Long Strange Blog

Warning: This blog turned out way longer than I expected. It's hard not to get caught up trying to say everything because everything seems equally as important. Feel free to skip the around and I congratulate you if you make it to the bottom, although the funniest stories are there. Cheers!

Hi Friends! I'm back in Arusha after an 8 days of traipsing through the tropical rainforest of Mazumbai Forest Reserve in the Usambara Mountains. Overall, the forest showered us with love by holding off the heavy rains until we left and letting us all leave in one piece apart from many sore thighs from hiking up and down hill all day. However, while the forest didn't reject me, like I worried it might, my body began to reject something about Tanzania. The day before we left I was stuck in bed with a homa kali (high fever) and all sorts of strange bowel behaviours. I felt fine for most of the week, but eating only rice and bread definitely prevented me from sharing all my energy with the rainforest. Regardless, Mazumbai exercised me physically, intellecually, and emotionally and I left feeling loved by and love for the hanging vines, dinosaur trees, and everywhere ants.

Here is an excerpt from my first journal entry in Mazumbai:

Right now I'm sitting under a couple of low-branched leafy trees after getting back from my personal exploration of the forest. It was really interesting – a lot of unexpected feelings/sights. While I wanted to be completely alone for the entire time, I left at the same time as Steve, one of our leaders, so we started walking together trying to find the right foot path up to the forest and then the stream that Baba Jack described. We found the forest and kept hiking up the hill but couldn't find the stream. It was nice to be with Steve then to know that I wasn't the only one lost but I was happy to eventually part ways to try different paths. My first unexpected emotion was frustration – I was annoyed at Baba Jack for giving us such vague directions and for giving us directions at all because not finding the place he described made me feel like I wasn't really in the rainforest. I also didn't feel like I was in a rainforest because of how everything looked – dry, brown, crunchy. Not like how I imagined tropical rainforest at all – lush, thick, dewy, green. There were no shockingly coloured birds or insects or flowers. All this made me feel all the more frustrated with myself because I knew that I shouldn't be thinking about expectations or directions at all – I should just be alive in the forest. Seeing an amazing mama tree helped snap me out of my inner dialogue and just sense. It had thick tangly roots lifting above the ground creating a special hiding place for lots of slithery creatures. (Note added now: The rainforest is known for it's extra-long millipedes and deadly snakes. I thought the black mamba was scary but compared to the viper's 1 hour death sentence, the black mambas more lenient 20 minutes to 8 hours (or an amputated limp if you can tourniquet the bitten extremity) seems luxurious. Luckily, vipers aren't very aggressive and don't bite unless they are stepped on. Needless to say I spent a lot of time watching my footsteps.) One of the roots ran straight along the ground perpendicular to the tree and out of it was growing a family of new trees. Up above, the mama tree's trunk split into two big branches in between which a neighbouring trees rested it's weighty crown. After I admired this wonderful tree I tried to cross a valley because I thought the stream might be on the other side, but I was attacked by the thorniest things I've ever encountered. They grabbed hold of my kanga, pulled at my hair and broke my flesh. So, I decided to turn back and start again from the beginning to find the stream. On my way back downhill, the foilage under my left foot slid away from me, my knee buckled and I fell. For a second I was upset – maybe the forest was rejecting me after all – but then I looked to my right and realized the forest was just telling me to slow down. The trees to my right opened up to a gorgeous view of the forest in the distance. In that moment the sun was shining on a few particularly tall trees that stood above the roof of leave so I could see their interlocking branches. The shadows of the clouds displayed all the different shades of green in the trees and the hills continued to the horizon (I included a doodle in my notebook here.) I was so overwhelmed by the sight and the fact that I could have easily missed it had I not fallen that I started to cry. I sat there for a while staring at the view and also what was directly around me. At my feet, ants were curiously observing the new attraction that had fallen into their home. Eventually a few crawled onto my toes to say hello; I didn't flick them off. A phrase I loved from the reading Baba Jack gave to us before the walk came back to my mind - “Wilderness is a state of mind.”

For the rest of the week in Mazumbai, mornings were spent collecting data for vegetation analyses in the forest and presenting and discussing the information and relaxing in the afternoon. Every evening, Baba Jack leads a boot camp to make up for the our lack of physical activity at our homestay and on our previous safari. His bootcamp involved all sorts of push-ups, squats, sit-ups, and martial arts fighting exercises – it's really funny to watch and my best ab work out was probably laughter. The exercise did feel good but I was sore as eff. One morning, we also got a chance to go into town to conduct focal groups. Before heading out, we were warned that some of the villagers might be apprehensive or fearful of us because they believe wazungu are vampires. For real. Apparently, the belief stems from the fact that the local medical clinic was opened by white people who conducted blood tests on their patients. Luckily, since vampires only come out at night, we were still able to talk to the villagers without being scared away by garlic or crosses.

On the last night in Mazumbai, we had a big circle discussion. As a way to coalesce our experiences recording ecological data in the forest with the social observation in town, we sat down to consider the question that this program centres on: how will conservation ever be compatible with Tanzania's exploding population?

The problem at Mazumbai is clear: on one side, the villages' populations are exponentially increasing (the average number of children per woman is eight!) and there is not enough land to support the ever-increasing number of mouths to feed. Due to this pressure, many villagers illegally take firewood from the protected forests. Mr. Mrecha, a forester who lived at Mazumbai for 15 years, really emphasized that the extraction of firewood is not a matter of desire for the villagers but a matter of survival. On the other side, the tropical rainforest – a biodiversity hotspot – is threatened with destruction due to this increase of human use. During the conversation, we talked about ways to preserve the rainforest without hurting the local community. Many people supported the fence idea that is used in many African national parks outside Tanzania. Fences both perpetuate the idea of nature as a separate from humanity and prioritizes plants over people. Some people mentioned education although this has been shown not to work. In interviews with villagers, they often recited what they had been told – that taking firewood from the forest is bad. But when asked how much firewood they used and how much they grew, the numbers didn't add up and it became clear that forest wood fills in the gap. Education has also been ineffective in curbing population by promoting family planning. Many men and women continue to desire several children and even if a wife does decide to use birth control, a man will go to another woman to have children (this is called his “little house”).

The perpetual vibe of condescension bothered me throughout the conversation. I felt like we were just saying - “Silly Tanzanians. Why can't they figure out it's bad to have too many children? Don't they know the rainforest will help them in the long-run?” but in a more respectful way. And I felt like it was totally unjustified because back in the US and Canada we aren't even CLOSE to figuring out our environmental issues – water use, coal, landfills, factory farms! Someone could easily look at us and say, “Silly Americans. Don't they know they're destroying what they need to survive? Why do they keep eating food with ingredients that are carcinogenic? Why do they create so much waste that there are islands of garbage afloat in the ocean?” We can't blame mamas in Tanzania for decreasing the world's biodiversity by extracting firewood to cook for her children when American monoculture farms have wiped out almost all the genetic diversity of important food crops. Just as much as the small village outside Mazumbai may be driving itself to a population crash, almost every human around the world is playing a role in the world-wide crash of the environment. Maybe the inability to foresee is an intrinsic part of human nature. So my contribution to the conversation (this was in response to the idea that political will could lead to policies that would curb population growth) was: Even in Canada and America where we think we have responsible leaders (compared to many African leaders), policies still perpetuate the consumerist culture that is leading to this “crash” as much as Tanzanians exploiting natural resources here. The only solution I can see is to say “Fuck it” and remove myself from the system as much as possible. Pessimistic indeed.

I think Baba Jack sensed the small death in my normally buoyant optimism because at the end of the talk, he reminded us to practice realistic optimism rather than give in to pessimism. For the first time on the program, he also admitted to having seen programs work. The common thread between these successful programs is a very small scale and a creative, committed individual. I left the conversation with the hope that I will one day being one of those creative, committed individuals that is making a change (however small) somewhere and the fear of failing to find that one thing to dedicate myself fully to. I have a feeling I might stumble across something here though. :)

I arrived back in Arusha on Monday evening and left again on Wednesday morning for Mto wa Mbu, the town where I'm planning on conducting my Independent Study Project. I've decided to study changing sexual practices in the Maasai community around Mto wa Mbu. I'll write more about this later when I actually start my project but I'm basically interested in when, where, why, how, and with who Maasai women of all ages engage in sex and the role love and pleasure (women are circumcised in the Maasai community) play in this hot sweaty mess.

During the three days I spent in Mto wa Mbu, some of the funniest/weirdest things happened to me. Many of them occurred on dala dalas. These 16-seat vans are a common form of transportation in Tanzanis. Each dala dala has a driver and a conductor gets people into the dala dala and collects money. The saying goes, “There is always room for one more on a dala dala.” The record for most people squished into one dala dala is 28. While dala dalas are a great way to get around, you have to be okay with the body heat, body odour, and the butt-sweat-inducing seats. Anyway, here are some of the highlights:

1. Waiting for the dala dala to leave in the Arusha bus station a man came to my window to say hello. After I shook his hand, he wouldn't let my hand go until I said “Jesus is the Lord” which I did for the first time in my life.
2. On that same dala dala, I met a Tanzanite miner named Jonathan. Some conversation excerpts:
   J: Do you have a friend? (Tanzanians call boyfriends and girlfriends “friends”)
   A: No
   J: Are you married?
   A: No
   J: Why not?
   A: Because I am a student
   J: I love you
   A: No you don't
   J: You are like an angel
   A: ...J: Can I get you a gift?
   A: No thanks
   J: Tanzanite necklace
   A: I don't need one thanks
   J: Tanzanite earrings
   A: No thanks
   At this point, my two friends, Casey and Polly, also in the dala dala started talking loudly to me to try to make Jonathan back off. He told them that they were bad because they were American. Then, Polly corrected my earlier mistake and told him I was married to a man named James who was waiting for me back in Canada. He responded to this by saying no and that he wanted to paint me with black polish to make me a Tanzanian.
   J: You want a bunny?
   A: No
   J: Goat?
   A: No
   J: Sheep?
   A: No
   J: One sheep.
   A: No
   J: Why not?
   A: I don't want one
   J: Pig?
   A: No
   J: I love you very much
   A: No you don't
   J: You don't love me?
   A: No
   J: I am not happy
   A: Pole (an expression of empathy in Kiswahili)
   J: I am not happy
   A: Pole
   Then he fake-cried which made us all laugh and luckily he got off the bus before Mto wa Mbo.
3. I spent 30 minutes sitting outside a Maasai bomma with a woman who spoke no English when my Maasai translator decided to go sit under a tree with the important men in the village. Using Kiswahili, I was able to find out that her name is Maida, she is 24, she made it up to Form 2 (the equivalent of grade 9/10) before dropping out to get married, and she has one two-year-old daughter. As we sat together, her daughter ran around, gnawing on a piece of meat fat and tried to hit every one around her. The terrible twos is a universal phenomenon. While there were times when we couldn't understand each other, I had the same feeling I had when I first entered a bomma in the first week of the program – some sort of innate connection to the woman next to me, a feeling of sisterhood in spite of the endless differences between our life stories.
4. In Mto wa Mbo, the people are as welcoming as Abraham. We bought kangas from a woman who then invited us to her house and asked if she could give us snacks for our bus ride back to Arusha. We also met an angel of a man named Peter. He volunteers at an orphanage and in his spare time he installs chimneys into Maasai bommas and conducts HIV/AIDS awareness sessions, and he still found time to take us around and translate for us for free! A nice reminder of how easy it is to be welcoming, something I hope to take home and share.
5. On the dala dala back to Arusha, my two friends and I piled into the front row of the van along with our 3 big packs and a huge bag of potatoes. Polly was forced to sit sideways because of potatoes and Casey had to sit backwards. While we thought this was uncomfortable, the van soon filled up to capacity. Then, on the road, we stopped to pick up 3 Maasai warriors, a Maasai elder and a Maasai woman. This forced Casey to stand up backwards. They eventually got off and gave us some room to rearrange, but as we pulled up to the next group of potential passengers, I filled up dread. The doors opened to a very large woman with a very large female friend and five children. I looked to Polly who mouthed “Oh Fuck.” Then it happened. I got sat on. We continued driving with my left leg engulfed in the woman's plentiful butt padding and her five children literally hanging out of the sliding door.   

My mamas footprints on the mat at the entrance of our house. 

A duka (small shop) in Bangata, in front of Mt Meru

My favourite picture of my homestay mama

Mama and Baba Dori

Me and Baba Dori. He told me to shake his hand for the picture.