This post is dedicated to our first full week in the Tanzanian bush. Firstly, we’re really not all that much in the bush. As in, our Zion campsite is situated about 2 kilometers away from a small city called Olasiti and is located on the road that leads to Tarangire National Park. The area itself is called Kibaoni and if you had to describe it, beautiful would easily come to mind. Not beautiful in the sense that its a lush area, but in the sense that the land has a ruggedly beautiful quality to it, like it has stared the frequent dust storms of Africa and other weather conditions in the face and said, “Do your worst, for at the end people and animals will still depend on me and look upon the sunset over my terrain with a child’s sense of awe”. Another village, Minjingu is only about 5 kilometers away. Here are some piecemeal observations before I get into the discussion of the first week: squat toilets really aren’t that bad when they have a flushing mechanism to accompany them, however, these toilets should be avoided at all costs in the early mornings and in the afternoons as people are likely to flaunt, or release their digestive problems in the early morning as to leave a present on the porcelain, or in the afternoons when the water runs out. Europeans have no inhibitions when it comes to bathroom etiquette, or lack thereof. On Sunday, there is a market day, and the population of the town seemingly triples in a period of several hours. Sleeping in tents is really pretty awesome! Donkeys, mewing kittens, and goats make up for an interesting cacophony of a morning wake up call. The main form of transport in town is either walking or riding…..on the back of a bicycle. There are bomas (Maasai homes) everywhere! The ‘bar’ across from our campsite serves soda that is shade temperature and requires you to pre-order your other beverage choices. Never underestimate the amount of card games and books that you can read. Don’t, under any circumstances, go anywhere near the tent between the hours of 9 a.m. til 6 p.m. unless you want to roast in a 100 degree oven.
The first week in the field was an exercise in the art of relaxation and taking things as they come. Since the solar panels, providing our only electricity in the camp, were not up and running at the beginning of the week, we were left to look elsewhere to charge electronic devices. Being the innovative, thirsty students that we are, we decided to head into Olasiti. Of course we went into town during the hottest park of the day, so when we got there, we went to the nearest bar for a cool drink. This ‘Transit Bar’ also happened to have an outlet with a large powerstrip. Hence, the Transit Bar became our own wazungu rendezvous point for meeting others in town for the next four weeks. It also helped that there were no doors to be locked in the entire place and that we bought a lot of soda, water, and beer. The first week was spent finishing our two ecology papers . Life in the field is actually much cushier than I had imagined. I went into this thinking that we would have to dig our own toilets in the dirt, take sun showers, haul our own water, and stay up at night defending the camp from wild animals. We erected a tarp-covered hammock this week and spent the rest of the time getting used to the hot temperatures, meeting the translators and briefing them on our research projects, and making trips into town. We have two translators for right now and the one that I’m with is named Daudi. He’s Maasai and is slightly older than me and is pursuing a degree in civil engineering at UDSM. This first week he taught me some greetings in Maa, which turned out to be very useful in greeting men and women in town. During this week, I ran several times with the boys past bomas, barren fields (this is the dry season) and children watching their family’s livestock or doing chores. Because of our camp’s proximity to the camp and the behavior of other wazungu watali (white tourists), the children have gotten very accustomed to asking for zawadi (gifts) like pipi (candy), kalamu (pens), chocolate, biscuits, notebooks, money and water. Most are harmless and will converse with you even after you say that you don’t have these things. But one time , as we walked by the water tower on our way to Olasiti, a group of children (boys and girls alike) had rocks in their hands and were scarily near to throwing them at us. I was shocked and mystified as to how or why these children would do this. As opposed to American parents who watch over their children constantly and worry about someone trying to steal them or cause harm, African children are expected to be very independent and street smart at a young age. Young boys and girls assist their family as soon as they are able (starting at age 3) by herding cattle and goats, hauling water, and caring for younger children in the family, often carrying their baby and toddler siblings on their back in a cloth sling. Girls are also married at the age of 13. Life in the rural Africa that we experienced hearkens back to a time where education was not needed or valued by most, arranged marriages are common and encouraged, and the common life goal is to have lots of cattle, wives, and children. I know this may sound a bit ethnocentric, but I can’t really explain it to you in America without making it seem as such, simply because you need to experience it to know fully what I mean. We had a tour of the town this first week with Daudi so that he could tell us about the town’s history and so that we could be seen with a local as to legitimize our presence in the community. This week I also went to a Maasai women’s cooperative in town and commissioned my first bracelet - quite a challenge as our common language was Kiswahili, and neither the women nor I were experts on the language. This first week also brought about my introduction to the resident scorpions in our camp. One of the night guards of the camp, Millium, showed it to me as I walked from the open-air meeting area to my tent. It was about 2.5 inches long and had larger pinchers than thickness of tail indicating that its main method of prey immobilization is the pinchers and not the tail, meaning that bigger pinchers = less poisonous. Members of our group were opposed to killing it, but a brick was gotten and in one fell swoop, the scorpion was dead. This was not to be my last experience with scorpions, as later in the week another scorpion scurried across the edge of the mat in front of my tent. The guard came over again and although he doesn’t speak much English, he managed to say “yes, this one is very poison” over and over again. This one too we deposed. Our first week was rounded out by a trip to the Sunday market held in Olasiti.
