The fair grounds were huge, and had pavilions for companies from all over the world. The range of products was incredible, everything from huge displays of plastic chairs to tasting stands for imported beer. All the government agencies got in on it as well, and set up impressive exhibits about their values, goals, and how they are going about accomplishing them. One of my favorites was the Parliament’s TV loop of pictures of each MP and which district they serve. The woman leading us through the booth explained that a lot of people don’t know how their government works, so Saba Saba is a good way to reach a large audience. My other favorite was the huge display by the American embassy’s both about the prominent role Muslims play in the states, complete with pictures of Muslim US soldiers praying.

After a full morning at the fair, we decided to head to the outdoor soccer stadium to try to catch the friendly between Yanga, a Tanzanian team, and Express, a Ugandan one. We had no idea what time the game started, and showed up almost two hours early. It was fun sitting in the stands and watching them fill up. I became more and more uncomfortable as the crowd got bigger and bigger. There were no clearly divided seats, just benches, which gradually got more and more densely packed. Eventually all the stairs were covered as well, but people kept coming. It got to the point that in order to get up or down, people were climbing the guard rail on the side of the stadium. As far as I could see, Sam and I were the only wazungu (white foreigners) in the whole stadium, and I was one of only a handful of women. This has never really bothered us before, but for some reason it was a bit scary at that moment. The game started, but still more and more people kept streaming in. We became increasingly aware of the fact that, having gotten there really early, we had pretty good seats. For the first time since we arrived in Tanzania, we felt very unwelcome. As the game went on, the men around us got more and more intense. While at first their yelling seemed like fun sports rivalry, it gradually shifted into yelling about us. With the language barrier we could only pick out small snippets, but they included things like, “This isn’t for the English, this is for Swahili people!” By halftime we were no longer having fun, and decided to catch a taxi home.

Talking about it later, Sam and I decided that it probably would have felt safe if we had been able to understand none or all of what was said about us. And perhaps it would have been better to go on a different day – we all know how public holidays can be. I was proud of us for being willing to leave, even though we were definitely made fun of for it. Sometimes that’s just part of traveling.

Kilwa Kisiwani

One of the first things that Becca and I did when we got to Dar was to visit the National Museum. There, we saw a rather large exhibit about Kilwa, a trading hub of the Swahili coast that rose to global prominence a few different times between 1300 and 1800. Most famously, during the 1330's Kilwa controlled the gold coming out of Great Zimbabwe and the port of Sofala. As middlemen for the precious metal coming out of the interior of Southern Africa, Kilwa quickly became fabously wealthy. The Moroccan Muslim traveler Ibn Battutah even stopped in Kilwa on his journey from Spain to China and back again in the middle of the 14th century. At various times throughout history, Kilwa rose to prominence as a trading hub for spices, ivory, gold, and slaves. Finally, after a short revival just before the end of the slave trade, the Omani Arabs, in an attempt to consolidate control from Zanzibar exiled the final sultan of Kilwa towards the end of the 18th century.

After getting home from the museum, we checked out a map, and saw that Kilwa was "only" about 330km to the south of Dar, and we decided to use the weekend to travel there. We flew down after class on Friday afternoon, and then we took the bus back on Sunday morning.

What is especially neat about Kilwa is that many of the buildings documented the past riches of Kilwa still exist as ruins. Admittedly, it takes some imagination to recreate the splendor of the palaces, but the fact that these buildings still exist--most notably a mosque that still retains its domed tops--makes it possible to just walk around inside the structures. For me, it was also so interesting to realize that vast majority of the knowledge that we have about Kilwa is due to archeological findings. Historians trying to study, for example, England, in the 1500's have a sizeable collection of written documents and records to go from. For those (few) that have tried to study Kilwa few such records have been found. Usually, I tend to think of acheology as a people looking for Troy or King Tut's tomb, not records of Portugese trade goods from the middle of the 18th century. There is, however, a part of me that thinks that these records must exist somewhere. But even that doesn't help much! They could be in Mombassa or Oman, Istanbul or Gujerat, Lisbon or Seville, and in any more languages than any one scholar could probably ever hope to know.

More than anything, though, that shows how important Kilwa (and the rest of the "Swahili Coast") has been throughout history. Just as I saw in Zanzibar, the early modern world, especially once Vasco de Gama rounded South Africa, truly went through the "Spice Islands" off the coast of Kenya and Tanzania. And that is just really cool.

However, the past greatness of Kilwa has certainly not translated into modern wealth. The roads away from it are impassible when it rains, and (as we found out) bumpy and unpaved even when you can get through. The airstrip nearby is unpaved, and the site sees only a trickle of visitors (despite being a UNESCO World Heritage Site). Furthermore, the village of Kilwa was one of the poorest that I have seen. Living around the ruins of fabulous wealth are people who still use the same wells that the Kilwa Sultans once did. I cannot even imagine living in an omnipresent shadow of past riches and knowing that at one point the stones piled up around you were the center of the world.

Adjusting to Dar

(full disclosure: written by Becca and Sam, however the part that is "linguistic and annoying" is Sam's alone)

Hawajambo! Wiki hii, sisi tunakaa Dar es Salaam na tunaenda shule kujifunza kiswahili.

Hello! This week, we are staying in Dar es Salaam and are going to school to learn Swahili. Our class has three other students, another American (a grad student) and a really cool Dutch couple who will be living here for three years. We are all very much beginners. Becca's vast knowledge of Swahili was covered in the first two days of class, and so we've been soldering on through the morphological slog together. Kiswahili is an agglutinitive language, which means that tense, subject, and object are all reflected as prefixes (for the most part) on the verb. It makes the language somewhat like a fill-in-the blank puzzle where each element has a position that must be filled in. So, the vocabulary is by far the hardest part. The vocab is a mixture of Bantu and Arabic, with some Portugese and English words mixed in. Often times, the origin of a verb dictates the type of prefixes attached to it.

Our host family has been very kind and welcoming, only making fun of us a little bit for all of our linguitic fumbling. The father is a lawyer and the mother runs a catering business. Most of our time at home, however, is spent with their kids, who have been very nice to us. We're still figuring out the rhythms of the family, but we think that we've almost got it. We'll see what the weekend brings.

Yesterday, we went on "Expedition Mbili: The Search for Mpira kwa Soka" [Expedition Two: The Search for the Soccer Ball]. Our host brother, who does not play much football, suggested that we try the sports store at the local upscale shopping center. But they charged over $50 for a soccer ball! Instead, following the advice of an old man who sells us Coca-Cola after school, we hopped aboard a dala-dala (local bus) for an hour-long ride into the bustling center of Kariakoo, considered the most "African" neighborhood of Dar (as opposed to "Indian" or "mzungu" [white]). It was a great success! And three hours later, Sam was playing soccer with a new ball and a bunch of local schoolboys. And Becca was showin off her Swahili by explaining to the host family why, for the first time since we arrived in Dar, the two of us were not side by side.

Back in Stone Town

Combining Zanzibar's two best known commodities, spices and tourism, a Spice Tour is definitely a Zanzibarian experience. The spice plantations here seem to be (at least according to our guide) mostly family owned plots of two or three acres that intercrop a huge variety of fruits and spices to sell to middlemen. It is actually pretty incredible, you walk around from one tree to the next and one is growing peppercorns while the next is growing leeche or pineapple. The best part of the tour is that you get to taste something from every tree. Cinnamon bark next to iodine, pomello next to clove or nutmeg. Finally, the tour ended up with a local meal, delicious but predictably overspiced, in a nearby village.

The one bump in the road was the mysogynist tourguide. Becca was the only woman on the tour, and the boys (and young men) who helped pick the fruit capitalized on her welcoming spirit by annoyingly bequeathing her with a ring, necklace (in the shape of a frog), handbag, and crown, all sewn from bannana leaves. And then asking for a tip. It was unfortunate that our guide, who was obviously in cahouts with the boys, did not help us out more in refusing their "gifts." And I know it made Becca uncomfortable to be singled out--especially because she did not want to be mean--and feeling taken advantage of. Added on top of some (predictably) sexist comments about division of labor on the spice plantation--women can't harvest the coconuts because the trees are too high, for example--and it made the rest of the tour a little harder to swallow.

Otherwise, I am loving it here in Stone Town. While the decay is certainly disheartening--it is sobering to think that the Omani sultan occupied the city until the 1860's--the beauty that remains is just incredible. And, as someone who is so interested in the way that ideas, goods, and religion moved in the past, Zanzibar was certainly the center of that world. Did you know, for example, that many American whaling ships stopped here throughout the early 19th century (and especially in the 1830's)? And it's only in the second half of this century that dhows--many of which originated or stopped in Zanzibar--ceased to be the main vehicle for trade stretching from South Africa to the Persian Gulf to China. It's pretty cool.

TI’m writing today from the mini internet café at our hotel on Kendwa beach, on the northern coast of Zanzibar. It’s gorgeous here - fine white sand, palm trees, water so clear you can see past your toes. . . the works. We’re having a great time relaxing on the beach and enjoying the luxury of our hotel, though it is certainly unsettling that I can be sitting here writing this while the rest of the island goes without electricity.

The cable bringing Zanzibar’s power from the mainland broke over a month ago, and the only places with electricity are those with their own generators. While people have been remarkably patient, their patience is quickly running thin. Tourism’s high season is about to start, and people are afraid that now the tourists won’t come. Or they’ll come and the island won’t have the infrastructure to support them.

Sam and I made dinner reservations yesterday by telling the restaurant seven hours ahead, so they would have enough time to go to the market to buy the fish they would be serving us. That’s how it goes if you can’t refrigerate anything. As dinner time rolled around we walked down the beach to the restaurant, stopping along the way at a store to buy water. “You don’t want cold?” The shopkeeper asked us, grinning from ear to ear, as we brought a bottle from the shelf up to pay. He pointed to the refrigerator, now full of cold water. The power was back! We all stood there a moment, celebrating with one another, before Sam and I continued on to the restaurant. What a difference! There was music blasting, twinkle lights shining, and an excited group of men clustered around the bar watching the TV. Our waiter ran over to us, beaming. The excitement was palpable.

Dinner was incredible. The food was delicious, and the mood euphoric. Then just as we were finishing, the lights cut, the music stopped, and the TV went dead. We all paused a moment, not knowing what to say, while the owner rustled up some candles. The mood dead, they rushed us out while we lamely told them how we hoped the power would come back soon. But as the owner said, “who knows, maybe tomorrow, maybe another month. We just don’t know.” Not knowing what to say, we awkwardly said our goodbyes and walked back down the beach to our hotel. . . still lit and blasting music into the night.

Rain and Religion in Zanzibar

From breakfast today at the rooftop terrace of the Clove Hotel here in Zanzibar, we saw the candy cane-looking towers of a Hindu temple nearby. Becca was already planning on going there, but I got excited just looking at it. As we made our way to the temple, it began raining. The really neat thing about being out in the rain here is that, for most men at least, life just stops (many of the women, it seems, are not slowed by a little rain). Everyone gathers under the nearest awning and just chats until that particular cloudburst has passed. It's sort of like a party game, meeting new people every few blocks.

Inside the temple was beautiful. The courtyard was full of color, with insense burning at the altars. I left an offering with Shiva to assure a safe trip for Becca and me. On our way out, a Zanzibarian Hindu explained to us how the Indians were the original colonial power in Zanzibar, only being supplanted by the British in the last few hundred years.

Soon, we were lost in Stone Town. Looking for the Anglican Cathedral, we were directed to St. Joseph's Catholic church, a beautiful place of worship. A church baliff, fittingly named Joseph, gave us a peek inside. In one the naves, the parishoners had constructed a model of Golgoltha's lair that was clearly the pride of the congregation. I really loved the Marian images around the church, and I wonder which incarnation is most salient to those on Zanzibar. On the way out of the church, we met the friar, dressed in bright green.

Tomorrow, we will head to Kendwa, in the north part of Zanzibar for three days on the beach. Have a good one, everyone!

The Night Before...

It's 11:45pm here in Roosevelt Island in New York.  There's a pile of luggage by the door, and we're almost ready for bed.  Tomorrow, Becca and I are off to Tanzania.  We'll be visiting Zanzibar, attending Swahili language school in Dar-es-Salam, teaching English in Moshi, and spending a few days on safari with Becca's parents.  

Throughout the next twelve weeks (and beyond), Becca and I hope to be updating the blog as we continue to accumulate and reflect on our experiences in Tanzania.  Check in to the site periodically as we post text (and hopefully the occasional picture).  Also, please leave any comments that you have.  We would love to hear from you!