At about 5am this morning I woke up to a happy Arabic tune playing in the night. For a country where at least 1/3 of the population is Muslim, that was really the first time I’ve heard Arabic music since I’ve been here. On the streets you mostly hear African rap and at nights sometimes a pick-up truck with a full marching band in the back will go by playing band music – I haven’t figured that one out yet.
Anyway, I realized that we’re in the middle of Ramadan and that music was probably keeping one of our neighbors company while they quickly ate a feast in preparation for the day of fasting ahead. I was worried that Ramadan would mean many of the restaurants around here wouldn’t open for lunch, but I was wrong. Ramadan in Arusha doesn’t bring about many changes. In fact, Arusha has very few Muslims compared to the coast and Zanzibar. I hardly ever see women walking around in burkas or head scarfs – but they’re there.
In our hotel room we have both CNN and Al Jazeera. I watched Al Jazeera for a while, trying to figure out if there really was something wrong with the network, or if that’s just the West’s perception. From what I can tell, it’s just a normal news network, covering stories from around the world, but most of them from the US.
The news is very interesting over here, regardless of which channel I’m watching. CNN’s weather forecast, which is based in London, covers every continent and there is a disproportionate amount of air time allotted to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions back home, the election, the recent takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and hurricanes in our region. It makes me wonder if the rest of the world isn’t sick of hearing about us, actually. The channels definitely cover the world more broadly than our news networks do, however.
People here are very interested in the election, but it’s very one-sided. If East Africa got to vote, Obama would win unanimously. There are bumper stickers and signs everywhere. When anyone finds out you’re from the US they immediately ask you what you think about Obama. I don’t mind it, any little thing that comes up that reminds me of home makes me feel a little bit more comfortable here in a land of so many differences.
One more note on media: since this is a tourist town, on the streets you can get papers in almost every language for most major countries. Of course, street vendors hound you at every corner to buy one but my friend, Mike, from New Zealand discovered that they don’t have one from there. So, the secret to getting by the paper guys is to ask for the Dominion Post.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Enduimet WMA
Over the last few days, I found out what my project with the African Wildlife Foundation would officially be. I am in charge of creating the business plan for a Wildlife Management Area (WMA) called Enduimet, which is located just West of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The WMA is a community-chartered and organized association where about 8 villiages came together to figure out how they can conserve the area, while developing it just enough to start making enough money to lift themselves out of poverty.
Thursday, I got a chance to visit the WMA. It is located 2 hours from Arusha and has a beautiful countryside. The inhabitants are mostly part of the Kisongo Masaai tribe, so they are traditionally pastoralists. They are some of the most welcoming, wonderful people I have met anywhere in the world. While I was there, I traveled around much of the WMA, checking out existing campsites and interviewing their managers to get a better idea of how the tourism industry in the immediate area works.
In the middle of the day, we ended up driving around in the Kitenden Wildlife Corridor. This corridor facilitates the migration of many animals between Amboseli National Park in Kenya and Kilimanjaro and Arusha National Parks in Tanzania. The landscape was incredibly beautiful - typical of what you picture Africa looking like based on the Discovery Channel - lush green islands of trees and scrubs in a sea of roadless brown dust. We saw a plethora of animals including gazettes, baboons, zebra, giraffes, elephants, and wildebeests. We even crossed the Kenyan border and since there were no roads or signs, we were free to criss-cross the land as we pleased (not the best thing to do if you’re interested in conserving it, but that is something the community knows they need to look at).
The highlight of the trip was actually the ride home when we picked up a Masaai hitchhiker who was trying to get back to Arusha for school. His name was Metwiy and after I figured out that he spoke English, we had a great chat about the Masaai culture. Masaai are able to marry multiple wives, so his dad had a wife in Olmoti (one of the villages in the Enduimet WMA) and Ngorongoro. He had 7 siblings and 6 half-siblings. Since the Masaai are traditionally pastoralists, half of the kids in a typical family are chosen to go to school, while half of them stay home to tend the cattle. Unfortunately, I got him to admit that most of the time the women get the shaft. The males' families pay a dowry of cattle as a brideprice and many times marriages are still arranged – sometimes when the girls are still in secondary school. However, times are changing because you are free to marry whoever you want, and Metwiy had a cell phone and email address. I’ve got video of him explaining his incredible life that I’ll post later. It was fun to get such an up-close look at one of the last remaining traditional world cultures.
This little guy was tending a herd of goats out in the middle of nowhere with his brother. In Africa, it seems there are zero child labor laws. I see children as young as six tending livestock, driving carts, and hauling huge bundles of sticks and water. In fact, I see far more children working than adults. I guess those are the unlucky ones that don't get to go to school. :(
Thursday, I got a chance to visit the WMA. It is located 2 hours from Arusha and has a beautiful countryside. The inhabitants are mostly part of the Kisongo Masaai tribe, so they are traditionally pastoralists. They are some of the most welcoming, wonderful people I have met anywhere in the world. While I was there, I traveled around much of the WMA, checking out existing campsites and interviewing their managers to get a better idea of how the tourism industry in the immediate area works.
In the middle of the day, we ended up driving around in the Kitenden Wildlife Corridor. This corridor facilitates the migration of many animals between Amboseli National Park in Kenya and Kilimanjaro and Arusha National Parks in Tanzania. The landscape was incredibly beautiful - typical of what you picture Africa looking like based on the Discovery Channel - lush green islands of trees and scrubs in a sea of roadless brown dust. We saw a plethora of animals including gazettes, baboons, zebra, giraffes, elephants, and wildebeests. We even crossed the Kenyan border and since there were no roads or signs, we were free to criss-cross the land as we pleased (not the best thing to do if you’re interested in conserving it, but that is something the community knows they need to look at).
The highlight of the trip was actually the ride home when we picked up a Masaai hitchhiker who was trying to get back to Arusha for school. His name was Metwiy and after I figured out that he spoke English, we had a great chat about the Masaai culture. Masaai are able to marry multiple wives, so his dad had a wife in Olmoti (one of the villages in the Enduimet WMA) and Ngorongoro. He had 7 siblings and 6 half-siblings. Since the Masaai are traditionally pastoralists, half of the kids in a typical family are chosen to go to school, while half of them stay home to tend the cattle. Unfortunately, I got him to admit that most of the time the women get the shaft. The males' families pay a dowry of cattle as a brideprice and many times marriages are still arranged – sometimes when the girls are still in secondary school. However, times are changing because you are free to marry whoever you want, and Metwiy had a cell phone and email address. I’ve got video of him explaining his incredible life that I’ll post later. It was fun to get such an up-close look at one of the last remaining traditional world cultures.
This little guy was tending a herd of goats out in the middle of nowhere with his brother. In Africa, it seems there are zero child labor laws. I see children as young as six tending livestock, driving carts, and hauling huge bundles of sticks and water. In fact, I see far more children working than adults. I guess those are the unlucky ones that don't get to go to school. :(
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Africaitice
I had a little bit of what I'm calling Africaitice yesterday. Every morning at 6:15am I try to call Nathan using Skype, which requires me to be online. Yesterday, there was a downpour around that time, so I got out my poncho, shoved the computer under it and ran to the hotel's computer lab. It was closed. Not only that, but our team had installed a wireless access point for the hotel, but they turn off the power in the computer lab every night, so the wireless wasn't even working.
Darn, I thought, but the hotel down the street has an unsecured wireless network, so I decided to walk down there to try to connect. However, not only was the gate to our complex closed and locked, but theirs was too. I got our guard to open our gate and, standing on the driveway, was able to connect to their wireless connection - 48%. I found it really interesting that, here I was, in the middle of Africa, standing in the rain on a driveway, connected to the world - albeit a very slow connection. I never did get a chance to talk to Nathan yesterday after all that shenanigans, but I guess it is pretty amazing that I was able to connect at all. Looking on the bright side, I think it symbolizes that Africa is coming along. From what I've seen, I don't think they will be able to catch up to the rest of the world very quickly, but they are catching up.
Darn, I thought, but the hotel down the street has an unsecured wireless network, so I decided to walk down there to try to connect. However, not only was the gate to our complex closed and locked, but theirs was too. I got our guard to open our gate and, standing on the driveway, was able to connect to their wireless connection - 48%. I found it really interesting that, here I was, in the middle of Africa, standing in the rain on a driveway, connected to the world - albeit a very slow connection. I never did get a chance to talk to Nathan yesterday after all that shenanigans, but I guess it is pretty amazing that I was able to connect at all. Looking on the bright side, I think it symbolizes that Africa is coming along. From what I've seen, I don't think they will be able to catch up to the rest of the world very quickly, but they are catching up.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Tarangire & Lake Manyara
This weekend the team went on a safari. My half of the team visited Tarangire & Lake Manyara National Parks. Unlike the trip from Dar, the cars were nice, had seatbelts, and the driver was respectful of pedestrians. Also, most of the roads to the parks were paved, which I now see as a luxury.
Tarangire was amazing! Animals were everywhere! I almost felt like someone was behind the scenes scaring them up so we could see them, but this was not the case. :) We saw plenty of zebra, elephants (including babies playing in a pond), dikdiks, vetter monkeys, blue monkeys, a mongoose, lots of giraffes, an eagle, storks, Egyptian geese, gnu, a giant lizard-thing and two lions. The lions were the highlight for two reasons. 1) They were only about 20 feet from the car. 2) It’s mating season. Yes, after waiting around for maybe 30-40 minutes and watching the male lion get closer and closer to the female, we got to see nature in action. In Tarangire, the sun is hot and you need to apply sunscreen every couple of hours if you don’t want to walk away looking like a giant beet. There are also tse-tse flies, which are attracted to the color navy blue and hurt when they bite you. Luckily, I only got one bite.
Saturday night we drove to Ngorongoro Forest Tented Camp. Our buddies at TATO had hooked us up with really nice accommodations for cheap (and when I say really nice, I mean spectacular). I stayed in a tent big enough to fit a family of 10. We were perched right on the top of a forested hill, with hot water (two showers – one indoors and one outdoors), an amazingly comfortable bed, and we also got a full three course meal of probably the best food I’ve had since arriving. Yes, it seems that the tourists in Africa are treated pretty well. It’s only when you try to live here for a while that you notice a conglomerate of very small inconveniences that add up quickly.
The next day, we headed to Lake Manyara National Park. There were less animals here than in Tarangire, but more birds and monkeys. In addition to the two kinds we saw in Tarangire, there were baboons everywhere. We also were treated to thousands of pelicans & flamingos on the lake AND hippos! Lake Manyara was a little cooler, since you were in a forest practically the whole time. I really enjoyed both parks and can’t wait to get back after my work with AWF is complete!
Tarangire was amazing! Animals were everywhere! I almost felt like someone was behind the scenes scaring them up so we could see them, but this was not the case. :) We saw plenty of zebra, elephants (including babies playing in a pond), dikdiks, vetter monkeys, blue monkeys, a mongoose, lots of giraffes, an eagle, storks, Egyptian geese, gnu, a giant lizard-thing and two lions. The lions were the highlight for two reasons. 1) They were only about 20 feet from the car. 2) It’s mating season. Yes, after waiting around for maybe 30-40 minutes and watching the male lion get closer and closer to the female, we got to see nature in action. In Tarangire, the sun is hot and you need to apply sunscreen every couple of hours if you don’t want to walk away looking like a giant beet. There are also tse-tse flies, which are attracted to the color navy blue and hurt when they bite you. Luckily, I only got one bite.
Saturday night we drove to Ngorongoro Forest Tented Camp. Our buddies at TATO had hooked us up with really nice accommodations for cheap (and when I say really nice, I mean spectacular). I stayed in a tent big enough to fit a family of 10. We were perched right on the top of a forested hill, with hot water (two showers – one indoors and one outdoors), an amazingly comfortable bed, and we also got a full three course meal of probably the best food I’ve had since arriving. Yes, it seems that the tourists in Africa are treated pretty well. It’s only when you try to live here for a while that you notice a conglomerate of very small inconveniences that add up quickly.
The next day, we headed to Lake Manyara National Park. There were less animals here than in Tarangire, but more birds and monkeys. In addition to the two kinds we saw in Tarangire, there were baboons everywhere. We also were treated to thousands of pelicans & flamingos on the lake AND hippos! Lake Manyara was a little cooler, since you were in a forest practically the whole time. I really enjoyed both parks and can’t wait to get back after my work with AWF is complete!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Manyara Ranch
Today the African Wildlife Team visited Manyara Ranch, located 80 km South of Arusha. The ranch was bought in April of 2001 as the first purchase under the Tanzanian Land Conservation Trust (TLCT). This trust is set-up to allow the community members (those living within the trust) to choose how they want to develop the land, but within a conservation framework. One of our projects will be to build a sustainable development plan for the area based on things like eco-tourism, beekeeping, and sustainable ranching.
The Manyara Ranch is in a uniquely important location. It is located between two National Parks: Tarangire & Lake Manyara. Several kinds of animals (zebras, wildebeests, elephants, etc) use the area as a migration corridor, essential to their survival during the dry season. By creating the trust, AWF helped to save this land from agriculture and excessive ranching, which would destroy the corridor and severely damage these animals’ migration routes. Now it’s time to figure out how to make this a sustainable enterprise so that people can enjoy it for generations to come.
AWF has already done some very good things. They have established a cap on the number of cattle that can graze the area to 6,000 and are teaching 63 traditional Masaai families how to fatten their cows and sell them after 5 years to get the peak price, instead of keeping their cows 12 years and selling for a very low price. They have also moved a boarding school, which had been in squalid conditions (4 children in one bed!) and was located in the middle of the migration corridor (putting the kids in danger from elephant attacks) to a better location, completely refurbishing the school.
Our trip out there was just to get to know the landscape and to help us see what might be improved. Little did we know we were in for an amazing treat! The last thing we did was talk to four Masaai women who are working on a tree planting project for local schools. See them below in their traditional garb:
Most exciting for me, just like an official National Park, we saw gobs of animals. Hundreds of zebra, a handful of giraffe, impalas, five ostriches, and herds of wildebeests! The game scouts, local Masaai trained to protect the park from poachers, met us in the middle of the park and gave us a ride in their open air truck. Standing there with the wind in your face, ducking from the scary spikes on every tree with wild animals that you’ve only seen on TV is probably going to be one of the most memorable adventures of my life. I can’t believe how lucky we are to be doing this as our jobs!!!
The Manyara Ranch is in a uniquely important location. It is located between two National Parks: Tarangire & Lake Manyara. Several kinds of animals (zebras, wildebeests, elephants, etc) use the area as a migration corridor, essential to their survival during the dry season. By creating the trust, AWF helped to save this land from agriculture and excessive ranching, which would destroy the corridor and severely damage these animals’ migration routes. Now it’s time to figure out how to make this a sustainable enterprise so that people can enjoy it for generations to come.
AWF has already done some very good things. They have established a cap on the number of cattle that can graze the area to 6,000 and are teaching 63 traditional Masaai families how to fatten their cows and sell them after 5 years to get the peak price, instead of keeping their cows 12 years and selling for a very low price. They have also moved a boarding school, which had been in squalid conditions (4 children in one bed!) and was located in the middle of the migration corridor (putting the kids in danger from elephant attacks) to a better location, completely refurbishing the school.
Our trip out there was just to get to know the landscape and to help us see what might be improved. Little did we know we were in for an amazing treat! The last thing we did was talk to four Masaai women who are working on a tree planting project for local schools. See them below in their traditional garb:
Most exciting for me, just like an official National Park, we saw gobs of animals. Hundreds of zebra, a handful of giraffe, impalas, five ostriches, and herds of wildebeests! The game scouts, local Masaai trained to protect the park from poachers, met us in the middle of the park and gave us a ride in their open air truck. Standing there with the wind in your face, ducking from the scary spikes on every tree with wild animals that you’ve only seen on TV is probably going to be one of the most memorable adventures of my life. I can’t believe how lucky we are to be doing this as our jobs!!!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Road Less Traveled
Over the past two days we've been traveling by "road" to Arusha from Dar Es Salaam. I have quotes around "road" because I never in my life imagined a longer and bumpier ride in the back of a Land Rover as we had for the last two days.
It started off great - paved road between Dar Es Salaam and Dodoma (the official capital where parliament sits). Along the way we saw many, many villages with what seemed like all of their citizens out and about - chatting on the street, selling their goods, or just outside the city hauling large bundles of sticks on their heads or bikes for the fires they would build tonight. We stopped for lunch in a town called Morogoro with a population of around 4 million. Then, we went to visit two farms that are using the Kickstart MoneyMaker Pump - one a farm about 6km from the main road and one was a prison, where they were using farming to teach criminals how to live without committing crimes. Both said the pumps were helping them immensely - the first farmer's crop had increased over 100%!!
A late start and a bunch of delays had us getting to Dodoma at around 9:30pm. After it got completely dark at around 7pm, you started to see each villiage had a couple of camp fires and people were still out on the streets. I have to admit our driver's driving was very scary. He usually came within a couple inches of the cars we were passing AND the people on the side of the road. Occasionally he would speed up when he saw someone, honking and seemingly trying to hit them as if it were a game. That part was not fun!
The second day was by far the worst road trip I've ever been on. The road was just about the worst dirt road I've ever been on and we were on it for about 8 hours. I happened to be sitting in the back of the Land Rover, just above the wheel wells, so I got the hardest bumps. We hit our heads and bounced all over the truck all day, stopping for lunch finally at 3pm. We had left late and unlike in the US, there really wasn't a closer place to stop - no McDonald's at every exit and village! In fact, I haven't seen any fast food restaurants at all in Tanzania yet!
Along the way we saw three baboons, two dik diks, my teammate saw some Vetter Monkeys, AND, you won't believe this, but we saw a black mamba. It was scared by the car, so stood up just like a cobra and watched us. Luckily, we were very far away at this point, so what does our driver do? He backs up, while we still had the windows down, so we could get a better look at the deadliest snake on the planet. Luckily it had slithered away by the time he got close.
I did make it to Arusha safe and sound, but that is one trip I will NOT be repeating ever again. If you have a chance to donate to some kind of African Road Project - do it!
Our team made its first video today - check it out:
It started off great - paved road between Dar Es Salaam and Dodoma (the official capital where parliament sits). Along the way we saw many, many villages with what seemed like all of their citizens out and about - chatting on the street, selling their goods, or just outside the city hauling large bundles of sticks on their heads or bikes for the fires they would build tonight. We stopped for lunch in a town called Morogoro with a population of around 4 million. Then, we went to visit two farms that are using the Kickstart MoneyMaker Pump - one a farm about 6km from the main road and one was a prison, where they were using farming to teach criminals how to live without committing crimes. Both said the pumps were helping them immensely - the first farmer's crop had increased over 100%!!
A late start and a bunch of delays had us getting to Dodoma at around 9:30pm. After it got completely dark at around 7pm, you started to see each villiage had a couple of camp fires and people were still out on the streets. I have to admit our driver's driving was very scary. He usually came within a couple inches of the cars we were passing AND the people on the side of the road. Occasionally he would speed up when he saw someone, honking and seemingly trying to hit them as if it were a game. That part was not fun!
The second day was by far the worst road trip I've ever been on. The road was just about the worst dirt road I've ever been on and we were on it for about 8 hours. I happened to be sitting in the back of the Land Rover, just above the wheel wells, so I got the hardest bumps. We hit our heads and bounced all over the truck all day, stopping for lunch finally at 3pm. We had left late and unlike in the US, there really wasn't a closer place to stop - no McDonald's at every exit and village! In fact, I haven't seen any fast food restaurants at all in Tanzania yet!
Along the way we saw three baboons, two dik diks, my teammate saw some Vetter Monkeys, AND, you won't believe this, but we saw a black mamba. It was scared by the car, so stood up just like a cobra and watched us. Luckily, we were very far away at this point, so what does our driver do? He backs up, while we still had the windows down, so we could get a better look at the deadliest snake on the planet. Luckily it had slithered away by the time he got close.
I did make it to Arusha safe and sound, but that is one trip I will NOT be repeating ever again. If you have a chance to donate to some kind of African Road Project - do it!
Our team made its first video today - check it out:
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Mbudyo Island
Today was our day off. Since Tanzanians don't work on Sundays (they usually have at least a half-day on Saturdays), it's hard to get a training set-up. We had a little trouble deciding as a group what we would do on our free day, until we found out that the owner of the hotel had a boat and that we could take to one of two islands just a little ways out into the ocean in front of the hotel. We decided to go to the farther of the two, Mbudyo, which is technically a Marine Reserve.
The place was gorgeous (sorry, no pictures still - I'm hoping the internet in Arusha is much faster). It's an uninhabited island, so there wasn't much of a crowd - just the people that come via their own boats or possibly a ferry, but we never saw one come in. There was one grill there which served only seafood with rice or "chips" (french fries to us Americans). We got hassled right off of the boat by a sketchy guy telling us to pay to get into the reserve. Since he didn't have any official documentation - just a printout he'd taken, he couldn't convince me that he wasn't just trying to steal our money, so I refused to pay. Nothing happened to me, so I think I made the right choice!!
We swam in the clear water, which was very warm and I had fish and chips for lunch. The fish came looking just like a fish and was actually really good. While we were sitting there eating, we saw a few fishermen come up to the grill and sell their fish, a lobster, and even an octopus to the bar owner! It was extremely fresh and local! (Legal? I'm not quite sure.) Anyway, it was a good time and we avoided being spilled into the ocean on the way home even though the sea had gotten really rough. I have to admit I was pretty nervous for a while.
For dinner we went to Cine Club, which had a live band (The B Band) and made us a Tanzanian buffet. All of the food was excellent - there was curried rice, bananas (which did indeed taste like potatoes when cooked), chipatis (a tortilla-like thing), and we got to try goat. (I prefer beef.)
It was a really nice day. I'm sad to leave my nice ocean-front room tomorrow, but we'll be in Arusha by Tuesday and I'm ready to settle down!
The place was gorgeous (sorry, no pictures still - I'm hoping the internet in Arusha is much faster). It's an uninhabited island, so there wasn't much of a crowd - just the people that come via their own boats or possibly a ferry, but we never saw one come in. There was one grill there which served only seafood with rice or "chips" (french fries to us Americans). We got hassled right off of the boat by a sketchy guy telling us to pay to get into the reserve. Since he didn't have any official documentation - just a printout he'd taken, he couldn't convince me that he wasn't just trying to steal our money, so I refused to pay. Nothing happened to me, so I think I made the right choice!!
We swam in the clear water, which was very warm and I had fish and chips for lunch. The fish came looking just like a fish and was actually really good. While we were sitting there eating, we saw a few fishermen come up to the grill and sell their fish, a lobster, and even an octopus to the bar owner! It was extremely fresh and local! (Legal? I'm not quite sure.) Anyway, it was a good time and we avoided being spilled into the ocean on the way home even though the sea had gotten really rough. I have to admit I was pretty nervous for a while.
For dinner we went to Cine Club, which had a live band (The B Band) and made us a Tanzanian buffet. All of the food was excellent - there was curried rice, bananas (which did indeed taste like potatoes when cooked), chipatis (a tortilla-like thing), and we got to try goat. (I prefer beef.)
It was a really nice day. I'm sad to leave my nice ocean-front room tomorrow, but we'll be in Arusha by Tuesday and I'm ready to settle down!
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