Washington College Magazine
Global Perspectives: Into Africa
By Laura Parr '05
Amidst a culture in stark contrast to their own, students exploring Tanzania learned just how rich in human spirit a poor people can be.
Laura Parr '05
A new study abroad program in Tanzania—a seminar led by Professor Tahir Shad—focuses on problems associated with Africa. Students had rare access to the Maasai people and those working to preserve their culture and to promote sustainable development.
The German war machine lurched precariously to the left, jolting us out of our seats and providing us with an ironically inconvenient Kodak moment of the lush, rain-kissed ravine over which we were dangling. An afternoon of steady rain had turned the steep dirt road leading far up to our campsite on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater into a near-mudslide, and our five-foot-tall army tires weren't the only ones stuck in the thick red mud. A beige safari truck half our size was one of about twenty vehicles in a caravan of tourists and locals heading out of the crater towards town.
A pair of Norwegian blondes, clad in pressed khaki safari gear, popped through their sunroof to yell to our drivers, "Stop! You're scaring these girls!" We looked at each other and grinned, scrambling to the right of the truck for an emergency escape if necessary, and waved to the Norwegians, as another group of tourists excitedly snapped photos of us, more thrilled than if we had been a leopard's kill in a tree. All twelve of us clung tightly to ropes or railings with one hand, a Safari [drink] in the other, and performed our best rendition of the Tanzanian national anthem, thrilled to be barely alive on yet another exhilarating day in Africa.
Later that night, relaxing around the roaring campfire and toasting bright pink marshmallows for S'mores, the laughter was loud as we joked and carried on about the day's events. Almost two weeks into our summer seminar on sustainable development in East Africa, we were starting to feel as though we had been there for years. We only showed our true colors as outsiders when we pulled out our cameras to photograph buffalo grazing around the bathrooms at the campsite or when we attempted to use the "natural facilities" behind the safari truck, returning with pants around our ankles, squealing and frightened by the growl of an unidentified animal in the bush mere feet away.
A few of the students on the Tanzania trip had never left the United States. On an adventure of a lifetime, they visited schools, hospitals and national parks, and climbed to the first base camp of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Most safari experiences in Africa will send everyone home boasting a laundry list of the incredible animals and birds they saw, the amazing sights only previously seen on Animal Planet, and the multiple moments that make one gush, "It's just like The Lion King!" I won't pretend that our group was a whole lot better— we are indeed guilty of at least one Disney sing-along marathon. (In our defense, it was during a 10-hour road trip on dirt roads, traversing twelve different species of acacia in the back of an open truck preserved from WWII.) But our group of Washington College students, accompanied by our trusty "Baba," Professor Tahir Shad, did return home with more than photographs of elephants flapping their enormous ears in protection of their young, the setting sun silhouetting ancient gnarled trees on the horizon, and giraffes gracefully making their way across the savannah. On a remarkable eighteen-day trip under a looming Mount Kilimanjaro, our group got down and dirty, and were enchanted by the fascinating culture, indomitable spirit, and truly amazing stories that define Africa if you only know where to look.
The Maasai women offered traditional dance instruction to the visiting students. Alana Wase '06 finds her rhythm, as Rachel Loose '07 (in pigtails) and Julia Lange '05 look on.
On our first full day in Tanzania, as we enjoyed toast and fresh coffee on the patio of the Arusha Resort Hotel, we were joined by Tanya, an energetic woman from Seattle, Washington; Mohammad, who was to be our excellent chef for the next week; and a soft-spoken Maasai warrior, Silulu, whose expertise and passion for his work and country taught us more than any of the textbooks we pored over before our arrival. Tanya and Silulu work together as co-directors of the nongovernmental organization Terrawatu, based out of Arusha and Seattle. This non-governmental organization strives for sustainable development in Tanzania through the merging of indigenous and modern wisdoms and technologies.
During our briefing the first morning before we embarked on a People-to-People safari, Tanya discussed the realities of implementing this vision in Tanzania. In a society such as Arusha—which is tourist-driven due to its proximity to Mt. Kilimanjaro, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti—it is a constant challenge to sort out working traditions from the effects of globalization and the pressures of day-to-day survival. Many villages have abandoned their traditions in an effort to achieve the "American" style of life that they see on television; this cultural shift has put the villages in a sort of limbo. They obviously can't live the life they see on American television yet their own culture is in jeopardy. A further challenge is to encourage community members to recognize that environmental, health, and educational concerns are indeed community problems and that finding solutions is the community's responsibility. Terrawatu is striving to create a society that is self-sustaining and no longer reliant on assistance from outside sources.
Tanya's briefing made sense to me. As she articulated, local responses to global problems can truly make a difference. As the week progressed, however, and I witnessed the constant struggle to maintain balance in everyday life, judging traditional medicine versus western, learning to farm versus learning physics from foreign volunteer teachers, and upholding government laws versus carrying on with traditions that violate those laws, I began to lose confidence that anything was making a difference. How does one fit it all together? It's easy to become overwhelmed in Africa. During one morning spent in discussion with the leader of a Maasai boma (a village or settlement), I felt as though I had stepped out of a time capsule. I was surprised to see one man living with eight wives and 56 children in mud huts with no electricity or running water, measuring wealth by livestock, and by all appearances he was extremely content with his life. He and his family maintain traditions established generations ago and, despite the development occurring all around them, they carry on with their language, culture, and lifestyle intact.
Can you hear me now? A Maasai warrior checking his voice mail symbolizes the merging values of traditional Tanzanian culture and western development.
That afternoon in the same village, we visited a small school operated by a group of American volunteers. We had an enlightening question-and-answer session with Maasai students about the differences between their culture and ours.
We discussed our studies, interests, and our personal goals for the future. They all wanted to visit places in Tanzania, such as Ngorongoro Crater and Mt. Kilimanjaro, and many of them had dreams of visiting America. It struck me how similar we were despite our obvious differences, and it raised the question of how these Maasai teenagers could maintain their indigenous culture while realizing dreams of becoming pilots, dentists, doctors, and artists. It is a question that development organizations all over Africa struggle with every day, including Terrawatu and our small group of students.
One of the first things that Tanya told us was that outside agencies must understand the local community to make any positive difference. Through visits to schools, hospitals, bomas, and traditional medicine stands, we had become increasingly familiar with the culture of the Tanzanians and how they lived, but we had yet to really understand the community. We had been looking forward to visiting the Mkonoo Village Nursery Project, a local village where Terrawatu had developed a reforestation project with the goal of rekindling indigenous ecological knowledge, decreasing soil erosion, and generating more income for the community. Terrawatu had empowered the women in the village to take control of the project and to find solutions to the water problems in their community. We were looking forward to a goat roast, the traditional Maasai meal, and the opportunity to purchase beaded jewelry. After the highly-anticipated goat roast and a crash course in Maasai dancing, the two men in our group were sent to speak to the men of the village. The women sat together in a circle and spent the next two hours discussing everything from the nursery project to school and studies, birth control and family planning.
Despite the lower status of women in the Maasai culture, these women were driven, goodhearted, and empowered by the successes and changes they witnessed as a direct result of their work in the nursery. They were now more independent, no longer solely dependent upon their husbands. They could gather branches and water, sell beads to generate income, and send their children to school. The discussions were frank, accompanied by a lot of laughter, and even some applause.
On a People-to-People safari, the students thrilled to the beauty of the natural landscape and its wildlife inhabitants. Here, young elephants stroll across the road in front of the transport truck.
They were proud to show us the small seedlings planted nearby, and the afternoon mini-market they set up gave us a great opportunity to purchase beaded jewelry and trinkets that we knew would directly help to fund their projects. To see firsthand these accomplishments and the projects that were slowly beginning to spread through Arusha, as well as the opportunity for an enriching discussion with the women, gave all of us a new understanding of the local community—something that hundreds of textbooks or dozens of classes could never provide. We left Mkonoo Village feeling inspired by the village's success and stirred by the prospects for their future.
With all of the negative news reports in the papers every day and the disturbing statistics that commercials display during our favorite evening programs, it is easy to hear something about Africa and sigh, overwhelmed by the challenges that face us as a global community. After just two trips to Africa in my lifetime, I don't claim to be an expert on problems or solutions. Although saddened and frustrated by the many challenges that face the entire continent, I am touched by the indomitable spirit of the people I have encountered in my experiences in Africa. Perched on an overstuffed chair in the comfortable living room at the Old Arusha Hospital one afternoon, I listened to the director, Dr. Frank, discuss what he referred to as the "grim state of health" in Tanzania. The old hospital, built 50 years ago to resemble a safe, comfortable home, provided a small staff, a few beds, and numerous patients. We discussed the logistics of running a hospital where an overnight stay cost $5 a night and the fee for a hernia operation was only $75, compared to South Africa's $4,000 fee. Many patients can't afford the 50-cent expense of a malaria test, much less the treatment when a test result is positive.
The hospital has no choice but to do what it can to be self-sustaining, and frugality is a way of life. Occasional donors provide welcome relief to the challenge of existing day-to-day. Again, the challenges seemed overwhelming. I contemplated why this American would leave his job as a cardiac anesthesiologist, which surely paid him several hundred thousand dollars a year, to open a hospital in Tanzania, where doctors are on average paid $150 a month. Here, doctors deal not with heart disease, but with malaria, the number one killer of the Tanzanian people as well as one of the most preventable diseases in the world. When Dr. Frank had to step away for a moment to address a medical concern, his wife addressed a question regarding the conflicting points of view of mortality among the Tanzanian and American cultures. Her eyes shone as she spoke of the time when Dr. Frank lost a young patient. Devastated, he found it difficult to move past his despair. Then one afternoon, the father of the deceased patient stopped by to thank Dr. Frank for providing his son with such excellent care and to offer his prayers for the doctor and the hospital. I had to bite my lip to keep my tears from spilling. Dr. Frank had no medical malpractice lawsuits pending or even the slightest bit of blame placed upon his shoulders. The kind Tanzanian father, so in touch with his son's mortality as well as his own, chose to demonstrate the support, love, and courageous human spirit that dauntlessly provide the inspiration and hope for Dr. Frank to remain in East Africa, and the inspiration for the rest of us to long to return.
Laura Parr '05 graduated in May with a degree in international studies. She recently completed an internship with a global nonprofit organization and the Jane Goodall Institute. She currently works as a development assistant at The Worldwatch Institute in Washington D.C.
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