Hello everyone! I have to admit that my mind is pretty much fried and bent out of whack from the last 9 days. I have just finished my 10 page paper on how “development is a public health issue and public health is a development issue”, and the least I can say is “WHEW glad that is over”.
So now I am back to Nairobi from Tanzania, and I will be here for the next 2 days. Then I and 6 other students in my group will be taking the train to Mombasa and I will start my Independent Study Project! This weekend will probably be very unproductive. I’m sure we’ll all be exhausted from the train, and of course we will be celebrating Easter Sunday (so far we have a scavenger hunt planned…and we’re trying to find some sort of ham…pretty difficult in a city that is overwhelmingly Muslim). I will be in Mombasa until May 2nd, and then I’ll be coming back to Nairobi to write my 30 page paper for a week, I’ll be staying with another student in an apartment here that will give us internet, a gym and a pool. Basically the essentials to decompress, rationalize and reflect.
But about Tanzania! It took about 7 hours by bus to get there, including the hour it took to get through customs. The scenery changed SO dramatically from Kenya to Tanzania. We were driving through the dusty savannah one minute, and the next we found ourselves in the lush mountain valleys of Tanzania. We saw Mt. Maru and Mt. Kilimanjaro, and soon we were in the quaint town of Arusha. Everything is green and flowering, there is a light rain that is falling. It is really breathtaking. The entire week was basically exposure to landscapes that took my breath away. We stayed at the U.A.A.C.C., the United African Alliance Community Center. It is run by Felix Pete O’Neal and his wife Charlotte. Pete is an ex-black panther, he actually lead the party in Kansas City. Please Wikipedia him right now to find out more! He has led an incredible life, especially now during his exile in Tanzania. He founded the UAACC, and it is a cultural center for the town and it hosts a school as well as an orphanage. They are very wonderful people with a wonderful vision, it was inspiring just to be there! Also, Pete cooked us American food (and lots of it!) like barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes, and even ice cream! So basically, it was magical.
We visited the ICTR, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Here we saw the actual proceedings of court cases for perpetrators of the horrific genocidal violence in Rwanda of April, 1994. We could not see the accused, he was hidden by a curtain, but we were able to watch the proceedings and then meet with someone afterwards for questions and also a documentary. Very cool experience!
The next day we left to live with a Maasai tribe. These were some of the most wonderful three days! It took a while to get there, these people are pastoralists and live far from the city so that they can herd their cattle for long distances. The Maasai are a tribe that is found in the Great Rift Valley, mostly in Kenya and Tanzania. Because they travel so much with their cattle, especially during the dry season, they are not subject to border laws, and can move between countries freely. The land that we lived on was incredibly dry, but it was also cool and extremely peaceful. Their bomas (huts constructed in a circle, each family belongs to one bomas) are on land right between Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Maru. We participated in many cultural activities, such as dancing, bead making and even the sacrifice of a goat. The Maasai do not hunt animals, they only kill when a lion has attacked their cattle or goats, and even then they do not eat the meat. The only meat they eat is goat, and this can be as few as only 3 or 4 times a month, because a sacrifice only happens for special occasions such as visitors, a birth, a wedding or a death. Other than that, the Maasai warriors (men) drink milk and blood, and that is it! The sacrifice was very interesting, we as students didn’t participate in the killing of the goat (suffocation) but we did participate in skinning and the drinking of its blood. That night, we were invited to a party in the bomas where we learned their traditional dances and songs. A really cool fact about the Maasai: lions are afraid of them, because they rub animal fat onto their skin. A lion knows the smell of the Maasai, and knows that they will kill lions that attack their cattle, and will stay far away from the bomas.
The rest of the trip was excursions to see bush people, Ngorogoro Crater (the 8th natural wonder of the world!) Olduvai (where it is believed that the first humans came from) and seeing all sorts of amazing animals, giraffes, hippos, lions, wildebeest, hyena, zebra…and the last day we climbed 1/5 of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The climb was only 2 and ½ hours to the top, but it was amazing and beautiful. We all felt very accomplished! I am sorry that I don’t have pictures of all the things I’m talking about, but there should be some up on facebook soon. The last leg of the program is coming up now, and there is less than 6 weeks left! I can’t wait to see you all and tell you about my adventures in person, I hope all is well back home I miss you all very much!
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