Dik Diks and Wait A Bits

Wow… it’s been a while. And it’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks.

Just to get all of it out of the way in the beginning – it’s hard to say that the whole robbery thing has been ‘resolved’ because we couldn’t recover any of our things and there was no insurance coverage on any of them through the program and the hotel is not liable. We have yet to get an official statement from Arcadia about the situation and overall we’re feeling like we just kind of have to accept it because nothing is going to change. I know that’s a virtue, but it’s pretty hard to accept that when you did nothing wrong and someone waltzed in and stole all of your valuables that somehow nobody gets any blame and nothing really gets fixed. After trying to play it cool for pretty much the entirety of two weeks I feel like maybe I just need to like punch a wall or something and just stop thinking about it.

On to much lighter things:

As many of you know, my family is here right now. Even Matt could make it! They got in last Friday night and early Saturday morning the four of us left for safari. Even through the jetlag and culture shock we had a really great time in Ngorogoro Crater on Saturday. I think the animal highlights were all of the lions that we saw: two right after a fresh zebra kill and two more basically just basking in the sun two feet from the side of the road. We stayed at a beautiful lodge on the crater rim, where on our walk back after dinner we encountered two Cape Buffalo who apparently are notorious for eating the lodge’s grass and drinking from their pool. Wouldn’t you?

After our day in the Crater we drove to Lake Eyasi, which in theory is not a very long drive. But in practice it is one of the more miserable drives that I have taken. The driving was slow, bumpy and dusty, but the road led to a wonderful camp where we stayed. The lake was pretty much dried up since they haven’t had a drop of rain in the region since April 15. Six months. No wonder it’s dusty. That afternoon we went on a so-called ‘cultural safari’ (I really don’t like that term – although it does kind of feel that way when you’re there). We went to the homes of two Datoga families, one of which was a blacksmith. We got to see their homes, Matt got to melt some metal, I got to grind some maize, and mama got to hold a wee little baby.

And then came the real adventure. Monday morning we woke up at 5:00 IN THE MORNING to go on a hunt with a group of Hazabe (Bushmen) hunters. The Hazabe are one of the last click-speaking tribes and they still practice hunting and gathering. Our guide says there are only about 700-800 Wahazabe left in all of Tanzania and for the most part they all still live this lifestyle. When we arrived the men and seemingly any boy who had gone through puberty were sitting around the fire smoking from their pipe (what they were smoking varied) and chatting. They then showed us their super-efficient way of starting a fire (which both Matt and dad attempted and for the most part succeeded at) and then showed us the different types of arrows that they used for hunting. We then followed them up a small mountain trying not to get our clothing stuck on the thorns known as Wait A Bits (because once you get caught on one you have to wait a bit to unhook them). Unfortunately, the hunters only shot a small bird. Although, when you think about it that’s almost more impressive because they hit it with an arrow. The find of the day by any account was the honey that they discovered in a tree. There wasn’t a hive, instead there was just a tree limb that they started chucking huge rocks at and once it broke there were gobs of honey inside. Being nice young boys they offered it around, but the bugs and dirt stuck in it weren’t very appealing so after a small taste we let them have the rest. And they gladly accepted. When we got back to camp but Matt and dad tried their luck at the bow and arrow. The arrow flew but no luck on hitting the target. I’m pretty sure with more practice, though, that they could definitely shoot a dik dik.

From Lake Eyasi we then traveled to Tarangire National Park, which was pretty cool. We saw so many elephants that they started to feel like squirrels running around (except slightly larger). The definite highlight for me was seeing a mother and baby leopard wandering through the savannah grasses. So cool. We saw pretty much every animal (including the Big 5) between Ngorogoro and Tarangire. Safari success. I went back a day early because unfortunately I have things to do here, but the whole family is now back in Arusha and planning a couple of interesting things for the next couple of days. We’ll see how all of that pans out and update later.

As for everything else… it’s good. We’re nearing the end of classes, with only three weeks left before finals and then a trip to Zanzibar. The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty crazy with papers to write, but fortunately for me they’re all about topics that I find really interesting. I will be writing a health paper about the effects of civil conflict on the transmission and treatment of HIV/AIDS, a research paper about the Lord Resistance Army and its spillover into Sudan and the DRC, and a paper about water projects and access to water in Arusha for my environmental class. They should be very interesting papers, albeit a lot of work.

I miss a lot of things from home, but I can list a couple of things that I don’t miss. One is snow in the middle of October. Another is partisan bickering and ridiculously unnecessary news coverage of that partisan bickering. Yet another is the pace. Nothing moves quickly here. Except tourists. It will be a strange adjustment returning to all of those things, but I like the perspective I think I’ve gained.

Delayed Culture Shock

Forgive me in advance for the lack of posts in the coming weeks. Monday night while the eight of us were at dinner, someone broke into our locked apartments and stole our laptops, cameras and ipods. We had the keys with us at dinner and when we came back thirty minutes later everything was gone. We've filed a police report and they do have a lead on the guy, but none of us are really holding out hope for getting the laptops back, and if we do we're not expecting them to have any of the information left on them. Did you back up anything, you ask? Why yes I did, on the two ipods that were stolen! We're all feeling a little bit betrayed by Arusha and are having kind of a crisis of trust at the moment. Anyway, it's a bad situation but it's being handled the best that it can and we're all thankful that we're safe and have families that love us and will help us figure all of this out from thousands of miles away :)

Paradise Found

I never thought a vacation from Arusha would be necessary until I took one. I figured since my goal was to return to Arusha through whatever means possible that I would not have a desire to leave. But, stepping back from it I realize that life can be hectic and overwhelming even in here. And also, I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect getaway

We began in Kigamboni, a suburb of Dar es Salaam. We were under the impression hat we would be staying in the city center and when we all of a sudden started driving onto a ferry there was definitely an air of disappointment on our trusty mini-bus. After hours of traffic on both ends of the ferry we were ready to settle into somewhere comfortable and not as sketchy as the surrounding bush. And we found it. We stayed at Kipepo Villas or something to that effect and it was absolutely wonderful. We had cute little stilted bungalows and the most perfect beach I have ever seen. The sand was white and the water was the most amazing arrays of blues and greens you can imagine.

Our only full day there was devoted to the water. We took a dhow (a rickety little boat) from our beach to an island that had an even more picturesque beach. Seeing the boat was a little nerve-wracking but we’ve conceded to just saying “TIT” (“This is Tanzania”) and accepting it. The water was absolutely clear, there was not a cloud in the sky, and we got to just explore and lounge around all day on this perfect tropical island. And get fried by the equatorial sun, surprise surprise. Actually, in my defense, I was one of the least burned of everyone, despite being without a doubt the fairest. We started calling ourselves “nyama choma” which is the Swahili name basically for BBQ or roasted meat.

Basically, our excursion to “Dar” was not at all representative of the city but it could not have been more perfect. We were expecting a crappy hotel in the middle of a city of three million people but instead we got quaint villas on a private beach. I’m okay with the fact that I still haven’t really seen Dar.

After two nights at Kipepeo we traveled to Bagamoyo, a small city about an hour north along the Indian Ocean coast. We went essentially from bustle to absolutely nothing – there wasn’t even power in the city when we were there. But it is a very nice small town on the coast that is full of history – basically ideal. We stayed at a hostel at the Catholic Mission in town – the first Catholic Church in German East Africa. More on that in a bit.

Apart from its historical legacy of its role in the slave trade, Bagamoyo is known across Tanzania for its College of Arts that was holding a festival while we were there. It is the only college of its kind in the region and produces a lot of artists that sell their work in Bagamoyo. There were performances all day during the festival and artists selling their crafts outside. It reminded me of a very mini Minnesota State Fair – performances inside a bandstand, vendors, and a lot of greasy food that you wouldn’t otherwise eat. I didn’t think it would be possible to draw a parallel between the state fair and Bagamoyo but there you have it.

Wednesday was devoted to seeing historical sites – awesome. And for those of you who don’t know, that ‘awesome’ was not at all sarcastic – I love historical sites so so much. We began with ruins from about the 8^th century. The settlement began in the 4^th century and Islam arrived around 400 years later with the Persians. There most obvious structures remaining are the mosque and its cemetery. There was a combination of Persian and Chinese influence during the settlement’s life span, but its citizens remained African throughout. There are three theories as to why the city was deserted and its citizens moved up the coast to present-day Bagamoyo: one is war with the Portuguese; two is a typhoon that blocked their port; and three is cannibalism (I dunno that one seems to me like some Western ‘historian’ from the 19^th century trying to work barbarianism into the fabric of Africa’s history).

The remainder of Bagamoyo’s history revolves around the slave trade from the 16^th-20^th centuries. Our tour guide freely acknowledged that Europeans, Indians, Arabs and Africans all played integral roles in the slave trade in East Africa and that none of them can escape blame. He also talked about the long-term effects of slavery on the culture on the coast. He pointed out that almost every home has a veranda. Why? People sit under their verandas during the day because if you work too much you look like a slave. Agriculture in the area is almost non-existent; the economy consists of fishing because that was not as much of a slave job. Also, there is a heavy stigma about descendants of slaves (even though most of the slaves in the East African trade were castrated before they were shipped).

The mission where we stayed had a “Freedom Village” for ransomed slaves during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Some of the other sites that we saw were German colonial sites because Bagamoyo was the capital of the German East Africa colony. We visited a German fort, administrative building, cemetery and hanging place that were all pretty interesting. The final day that we were in Bagamoyo we also visited a salt farm that has been in use since the 4^th century – talk about a long history in that town. For such a tiny town Bagamoyo is packed with historical information and sites, on top of cool cultural things and great, cheap souvenirs.

Arusha is not a bad or stressful city but in comparison to Kipepeo and Bagamoyo it definitely seems that way. I realized when I was gone just how much I have nested in Arusha because I feel very at home here and feel like I have found a good pattern to life. Vacation was great and I cannot complain about a single thing, but it does feel good to be ‘home’ again.