If you feel as if I’ve been out of touch for too long, you’re right! I had no idea that the first few weeks in Tanzania would be so busy, so happy and so eventful. Today, for the first time, I have a free afternoon, so I’m going to write one letter to all of you. Thanks for sharing!
I arrived at Dar es Salaam on Sunday, May 10th at midnight. We were scheduled in earlier from Nairobi, but another plane had mechanical problems, so we waited for their passengers and detoured through Kilimanjaro to drop them off. If this seems unlikely for commercial air carriers, welcome to Africa. The most awesome smile was waiting at the airport – Vinikute Kilimile. In 2004, Paul and I met Vinikute in the small village of Nyanzwa and he became a part of our family as we sponsored him for a business degree at Tumaini University. He did extremely well at Tumaini, taught there for a year, and is now in Dar working on a Master’s degree in Finance through Strathclyde University. Vinkikute and his friend put my two 50 pound bags into a taxi and brought me to Luther House. Even though he had exams the next day, Vinikute was back at 7am for a wonderful breakfast together, then took me and my 100 lbs of luggage to the bus station. He generously paid for my hotel, bus trip and taxis – asante sana, Vinikute. ( thank you). I am very proud of the impressive man you have become.
During the ten hour bus ride to Iringa, I called Sally and Paul Harris to let them know I was on the way. Paul said – “Sally said to buy toilet paper at the lunch break…. Oh, the toilet paper is for you.” It made me a little apprehensive to think that these generous people whose home I would be sharing for six weeks thought that I should have my own separate toilet paper. Weeks later I found out that Sally was just giving me advice for the trip, since few choos (toilets) along the bus route supply toilet paper.
Luckily, I slept well on the bus, because I was now entering the Harris zone, where activities outnumber elapsed time by a 2:1 ratio. Paul H. picked me up at the bus station and whisked me home to a dinner party at our apartment for four other ex-pat teachers at Tumaini, and by midnight, 36 hours after I left Paris, I was tucked into bed at the Harris’ home.
During a relatively quiet two days in the Harris zone (not likely) and at Tumaini University, I met at least 40 new people, most with Tanzanian names like Atupele, who, following Tanzanian custom, greeted me effusively each time we met again. By Wednesday evening, I wasn’t sure of my own name, let alone all those I’d met. No matter, however, since the next morning at 5am we were off on a four-day road trip with 15 faculty and staff members from Tumaini, which turned out to be quite the adventure.
After three hours on the road, we stopped at Ngombe for breakfast at a Lutheran Center – standard fare for breakfast here is a hard-boiled egg, chai tea with heaps of sugar, and a dense, tasty donut. On to Tandala for lunch in a traditional house built of reeds, and traditional dances and presentations at the SUMASESA center, which runs an HIV/AIDS intervention program for area youth. The group dances and sings rap songs with lyrics such as “no means no” and “ boys must respect girls and not force them into sex” that attempt to reduce the HIV/AIDs infection rate – currently at 16%.
As we drove along, children frequently noticed us and cried “wazungu!!” (white skinned European) and ran to get a better look at such an oddity. Later that evening, our group walked to the highest peak in the area, past small mud and brick homes hidden in the thick vegetation. At one home, a three-old boy caught sight of me – his first wazungu, and ran screaming into the house where he hid, crying. His mother laughed and brought him back out to meet me. I knelt down, to seem less imposing, and he, sniffling, said “Shikamoo, mama.” (I respectfully greet you) and laid his hands on my head. I was surprised that such a young child already knew this ritual, and that his etiquette training was strong enough to overcome his fears. I answered “marahaba” (I am delighted), which is the ritual response, and went on my way, hoping that the other six wazungu in my party would take a different path and avoid further traumatizing the little guy. I had been escorted to the house by a pleasantly inebriated local, whose only English words were: “Once upon a time” which he repeated randomly every few sentences. He talked incessantly, however, in Swahili, as he tried unsuccessfully to herd Dot and I further up the hill to find our group. Since I understand numbers, I caught his gist- he wanted a guide fee. He started at 40, dropped to 20, then ten, then 5. We paid him, gratefully, because he did guide us back to the road where the vehicles were parked as the sun was setting.
We stayed overnight at a Lutheran center - $4 per night – that had limited solar electricity and cold running water. In the morning, a woman heated buckets of water over a wood fire and brought them to each room. Our faculty group included two (charming) tourism students, Mary and Gloria, who collected our feedback, and at the request of the management, presented recommendations for how the center might improve itself to attract more tourists. It was a challenging task, because Tanzanians put a positive spin on everything, and we were sitting in a room that looked somewhat like a barracks with pitted, bare walls and multi-colored crocheted yarn doilies on every horizontal surface. Luckily, the food was great, the landscape was impeccable and the presentation on the center’s community outreach activities with disabled people in the area was impressive. In Dar es Salaam, disabled beggars were everywhere, but we are seeing many effective programs now for disabled.
Breakfast that morning was at our faculty host’s family home, around a bonfire, which is the traditional classroom for storytelling in the Kinga culture. Our host, Dr. Ilomo, also shared traditional bread that can be buried in the ground for up to two years, the most incredible potatoes baked in the embers and cornbread baked in the corn husks. In his side yard, Dr. Ilomo showed us a traditional sleeping area, dug into the side of the hill, that is heated by first warming the floor with a fire, then piling in people (separated by gender) and blocking the opening with a topiary-like door to retain the heat. Cozy.
The next visit was a trip highlight. We walked a few kilometers along a narrow, hilly trail and reached a flat area sheltered by a steep rock wall. Two traditional midwives, now in their seventies, had used this space to deliver babies for almost forty years, including our host. They demonstrated how a birth was handled, talked about the safety of the mothers and the babies, and methods they used to avoid breech births. They never lost a mother, and only one baby. They used aloe vera leaves as an antiseptic, smoke to get a blue newborn breathing, and a new razor blade for every birth. I have no doubt that women who walked miles along that trail while in labor were well on their way to delivery. The area has many herbs, including one the midwives used to make the lazy or frightened mothers vomit, which reflexively helps them push. The Tanzanian men in our group were not aware that some fathers in some countries participate in the birth process willingly.
After the birth place, we visited Luganda, a steep hill where criminals were executed by being pushed off a cliff, so that their bodies could be washed away by the river at the bottom. This method of punishment was replaced more than three generations ago, but the Kinga oral history has been passed down.
Our next visit was lunch at the District Commissioner’s office – unfortunately, we were so late that they’d already given lunch away. The District Commissioner, a woman who’d taken on the job six months prior was very frank about the infrastructure challenges they face, including roads that are not passable by vehicles seven months of the year. Our visit occurred during the dry season when the roads were at their best: speeds of up to 30 miles per hour were possible in some places but in In others, the roads had eight feet deep holes in them. The terrain is hilly and hauntingly beautiful – the Tanzanians say that God created this area on the 7th day, when he was very tired, and so it is left unfinished.
Well after dark, we arrived in Bulongwa, at a Lutheran hospital and beautiful guesthouses. At 10 pm, we ate our first meal since breakfast, and were briefed on the next day’s planned activities. The choices were: a) walk 19 kilometers on a footpath that the locals use to cross from Bulonga to Matema Beach, on Lake Nyasa, or b) drive between towns on the “roads” – estimated at 9 hours. They recommended an early start for either option, and a minimum of three liters of water per walker, and two guides for our group. Another group, they said, had refused the guides and had been hospitalized after spending all day and all night on the trail. Bring mosquito repellent, they warned, because the low areas by Lake Nyasa are malaria-prone. Bring your swim suits, so you can swim during the afternoon while you wait for the cars to come on the road.
In the early morning dark, we ate breakfast, bought water and drove toward the trailhead on incredibly scary roads – narrow, rutted, steep drop-offs on one or both sides – finally we turned the cars around and walked the remaining three kilometers to the trail. Once there, we met our guides, who used a machete to whack bamboo poles into walking sticks for each of us, then handed the machete off to a waiting 4-year old child, and we set out, 12 happy faculty-student campers and one annoying jolly Kenyan dentist from the local hospital, named Issa. Trained in Russia, Issa believed that so much water was harmful, and that no human could drink more than two liters in one day. By mid-morning, Issa was bragging about having drunk only 250 cl, and struggling with the increasingly difficult hike.
Downhill should have been easy, but these were goat paths, barely clinging to steep hillsides, and sometimes disappearing altogether. I won’t belabor the story, but it was the most beautiful and most dangerous walk I’ve ever taken. A few groups of local women passed us, tripping along gleefully barefoot with heavy baskets balanced on their heads and babies tied to their backs. We slogged, slid, skidded, scooted on our bottoms, trudged up inclines, pushed our way through 6 foot tall grasses, and frequently made the guides jumpy when we lost our balance and teetered on the edge of crevasses. Dennis, the rear guide simply grunted and walked nimbly along with 20 liters of water balanced in a bag on his head.
Issa bonked from dehydration, the group went ahead, and Dennis, Paul Harris and I stayed back to push water and what little food we had into Issa. Finally, he started to recover, so Paul went ahead, but night fell, and we were still far from the lake. Two new guides came from the lake end of the trail. One hoisted Issa onto his back, and ran along the trail with the other guide shining a flashlight. I continued on with Dennis by the light of his cellphone, but we soon came upon Paul Harris, sitting on the trail. We decided to sit and wait until someone came with flashlights and water.
As we sat there under the stars, I referred to Dennis, who looked confused. It turns out his name is Maguliwa, and he hadn’t corrected me during the 10 hours I called him by the wrong name. Oops. Finally Paul found a headlamp in his backpack and we continued along for two harrowing hours in the dark on the worst paths of the day – crumbling, loose dirt that shifted and sometimes fell away all together. When it was too dangerous for me to trust my balance I scooted on my bottom – by this time the seat of my pants had torn out and my bottom was bruised and bleeding. It seemed the trail would never end.
At 10 pm, we made it to the beach, and walked to a waiting car. My backpack had not made it to my room, and there were no lights after 10pm, so I took a cold shower in the dark and crawled into bed. Dot, my roommate, told me about her difficult day in the car, on the worst roads of the trip, dosed me with Tylenol and tucked me in. She talked the cook into a breakfast tray for me before the kitchen opened. I wrapped a bedspread around my swimsuit and took my blistered feet and aching body to the beach for a long swim.
