Keeplefti
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2006
1
54
60
Trip End
Aug 04, 2007
Longido,
Tanzania
Saturday, May 19, 2007
So we've been at our voluntary work placement in northern Tanzania for four weeks now and it is quite the most mind-blowing experience of my life. During our trip through South America and New Zealand we've seen incredible things, done incredible things and seen ways of lives totally different to our own. Now we're living that totally different way of life - if only for a few weeks - and I don't really know how to describe it.
To start from the beginning; after leaving life as we know it (even if it was an ozzie version) with Pru and Ross in Sydney we got on a 14 hour flight to Johannesburg (along with the entire Blues Super 14 Rugby team - which was enough to make all the women on the flight go into a flutter - I have never seen such huge specimens of humanity!), spent one night in a lovely little hostel near Jo'burg airport then jumped on another plane the following morning to take us to Dar es Salaam - the commercial capital of Tanzania. Mondo Challenge - the UK based charity who have organised our volunteer placements - had everything brilliantly organised so when we arrived at Dar we were met by a young guy (Jacob) who drove us to his family home where we would be staying the night before getting a bus for the 9 hour trip to Arusha. Here we had our first taste of African hospitality (more of which to come) including a delicious stew seemingly made from only bananas. I was feeling a little tired and overwrought so had a kip whilst Ben decided to go for a walk around the neighbourhood. He was dissuaded by Jacob who suggested he go with him to collect his sister from Dar University instead. The whole university had shut down that day due to a student strike over non-payment of grants so all the students were having to leave - this was causing complete chaos. Ben decided to go for the 15 minute drive but when I woke up 3 hours later he still wasn't back. I was starting to get a little concerned as we were in a very strange place with no way of contacting each other, it was dark and our collective Swahili consisted of only 'Jambo' (hello). I nervously went into the living room and was assured by Mama that they'd be back soon enough. Half an hour later the car comes through the gate and Ben tells me tales of the university where amongst all the chaos of having to leave the students still have to go to get a piece of paper signed from the other side of town to prove they haven't nicked any university property and then take that to the gate when they try to pass through - this was our first experience of Tanzanian bureaucracy. Then as they were leaving the car ran out of petrol so Jacob and Ben had to wait for an uncle to bring a container for fuel and then run (as it was about to get dark) through the rain and mud to a petrol station, then jump on a daladala (minibus) to get back to the car before it was stolen with Jacob's sister inside. They arrived back laughing and completely covered in mud - Ben sensibly wearing shorts and flipflops.
The next morning (18 April) Jacob took us to the bus station (thankfully as we'd never have negotiated it by ourselves - particularly as we were the only Mzungu (white people) seemingly in the entire city - it is very strange being so completely in the minority) for our bus at 8am. Finally at 9.45 our bus turns up, we argue with the other passengers as despite preallocated seats several people have the same seat number on their ticket and one women insists on sitting next to me in her seat number despite the fact that there is a perfectly good seat across the aisle with more leg room that would be fine for her and enable Ben and I to sit together. Ours is not to reason why. The journey is long and cramped interspersed with en masse pees by the road - women to the back of the bus, men to the front - but we finally feel like we're in Africa. Staring out of the window at the lush green vast countryside, watching women walking along the side of the road in their brightly coloured kangas carrying enormous buckets of water, fruit, and goodness knows what else on their heads, I feel like I'm in a dream as it is exactly how I always imagined Africa to be - and that doesn't happen very often. It is beautiful countryside and we can't get over how green it all is. We've arrived in the middle of the rainy season.
Just before 6pm we arrive in Arusha and are greeted at the bus station by the Mondo Country Manager Andrew and his wife Rachael - who works for Mondo part time as their Development Manager. They instantly put us at our ease - both completely normal and not those beardy-weirdy types you imagine volunteers to be - take us to our hotel which will be our home until the following Tuesday (24 April) as we won't be heading out to Longido - where we'll be based - until then. They then take us for a much needed beer and a fantastic curry. We eat, go back and collapse gratefully under our massive mosquito net and sleep beautifully ... until 4.45am.
30% of the population of Tanzania is Muslim, 30% is Christian and the remaining population have tribal beliefs. What does this mean for us? Well it means the mosque which is right next to our hotel starts it's call to prayer at around 5am every morning. This involves some completely tone deaf geezer hollering (he would call it chanting / singing) into a PA which then reverberates through every bone in our bodies and carries on for half an hour - ensuring no more sleep. The next few days are filled with an orientation by Andrew and Leonard the assistant country manager; the weekend to meet other volunteers including Jorid a Norwegian Student who is working in Longido too and an Ozzie girl who is working as an intern at the Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal which for one reason or another is being held in Arusha. We just generally get our bearings and heads around being in Arusha and catch up on emails and all the chores that hadn't been done for a while. We'd now been assigned our projects and were both completely daunted by what was ahead of us, as well as itching to get going but having to wait until Tuesday before we knew what our life for the next six weeks would be all about.
We are based in Longido which is small village an hour and half north of Arusha only 40k's from the Kenyan border, it is a Maasai village and is right on the Great North Road - the "main" road (it is tarmaced by it's narrow and full of potholes and not very busy) that runs from Egypt to South Africa. Ben is teaching in the village primary school and I am working with a local Community Based Organisation called LOOCIP conducting a feasibility study. The purpose of the study is to establish whether it is viable for Mondo Challenge, in conjunction with LOOCIP, to set up a small grants programme, whereby they provide funds for people infected with HIV/AIDS to set up business so that means they can provide a sustainable livelihood for their families. Basically a marketing and situational analysis which I've done heaps of before, but never on such an emotive subject. To get an understanding of what the grants programme is all about, the day before we left for Longido we were taken by Andrew and Leonard to a village called Ngaramtoni about 20 minutes outside Arusha to see how the programme is run there. It was an emotionally challenging day. It is the first time I've knowingly met anyone with HIV and whilst everyone thinks of themselves as accepting of these things I genuinely don't think anyone who is lucky enough to have our life knows how you're going to react until you're in the situation. Fortunately neither Ben or I ran screaming and the women we met were currently healthy and making a real success of the businesses that Mondo had helped them set up. Thanks to the money coming in they are able to eat properly (i.e fruit and veg and three meals a day) and they are able to get to Arusha to get their ARV's (drugs) both of which are vital to keep people living with HIV healthy and to stave off any other illnesses (such as TB and cholera - both of which are prevalent in that village at the moment), and they are able to care for their children. All of this life-changing and lengthening stuff thanks to a 25 english pound grant. I found the whole experience incredibly upsetting as it is only thanks to a lack of education and awareness that these women have HIV, but Tanzanians are proud people and pity is not something that is appreciated. However, it was also inspiring to see the way these women (about my age) were coping with the stigma that HIV still has here and rebuilding relationships with their community as more people come to understand what it is all about. The light relief of the day came from all the tiny children who followed us about town shouting "Mzungu! Mzungu!" and getting such glee from the high-fives they insisted on. Such mixed emotions and such a complete battering of the senses. I've never felt so far from home in my life.
Finally on Tuesday 24th April Leonard collected us from our hotel and we clambered into a shared taxi to drive out to Longido. On first impressions the village seemed nothing more than a handful of delapidated huts by the side of the road. We got out of the knackered taxi and Leonard took us to our homestay. We are staying with a Maasai family - one of the better off ones in the village - and were instantly made to feel welcome by gorgeous Mama Judith - a big bundle of laughter and welcome - and delighted to learn that both she and her husband Alais speak English! They have a proper single storey house (unlike most people in the village who live in huts (manyattas) made of dung and sticks and the odd bit of corrugated iron and sacking) although it lacks electricity and running water (neither of which are available in Longido at all) and a proper toilet - more to come on that. We dump our stuff then Leonard gives us the tour of the village, we go to the school, we visit LOOCIP and I don't know who is more intrigued, the Maasai by us or us by them.
The Maasai are probably one of the most famous of the African tribes (not least because of that ad on the BBC where they're all doing their incredible leaping) and they are friendly and fascinating. They are also the tribe that receives the most prejudice from other Africans as they stubbornly hold onto their traditions and so are seen as backward. So to give you an overview of the Maasai we exchange smiles and greetings with every day. They are generally (although not all) very tall and slim and without exception - at the moment - shaven headed. The men and women both wear shukas - which are layers of robes that are always either black, blue, red or purple and sometimes white and they wear shoes made of old car tyres (this is recent as they used always to go barefoot). Both men and women have distended ear lobes and through the massive holes they suspend a variety of jewellery. They look incredible. The women have intricately beaded earrings all the way up their ears, hundreds of necklaces and silver and copper coils around their ankles and wrists. There is this lovely rustle and tinkle of beads as they move. The men often wear similar jewellery and beaded belts and always carry a thin but very heavy stick (even when they are in the towns like Arusha). If they are of warrior age they also carry a club and a knife. There are so many aspects to their way of life that are so alien to us. The men traditionally can have as many wives as they can feed; when they get to a certain age that generation of boys are all circumcised during a ceremony and become warriors (moran) at which point, I think - but I'm a little confused about it - they grow their hair and braid it and it is not cut until approximately 7 years later when during another ceremony their heads are shaved and they move into the next phase of life. We've arrived a year or so after the last of these ceremonies so everyone currently has short hair. They also carry out female circumcision, the girls get pregnant very young and in a culture where you have numerous wives and people start having sex before they hit puberty HIV is really taking its toll. As a result many people are trying to change the Maasai - converting them to Christianity so that they only have one wife etc. I know very very little about it all but it is such a fascinating culture it seems terrible to try and change it out of hand. Yes things have to happen to prevent the spread of HIV - but why does that have to involve religious conversion and a complete renouncement of centuries old traditions?
At first I was completely horrified by some of the things I heard and it has become clear that Maasai women have very few rights and in many ways are oppressed. As I say, I know very little, but now I don't think it's really for me to come here with all my western values and try to project them onto a way of life that has been around for a lot longer than I have, but just to try and get to know some of the people and do what I'm here to do. It is just incredible to walk to work every day and be greeted warmly by so many people and be lucky enough to live like this for a while. I keep thinking that I'm probably going to get more from this experience than I'm able to give. I wish I was eloquent enough to describe the serene aura that surrounds the Maasai women in particular as they walk their slow, upright careful walk. Having said that when you get a group of women together there is endless chattering and giggling and constants "eyy"-s as they do what women do over the world - put the world to rights, laugh at men and gossip.
Whilst Mama Judith and Baba (meaning father) Alais seemingly have more trappings of the western world - Baba dresses in western clothes and whilst Judith is always dressed in brightly coloured kangas, she doesn't wear Maasai clothes or have the jewellery - unless for a special Maasai occasion. In fact the only things that gives them away are the circular scars on Alais's cheeks, his ingrained chauvinism (which has taken me a long while to get used to) and his obsession (as all Maasai men have) with his cows.
So the first few days in Longido passed by slowly as there were a series of public holidays. On the 26th we tried to climb Mount Longido. Our guide didn't fancy it so we just walked up to a very unimpressive water fall and got eaten alive by safari ants and ticks - it wasn't one of the better hikes we've done although I did manage to call my dad to wish him happy birthday . We couldn't really get into work; as we've come to learn is the case throughout Africa nothing ever happens when it's supposed to, people are never where they are supposed to be at the time you agreed and you just have to swallow your frustration and do it tomorrow ... or the next day. I was also bristling as everything was addressed to Ben. Even when I went to work I was asked why Ben wasn't with me - they can't get their heads around the fact that a man can teach while the woman "does business". Having said that I did please Mama Judith, by being "a good wife" and doing our washing in a bucket of cold water by hand. Several hours and 6 raw knuckles later I could understand why it takes so long to get anything done in Tanzania - you have to spend so much time just doing the chores. Although having said that, many families in Africa - if they have a little more money than others - will generally have a housegirl. Agnes works for Judith and Alais and is about 15 - supposedly at school but when she gets the time to go I've no idea.
Our days consist of breakfast - always a lottery, maybe pancakes, maybe nothing, maybe leftover rice from the night before, trotting off to our various roles, coming home again and then sitting just the two of us talking in the dark from 6.30 until 8pm when we have supper which is always mounds of rice or ugali (ground maize which is just edible) usually accompanied by either beans or spinach (ick ick ick). When we get chapatis that's a really good day. Grace is always said before we eat. I thought living here I would lose heaps of weight but a diet consisting of rice, rice and rice and Mama's bid to make sure I'm an "African woman" before we leave and not being able to go for a run - as it's just not done - means Mama will no doubt see her wish come true.
After supper we then sit around in the light of the kerosene lamps and chat to Mama, Baba and whatever other members of the family (or village) happen to be around that evening including Bibi (Alais's very old and frail mother - the 2nd of his dad's six wives - Bibi means Grandmother) who thinks we're absolutely hysterical and just laughs every time she sees us. One morning I was on my way to the shower when she called to me. We spent half and hour chatting incoherently to each other whilst she was fascinated by my shampoo and spent ages stroking my hair - Maasai women all have shaven heads (another evening Ben had to accompany her to her house 50 yards away and help her pick up a rock and put it in her doorway - we still have absolutely no idea why!) Mama Judith's sister Ruth is often around as well - she is just fabulous - doesn't speak any English but is always laughing and 'Karibu'-ing us. Then the eldest son Allan is quite often around. He spent 2 years studying in Seattle and is now a safari guide so is our touchstone to the outside world. Agnes is always there working very hard and making us feel terribly guilty although she is always laughing at Ben - so she gets her own back, and then there is the boy who looks after Alais's cows who's name I can not pronouce let alone write; and then the other day a friend was there who turned out to be a Maasai witchdoctor who apparently cures people with a bag of stones ...!
Invariably the evenings are filled with us being taught Kiswahili, which on one evening had all members of the family rolling around on the floor as Ben tried to sing "Kichwa, mabega, magoti na vidole" (head, shoulders, knees and toes!) On other occasions we've discussed the education system in Tanzania; the Maasai culture of arranged marriage vs love matches and giving a number of cows to the parents of the woman who will become your wife (Mama Judith was worth 4); numbers of wives (as a Christian, Alais only has Judith); George Bush and Gordon Brown; the "merits" of Robert Mugabe; as well as spending hours looking at their family photos. We are so lucky to be living with them and to think that I wanted to stay in a guest house instead - it would not be nearly the experience it is. Then we excuse ourselves, grab a lamp, check the room for bugs, put down the mosquito net, sometimes go outside and gawp and the most beautiful stars I've ever seen (even better than La Serena in Chile although we've forgotten all the names of the constellations already) including loads of shooting stars, read and fall asleep to the sound of singing coming from the lounge as the family pray and then sing. It's such a mixed up culture of traditional beliefs and worshipping God.
I have to say I found the first week really tough and for the first time in my life was desperately homesick. Life in Longido couldn't be more different from what we know back home and even from what we've seen in South America and I think the poverty level, the sad knowledge that at at my estimation at least 20% of the people I see every day have HIV and not to mention the appearance of the "Good Lord" in absolutely every element of life (which is just horrendously misguided and has moved me from a happy agnostic to a fierce atheist) just combined to bowl me over.
And that's saying nothing about those loos.
So, the main house we're staying in consists of a huge lounge (complete with yellow velvet covered sofas) and dining area and 4 bedrooms. Then across the dirt yard is another building which houses the kitchen (consisting of an open fire and soot covered walls, stools and pans), a couple of mysterious "stores", the shower (which is a tank on the roof filled up by Agnes from which you open the tap and the water descends on your head) and the pit toilet which is a cockroach-infested abomination that I have developed such a complete fear of that every visit to the loo is a major feat and I've got very good at crossing my legs. Ben has to do a cockroach clearing mission before every visit.
Our weeks are taken up with Ben teaching his 'difficult' class 7B - average age 14 yet this is still primary school - of whom there are 50 in his class - and that is a small class. He is assisting one of the teachers who almost never turns up so Ben is taking the class by himself. Ben often ruminates as to how Mr Julius controls the class when Ben is not there as Ben struggles totall and Mr Julius is blind. I think he is enjoying it but it's not quite the 'changing lives' experience he thought it would be. The kids are like kids all over the world - they don't want to be in school and the size of the class means there is such a huge gap between the kids who get it and the kids that don't. Some of the work he marks is an incomprensible mixture of English, Kiswahili and Maa, but he does love the fact that the kids always greet him on his way into school and insist on carrying his bag.
He's also teaching adults English in an open air school and at the 'Womens' Market" No this is not where you can buy and sell ladies, but a market where about 80 women are selling their homemade (and beautiful) Maasai jewellery. Ben is teaching them English so that they can talk to tourists - but considering most of them can't read or write and only speak Maa (and not Kiswahili - that and English being the official languages of Tanzania - although there are 120 tribal languages in total) he's having to be very inventive in his teaching methods which causes much hilarity and many gifts of jewellery - which he even wore for a short time! It is heartbreaking every time we go there as the only market for the womens' sales is tourists and so very few ever come to Longido that they very rarely have customers. We're going to buy something from each of them before we leave.
My weeks have been a bit more varied and I'm a bit luckier than Ben in that I've had to be immersed into day-to-day village life. There is a 22 year old girl called Esupat who works as my translator (despite the fact that I have to draw pictures of what I'm trying to get across as her English really isn't great) as my Kiswahili is rubbish. I'm also lucky enough to be working with some lovely members of the local community and two Canadian volunteers - Corey and Jotu (her name is Jo but there has been more than one Jo so she is Jo 2!) - from whom I'm learning so much about development work and HIV/AIDS.
Esu and I spent the first week going into all the businesses in Longido trying to find out what is sold so that we can identify any gaps in the market. It's stunning that a village can operate with 31 shops selling exactly the same things (rice, beans, washing powder, flip flops and kerosene) and 7 tailors get by despite the fact that the Maasai wear shuka and nothing remotely tailored!
Since then I've been concentrating on trying to establish the HIV situation in the village. This has involved visits to the very basic health centre to find out what services they provide, cloak and dagger conversations with a woman who supports 9 women who have HIV - all out of her own limited ocket. She was incredible, but it also made me realise that there is still such a huge misconception and stigma related to HIV/AIDS here. Things we take so much for granted at home just aren't understood at all and often the religious nuts further cause problems by trying to convert people and telling them God will save them from HIV - if they only believe a little harder. Grrrr. I've visited countless hospitals, been to remote villages (where there is no road and we've had a mini-safari spotting ostriches, vervets and gazelle all along the way) and had meetings with all sorts of people and it's impossible to get a clear answer.
Much of the HIV testing, counselling and treatment is done by NGO's as the government doesn't have the resources, but as such it seems quite piecemeal and not at all coherent. I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it is clear that whilst the official stats are that 8% of the country's population is HIV positive that is far off the mark. 80% of people in Tanzania live in rural communities, many of them very remote for whom access to medical care is nigh impossible. There isn't the chance to have pre-emptive medical examinations - you only visit a health centre if you are very very sick so the idea of getting tested - even if there is a full understanding of what HIV/AIDS is all about - is slim to none.
By the time Friday comes around we're desperate for a bit light relief, for western food and some electricity so we make what Ben calls the 'Armitage Shanks Journey' to Arusha - proper loos, hooray! Arusha (where I am as I write) is a grotty grotty town that is the jumping off point for all the safaris in the Northern Circuit (i.e. the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater - all the most famous game places in the world) so it is full of tourists - well not at the moment as it is the low season - and as a result, touts. If it wasn't for proper loos and the fact that we often have to come back for Mondo Challenge volunteer meetings we would steer well clear as you get hassled incessantly - to the point one day I felt terrible as I screamed at this guy to leave us alone - he had been following us for half an hour trying to sell us stuff despite our repeated no's. I was feeling particularly overwhelmed that day but thanks to the worldwide maternal sixth sense, within half an hour my darling mother had called me to check I was ok and all was well in the world!
Our weekends in Arusha are fun, the other volunteers are a real mixed bunch from all over the world, but all good fun. We've had some great meals out; got plastered at a campsite bar on numerous occasions; visited the beautiful Arusha National Park which is on the slopes of Mount Meru and gone on a walking safari where we had very close encounters with a herd of buffalo, giraffes and the beautiful and tiny dik-dik (a type of antelope); cruised around trying to find parties on Jorid's 23rd (ahh!) birthday with 9 people in a small jeep; gone to watch Andrew play in a rugby match at the ex-pat haunt of choice (very strange after being in Longido all week but the most amazing setting with the Arumeru mountains behind the pitch); got stuck in the most ridiculous traffic jams at 2 o'clock in the morning and got into taxis that have no headlights and steam around the city as if chased by the mafia - there appear to be no traffic laws in Tanzania.
In summary, On Thursday I was sitting in a daladala (minibus) coming back to Arusha for some meetings with 24 Maasai crammed in the bus, a woman called Maria and her mother chatting away to me in Maa, her toddler son smiling inquisitively up at with me with the most beautiful almond shaped eyes in the most stunning face I have ever seen, donkeys blocking the road and nothing to look at except acacia trees, Mount Meru and plains that stretch all the way beyond the Serengeti to the Great Rift Valley, I had another of those supremely-happy-once-in-a-lifetime moments.
And then Ben got his hair cut and now looks like a cross between the guy who isn't Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber and Zinedine Zidane - Tanzanian barbers are not used to using scissors!
We're back off to Longido this afternoon in one of the fabulous shared taxis (old peugeots that have two rows of seats in and cram in 8 passengers plus driver) to spend our penultimate week in Longido, go to church with Mama and Baba tomorrow - just to see what it's like - hopefully go with Baba to his Boma (small Maasai village - collection of manyattas that is surrounded by a fence made of thornbush (has 3 inch spikes) to keep predators from taking the cows and goats - last week one of the morani (warriors) came from the Boma to tell Alais that a leopard had taken two of his goats) and then next weekend is our first wedding anniversary (can you believe it!) and we're treating ourselves to three days in the Ngorongoro Crater where, hopefully, we'll finally see some lions.
