Kuuliza si ujinga

On the map, my village is near the border of Lake Manyara National Park. I've always thought that, if I simply ride my bike in the correct direction, I'll find a view of the lake.

But until now, I've never had the time to go looking for one.

That changed this week. My school cancelled final exams due to a photocopying issue (the place printing the exams wanted more money than we had, there was a misunderstanding over pricing...long story short, we couldn't have final exams because we couldn't pay for them to be printed). So, suddenly I had a free week of time on my hands.

The first time I saw Lake Manyara was in my own village. I went hiking with a friend and a friend of a friend to the hills above the village. After about an hour and a half of climbing up and down, up and down, we reached a hill with a church on top. And there before us was a view of Lake Manyara.

Beautiful. But not as beautiful as the view in a neighboring village.

I've been promising to visit some friends in a neighboring village for a few weeks now. This week, I finally biked to their house with a neighbor to guide me. We had lunch (chicken--it's customary to kill a chicken for a guest), then went on a two hour hike/bike ride toward Lake Manyara. Our destination: a campsite for tourists with a view of the entire lake, a mere half hour's walk from the border of the park. I didn't even know there were campsites for tourists in the villages of my area! The view was absolutely amazing: we could see the entire lake, and the forests stretching in front of it, and various towns that I've travelled through on the other side of the lake. We even saw a gazelle of some sort in the forest, and the tower of the ranger station in the park.

It took me a year and a half to find out that this view was here. A year and a half! I guess that shows how long it takes to truly get to know a place. It's a good thing the Peace Corps puts us here for two years--I'm only just starting to feel like I know my area.

And a belated thanks to the Peace Corps staff who placed me here. Not only does the mountain containing Ngorongoro Crater rise above the cornfields of my village, Lake Manyara is only a few hours walk away. I feel very, very lucky.

Just a short update to let you all know I'm still here. School break starts in about a week and a half, after two more days of teaching followed by a week of exams. Teaching wise, it's been a long but good term. I finally feel like my students understand what I want from them, and that they trust me to know what I'm doing. Plus, I finally do feel comfortable here--Tanzania really does feel like home these days. I'll be traveling for much of the month of June (I do need the break from my village), but I'm looking forward to continuing my teaching in July. More blog updates coming as soon as break starts!

[note: sorry to snake-lovers out there--there's significant violence to snakes in this entry. Killing snakes is a normal part of Tanzanian culture, probably because there are so many poisonous snakes in this country. It's just assumed that if you see a snake, the next step you take is to kill it].

There are very few things that terrify me. Lots of things make me nervous, and lots of things give me stress, but very few things set my heart pounding to the point where I can't think clearly.

Snakes are one of those things.

Tanzania has many, many species of snakes, several of which are poisonous. Yet in first year and a half in Tanzania, I managed not to run into any of them. During this time my friends were killing snakes with iron bars in their gardens, and pushing them into buckets with pieces of hose in their hallways...but I lived blissfully snake-free. That changed yesterday.

I was cleaning my spare bedroom in preparation for some guests that are coming this weekend. It's not a room I clean very often. I store books and papers on the bed, and backpacks full of more papers on the floor. Plus there's a pile of cardboard boxes under the bed. If I were a snake, I'd think of it as the perfect room to hide in.

It was about six in the evening, and I had my radio on to my favorite VOA music request show. I had moved the bed out of the way so I could start sweeping. I was just picking up the pile of cardboard from under the bed when I noticed something moving in the place where the cardboard had been.

Nyoka!

Now, before you start worrying too much for me, this snake was really small. Probably about the length of a computer keyboard. And it was thin, too. Honestly, it looked a whole lot like the garden snakes I used to see in my backyard at home.

But this is Tanzania, not Massachusetts. I don't know if this snake is poisonous. I have no idea what kind of snake it is.

If I leave my house to get help, it might go hide in the pile of junk in my room. I'll spend the next week on edge, expecting to run into it every time I pick up something from the floor.

But can I really deal with it myself?

My heart is pounding at this point. I'm thinking of all sorts of schemes, from killing it with my hoe to somehow forcing it into a bucket. I bring a bucket into the room for the purpose, then decide it's too narrow throw over the snake. I bring my hoe into the room and wonder what the metal blade will do to my concrete floor. Plus, this is something that requires resolve. If I decide to kill the snake, I need to put all my effort into it. I can't start to hit it with the hoe, then pull my arm back. I need to hit it, and hit it hard, on the first blow.

One part of my brain tells me I have the ability to do this. Another part tells me I don't have to. Tanzanians are really, really good at killing snakes.

So I throw a basin over the snake to keep in from finding another spot to hide, and go over to a neighbor's house. Samweli is lying on the couch, asleep with the flu.

"Samweli, Samweli. Samahani. How are you feeling? You probably shouldn't go anywhere, you're sick, but...there's a snake in my house."

"Nyoka? There's a snake?" Samweli is suddenly wide awake and out of bed. There's nothing like the word 'nyoka' to wake someone up in Tanzania.

We go over to my house, where I hand Samweli the large stick I use to harvest papayas. It looks like I'll get the job of pulling off the basin, while Samweli braces himself with the stick. I yank the basin away and jump back.

Nothing.

Well, not nothing. There's a broom under the basin as well. And maybe the snake is under the broom.

Samweli pushes the broom away. There's the snake, moving past in panic. Samweli starts hitting.

Whack! Whack! The snake is angry now, and trying to jump. Fortunately that's really hard on a slippery concrete floor. After what seems like far too long, but was probably only five or six whacks, the snake is dead. We put it out in the compost pit in my garden.

All right, I want to know. "Samweli, is this snake poisonous?"

"Ndiyo, ina sumu kali sana." Yes, it has very strong poison.

Hmm. Good to know. I return to my house and clean my room really, really well. From now on, I'm going to store as little on the floor as possible. And keep a big stick around, just in case.

It's been a busy week of travel.

Arusha to Manyara to Singida to Shinyanga to Mwanza on Lake Victoria. Mwanza back to Singida and on to Dodoma. Dodoma to Morogoro to Pwani to Tanga. Tanga to Kilimanjaro
and finally, back to Arusha. Somehow, I've managed to visit ten regions of Tanzania in as many days. And take about 4 eight to twelve hour bus rides. It's been a good break. But man, it's good to be home. I think it's time for a good two months in my village without going anywhere farther than the nearest town.

It's a weekday evening during break. I'm at a friend's house in a distant region when the phone rings.

Hey, it's Samweli, the guy who's watering my garden while I'm traveling. Hey, Samweli. How's the village? How's my garden doing?

Everything's fine, teacher. But...

Suddenly the network goes bad. Yet I distinctly catch one word: "imeibiwa". Something was stolen.

I panic. "What? What was stolen? Kitu gani kimeibiwa?"

"Sukumawiki yako." Your collard greens.

"What? They stole my sukumawiki?"

The two Peace Corps volunteers sitting next to me start laughing.

"Wait a minute, Samweli. What do you mean they stole my collard greens? Did they just take a few leaves? Or did they pull up the entire plant?"

"They took the entire plant. All the plants. Hawa ni watu wabaya--they're very bad people."

For a minute, I can't help but laugh myself. It's just such a ridiculous thing to have stolen. My collard greens?

But then, I put a lot of work into those greens. I was the only one watering my garden during a two-month drought, so now I'm the only one who has seedlings in my garden. But those seedlings are still small enough that they could be transplanted to another garden and survive. Apparently, someone did just that.

I'm kind of annoyed that someone else is benefiting from my two months of watering work. (It's a pain to water a garden by hand!). I'm kind of resigned: there's a drought, people are hungry, petty theft of greens isn't that bad compared to what they could be stealing. And, a large part of me wants to laugh. The things I've had stolen so far in Tanzania? A bucket, an A-level chemistry book, and three beds of collard greens.

Tanzania has about 120 tribes, and most of them are fairly small. But there are a few larger tribes. One of them is the Sukuma. At 15% of the population, they're one of the largest tribes in the country.

Yesterday, we went to a Sukuma cultural museum about 40 minutes out of Mwanza. In a way, the museum reminded me of places like Plymouth Plantation and Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, which show us how our ancestors lived. There was a hut built in the traditional Sukuma style (but of concrete so it would last longer), and inside it held the tools that a Sukuma would have used in the past: traps for catching fish and birds, clay containers for holding drinking water, a cup woven like a basket for drinking traditional beer, a hoe and a spear made by local blacksmiths. There were pavilions with displays on blacksmiths, showing a pit used for extracting iron from ore, and local bellows used to heat the charcoal in the pit. There was a pavilion full of royal drums, huge drums used to announce important events related to the king. Another hut showed tools used by traditional healers, and another was about Sukuma dances and dance competitions.

It's funny that, looking at African cultures, we tend to focus on things that are 'exotic' or different from Western culture. But in many ways, when we look at African tribes, we are also looking at our own past. It's true that the Sukuma entered the Industrial Age later than white Europeans, and that they were forging hoes by hand and using clay pots far more recently. But, with the exception of more culturally-specific items involved in dances or religion, many of the things I saw wouldn't have looked out of place in a museum about how Americans or Europeans lived in the distant past.

Another observation: the Sukuma have a museum to preserve their past. Most tribes don't. The tribe I live with, the Iraqw, seem to have lost most of their traditions. They certainly don't wear traditional clothes, the underground houses they used to build have entirely disappeared, and traditional dance troupes are few and far between. I don't know much about what tribal culture used to be like, so I don't know what else has been lost. But from what the older people tell me, the culture has changed and is changing fast. It's merging with the dominant Tanzanian culture, at the same time as Tanzanian culture is itself Westernizing. This isn't necessarily bad--in some ways, the changes are bringing development and the chance of a better future. But to lose a culture and a history so fast...it's disorienting. And it's hard to have pride in your past when your past is rapidly being obliterated by an outside culture. It'd be good if every tribe at least had a way to preserve their past, and write their history, before it's entirely lost.

Tanzania has about 120 tribes, and most of them are fairly small. But there are a few larger tribes. One of them is the Sukuma. At 15% of the population, they're one of the largest tribes in the country.

Yesterday, we went to a Sukuma cultural museum about 40 minutes out of Mwanza. In a way, the museum reminded me of places like Plymouth Plantation and Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, which show us how our ancestors lived. There was a hut built in the traditional Sukuma style (but of concrete so it would last longer), and inside it held the tools that a Sukuma would have used in the past: traps for catching fish and birds, clay containers for holding drinking water, a cup woven like a basket for drinking traditional beer, a hoe and a spear made by local blacksmiths. There were pavilions with displays on blacksmiths, showing a pit used for extracting iron from ore, and local bellows used to heat the charcoal in the pit. There was a pavilion full of royal drums, huge drums used to announce important events related to the king. Another hut showed tools used by traditional healers, and another was about Sukuma dances and dance competitions.

It's funny that, looking at African cultures, we tend to focus on things that are 'exotic' or different from Western culture. But in many ways, when we look at African tribes, we are also looking at our own past. It's true that the Sukuma entered the Industrial Age later than white Europeans, and that they were forging hoes by hand and using clay pots far more recently. But, with the exception of more culturally-specific items involved in dances or religion, many of the things I saw wouldn't have looked out of place in a museum about how Americans or Europeans lived in the distant past.

Another observation: the Sukuma have a museum to preserve their past. Most tribes don't. The tribe I live with, the Iraqw, seem to have lost most of their traditions. They certainly don't wear traditional clothes, the underground houses they used to build have entirely disappeared, and traditional dance troupes are few and far between. I don't know much about what tribal culture used to be like, so I don't know what else has been lost. But from what the older people tell me, the culture has changed and is changing fast. It's merging with the dominant Tanzanian culture, at the same time as Tanzanian culture is itself Westernizing. This isn't necessarily bad--in some ways, the changes are bringing development and the chance of a better future. But to lose a culture and a history so fast...it's disorienting. And it's hard to have pride in your past when your past is rapidly being obliterated by an outside culture. It'd be good if every tribe at least had a way to preserve their past, and write their history, before it's entirely lost.