Deep in the Serengheti . . .

The Maasai call the Serengheti in Swahili, Siringitu - "the place where the land moves on forever." I wish it were so, for its 5,700 square miles seems endless. The diversity of animals is staggering -- we saw thousands of animals: lions, cheetahs, leopards, elephants, giraffes, cape buffalos, hyenas, baboons, gazelles, zebras, and birds of every feather.

Zebras in the Serengheti (Camp 2012)

In the 1960s, illegal poaching nearly decimated the elephants and rhinos in the Serengheti. Ombani, our group leader, standing in front of the nightly fire, wrapped in a characteristic red blanket, argued passionately for sanctions against those countries still illegally buying ivory and rhino tusks. 

Since the 1960s, International support for the park has stabilized animal populations, and, by 1989 a worldwide ban on ivory sales went into effect. But, according to the National Park official website, 40,000 animals are killed by local poachers every year -- for their meat. 

Giraffes in the Serengheti (Camp 2012)

Conflict remains between the interests of tourists who bring much needed dollars into the country, environmentalists who want to protect the park and its animals, and struggling farmers who must feed their families.

While the people we met during our stay in Tanzania were hard working and beautifully optimistic about the future, this African country is among the poorest in all of Africa. Some 75% of her people make their living in rural areas. Drought has cripped both crop productivity and slowed the spread of electricity (Wikipedia points out that 60% of Tanzania's electricity comes from hydro-electric sources). Their economy remains vulnerable and thus affects the Serengheti National Park as well.

I learned that "safari" means journey in Swahili. Some in our group came to Tanzania to see the animals. But we all came away, transformed by the people we met and their love for their country, and with a better understanding of the issues facing this beautiful African country.

Lion at the Serengheti (Wikipedia)

For more information about Serengheti National Park: http://serengeti.org/index_discover.html or at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serengeti_National_Park and on Tanzania itself, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania#Economy

 

Water, water everywhere . . .

Market Day, Arusha

We're not in Tanzania anymore. I don't see people riding bicycles overloaded with produce or goods to sell at the market, young men pushing carts, or small boys driving a herd of goats alongside the road. I don't see women of all ages carrying heavy buckets of water home. I took this quick shot of the market in Arusha out the window of our jeep as we were being whisked through town to a national park. We didn't see much of everyday life on this trip.

Tanzania is decidedly a rural country:  90% of its people (2) live in rural areas and make their living from the earth, compared to 20% in the United States (1). Everywhere around Arusha, the Serengheti, and the Ngorongoro, people lived close to the land, tilling dry fields, and hoping for rain. A rainy season, we are told, that is getting shorter.

Maasai village near the Serengheti

So I've been thinking about global warming and wondering about its impact on Tanzania and its rural peoples.

The first article I found from the World Wildlife Federation itemized the dramatic shrinkage of glaciers (down 55% between 1952-2000), the loss of glacier and cloud forest melt to already short water supplies in the area around Mount Kilimanjaro, home to some one million people. Global warming in the Indian Ocean has flooded some traditional fishing communities and led to something called coral bleaching -- which directly affected tourism, again the loss counted in millions of dollars. Scientists say in the next hundred years, Zanzibar Island, a major tourist attraction with a rich history, may well be inundated by rising seas.

Over the last decade, I have seen glaciers shrink in Montana's Glacier National Park, where once 125 glaciers graced the mountains. My first reaction is how sad to lose such beautiful natural sites that we all enjoy. I don't immediately think of the impact on animals and the surrounding ecosystems as habitat changes. We've seen thousands of acres of forest destroyed by pine beetles in the US and Canada, directly attributable to drier land (4).

We take almost as a truism that third world countries have a lower standard of living, but everywhere we were welcomed with smiles. More statistics: The rate of crime in the United States is 715 incidents per 100,000. In Tanzania, the crime rate is 116 per 100,000. If a child begins school, he or she can expect to finish 15.2 years in the US; in Tanzania, 5 years. If we compare adult education, adults in the United States on average have completed 12 years of school. Adults in Tanzania, 2.7 years (1).

According to Tanzania's Minister of Energy, some 6.6% of those 90% living in rural areas have access to electricity, compared to about 20% of Tanzanians who live in major cities (2). We did not eat ice cream in Tanzania. I had never thought of ice cream as a first world treat before. The children at the school we visited did not exactly know what ice cream was.

Tanzanians everywhere talked about global warming, each not sure what to do. We can appreciate our time there, experiencing the amazing national parks with their diversity of wildlife, the stretch of human history from the earliest days, and its iconic landscape. I come away from this once-in-a-lifetime visit to Tanzania well aware of the differences in our quality of life. Money alone will not help, though our tour company, Overseas Adventure Travel, funds projects through a foundation in every country it tours. I think Tanzania is vulnerable in ways we cannot imagine.

(1) Statistics: NationMaster
(2) All Africa Reports
(3) WWF (World Wildlife Fund)
(4) Glacier National Park, Retreat of Glaciers

Decoding Cultural Masks . . .

While in Arusha, Tanzania, we visited the Cultural Heritage Centre, a compound of shops and a large gallery of African art. Our driver said only an hour; we squeezed in another 45 minutes. I could have stayed the rest of the afternoon.

African Female Portrait Mask, Provenance unknown

The architecture of the gallery was circular, open, with excellent light.We saw literally hundreds of traditional African art objects -- sculptures, textiles, carvings, masks, chief's chairs, and modern paintings. I was reminded how Picasso's art changed irrevocably after he saw African art for the first time at a friend's house in Paris, about 1907. The result? Cubism and the beginning of abstract art.

But now that I'm home, reviewing my pictures, I realize layers of controversy and a lack of real information hinder my understanding of these works. As this was a gallery, not every work identified the maker, the tribe, or when or where the work was made. Are the art works authentic or manufactured for the tourist trade? Were they imported from India or other countries and made to specification? The desire to preserve traditional beliefs is juxtaposed against the commercial appeal of these works. Traditionally, fathers taught sons how to make the masks, passing along sacred and secret information. Once the masks are taken outside of their tribal context, how do we understand what these masks mean?

Beaded Mask, Provenance unknown

We admire a beautiful African mask. But to someone within the tribal culture, this mask is more important for what it symbolizes -- the mask can represent nature spirits, be a change agent, a bridge to the spirit world, or worn for a ritual, itself a rite of passage. Once the person puts on the mask, he (for typically men wear these masks) is transformed.

In the mask of the woman above, the high forehead may stand for intelligence, the closed eyes for patience and humility (desired traits in females), the beading and scarification could emphasized culturally defined beauty, and the cowry shells, royalty.

I'm guessing the beaded mask may be some kind of nature god for sea creatures swim around the green face heavily decorated with cowry shells. But I don't trust my interpretations for I was never the young child standing in the marketplace (as shown in the video below), watching an ancestral hyena come to life and dance.

In this 15-minute video on YouTube, Christopher Roy discusses some of the contexts of the mask in "African Art: The Masks of the Gnoumou Family in Boni Perform, 2007." His video is set in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Maasai Women welcome us . . .

Maasai Women welcome song

One of the most moving experiences of the trip to Tanzania was our welcome to a Maasai village. Apparently, someone had forgotten to tell someone that we were coming, so when we did arrive, the Maasai men, wrapped in red robes, took us to their corral to admire the cattle. We then returned to the village to find the women streaming out of their houses into a formal line, to sing this welcome song.

I never learned the words, but I was overwhelmed by the sheer exuberance of this welcome, this music which so warmly invited us to share a bit of the Maasai culture.

Together, we women brought straw for thatching the roof of this round Maasai home. Rain intervened, so we were put to work, hands on, for plastering the walls with a mix of dirt and cow dung.

Later we sat inside the headman's house for some discussion of serious matters, as three elders attempted to explain the complexity of their culture and their resistance to change. The afternoon ended with more songs, dancing, and an impromptu market of elaborate beadwork. I've carried these memories home, having found much more to research, yet grateful for these experiences.

In search of the rare, the elusive . . . Red Colobus Monkey

Before joining up with our safari, we stopped in old Stone Town for four days, got to sleep under mosquito netting, and saw the Red Colobus Monkey. 

Pretty cute, huh? This little red monkey is an endangered species found only in Zanzibar, in the Jozoni Forest, about a half hour's ride down from Stone Town. 

There, we saw families of these monkeys just ambling from tree to tree as we walked below them along the ground. The monkeys stopped to check us out, pausing long enough for heartfelt glances. Then they scampered down on the forest floor, across a field, and up palm trees. Typically these little monkeys live to about age 20 and in social groups of about 30. The group we saw had about 8 monkeys, including babies.

Apparently the Swahili name for the Red Colobus is "poison monkey." Partly because of their 'bad smell,' people believe the monkeys kill the trees they eat, and they're never kept as pets.

Don't you wonder what they're thinking?

If you'd like to jump over to my writing blog, there's an African poem there . . .

Jambo from Stone Town . . .

Beach near Old Town, Stone Town, Zanzibar

We began our sojourn to Africa with a four-day stay in Stone Town, Zanzibar. Somewhat jetlagged, the first words we heard on landing in Stone Town, Zanzibar, were "Jambo!" (hello), and "Jambo, Bwana," (hello, mister). We were blown away by outright, warm friendliness from everyone we met. We heard this tune everywhere --  "Jambo, Bwana," echoing down the streets, sung passionately by a young man climbing a coconut tree on a spice farm, and sung again most hauntingly by a woman at dusk, as we watched the sun fall into the sea. 

Written back in the 1980s by a group called Them Mushrooms, the song has become an anthem for Tanzania and Kenya. Here it is, in all its You-Tube glory:

We have our own "jambo" stories now.

I've always loved languages and thought perhaps Swahili might have feminine and masculine endings, for example, "Jambo" for males and "Jamba" for females. Everytime I asked if this were true, the folks around me burst into laughter. I learned later than "jamba" means fart.

So there we are, camping out in tents on the Serengheti. A young man comes around at 5:30 am with hot water, softly calling, "Jambo. Good morning." Allen reared up in his cot still asleep and called back quite clearly, "Jamba!"

Camping out like that meant we heard animals at night, sometimes the low cough of a lion or a mysterious large animal pawing the grasses outside the tent. So one morning, I won't say who was responsible, but a 'jamba' popped out into the morning. In the next tent, one of our friends said, "Did you hear that lion?"

Tune in tomorrow for more about Stone Town and the rare, nearly extinct Red Colobus Monkey.

Leopards and Cheetahs don't share . . .

She was sleepy. She was grouchy. She had supper stashed in her tree.

Our jeep had just stopped. Ombeni explained that the leopard, like the cheetah, didn't like to share her food. In fact, a leopard commonly drags her kill (this time, a Thomson's gazelle), into a tree to hide it from other predators. She can run as fast as 40 mph to catch her prey. Apparently, it's quite difficult to see leopards in the wild as we did on our first day in the Serengeti, for these animals are silent and nocturnal, and they hunt by stealth. No wonder she was grouchy. We interrupted her nap.

Later, we spotted two cheetahs resting in the grasslands near a herd of wildabeest, just enjoying the sun. Notice her uptipped ears. She doesn't miss much as she lolls lazily on the ground. Those black tear marks on her face actually help her see long distances (just as footballers put black marks under their eyes to avoid sun glare).

The cheetah uses speed to bring down her prey and can reach 70-75 mph during her short chase. Smaller than the leopard, the cheetah may not keep her catch as more aggressive lions and hyenas will chase her away. The cheetah doesn't share willingly.

Poor baby.

Ah, the sensitive and lovely warthog . . .

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

As we entered the very large Ngorongoro Crater, we were treated to another amazing diversity of animals. Roughly 25,000 animals live in this natural conservation area, untroubled by day visitors -- or by the lions who rested in the long grasses on this hot afternoon. As we descended to the base of this volcanic crater, we had a sense of awe for we had just learned this area has been home to some form of humans for the last three million years. 

The warthog in all its beauty!

Who could not find a warthog lovely for its almost anachronistic face alone? That formidable looking warthog, really a wild pig, delights in feeding on the grasslands of the Ngorongoro, also snacking on fungus, insects, eggs, or any carrion that's laying about. Its tusks can give predators a nasty twist; its ears flicker constantly, as does its little fly-whip tail.

We watched as this particular warthog engineered his own comfort (see video below) by using those nasty tusks to carve a mud hole just a little larger. 

Unpreturbed by nearby "safari jeeps," he settled down, perhaps bothered by that very same complaint of the omnivorous spotted hyena! Actually, I learned from Wikipedia that the warthog's thin skin (who knew?), makes him very sensitive to changes in temperature. That mud bath cools him down.

At rest in self-made mud bath!

Lions and Tigers and . . .

We've all been to the zoo. Seen the lions and tigers pace back and forth, occasionally fixing their eyes on a small child. In our two week safari to the Tarangire National Park, the Serengeti National Park, and the Ngorongoro Crater, we saw lions and cheetahs and jaguars differently. Co-existing mostly peacefully in the wild, sweeping plains and grasslands, the lions near other animals -- zebras, impalas, Cape buffalo, wildabeests, and giraffes.

Up at 4:30 am for the morning game drive, we rode 4 to 6 in a jeep. We called these open air jeeps "meals on wheels" after we came around a bumpy dirt road in the Serengeti to find this lioness waiting for us. She looked us over and casually sauntered back into the waist high grasses, invisible within moments.

Curiously, all the animals seem to cohabit quite contentedly -- until the lion starts hunting. Then the herd animals get antsy, alert. They call to each other in reassuring snorts and whistles.

At a small waterhole, we spotted first a cub, then another, and another frolicking along a river bank. Their mother slept nearby, then awoke and cuffed the cubs until they followed her back into the tall grasses.

Tune in tomorrow for an answer to the question:  Do lions sleep in trees?

The Baobab Tree

Baobab Tree, Tarangire National Park, Tanzania

As we drove through the Tarangire National Park, we were spellbound by this amazing tree, the Baobab tree, also called the upside-down tree and sometimes, as you will see, the elephant tree.

These big trees dominated the landscape wherever they appeared, stretching sometimes as high as 80 feet. We learned they can live thousands of years. Just the diameter (that's across the tree, not around) can be as large as 50 feet.

This massive tree, crowned with green during the rainy season, is dubbed the "upside down tree" for during the dry season, its limbs look like giant roots. One folk tale tells that during the days of creation, the baobab tree begged to be the prettiest, largest, most fruitful tree of all the other trees. Annoyed, God threw the tree down from heaven and it landed upside down. Some believe that the "roots" of the tree link it still to the heavens and that the tree has special powers.

We came upon an elephant eating the heart of a baobab tree, for its soft wood tastes like sugar cane. This elephant paid us no attention but kept tearing and pulling the bark away, grunting softly. I was surprised to see the landscape is littered with downed trees, for elephants pull great limbs down to eat their leaves, leaving a path of destruction as they pass through the grasslands. Here is the video I took of that elephant in Tarangire.

Note: The comments you hear are of our guides talking to each other. "Sowa, sowa?" means "Are you ready to go?" in Swahili.

A Maasai told us that if you touch the Baobab tree (also called an elephant tree), you can make a wish. Once you touch the tree, one day you will return to Tanzania. We did not touch the Baobab.

NOTE: Children might enjoy The Tree of Life: The World of the African Baobab by Barbara Bash (excellent watercolor illustrations), while you can read more in the online book The Baobabs (540 pages) by Gerald E. Wickens and Pat Lowe.

We are home, still reeling from that long journey home, 46 hours in transit from Arusha in Tanzania to Spokane, a journey of some 9,000 miles -- perhaps as the crow flies.

Arusha is just about 10 hours ahead, so when it's morning here, it's evening there. My body can't quite make up its mind: Is it morning or night? Rachel says that when you make a long journey, your soul must catch up. But of all we experienced over the last three and a half weeks, so much learned and yet to learn, I hope to share some pictures and impressions here.

Africa is much more diverse than I expected; yet poverty remains an issue. People are rightfully concerned about potable water, education, and jobs. But we also saw optimism everywhere in the welcoming smiles of the people we met.

We saw a very brief slice of everyday life in Africa; our wonderful tour through OAT Overseas Adventure Travel led by the witty and knowledgeable Ombeni, did take us to home visits, a Masai family, and a school, but the main focus was experiencing the national parks. 30% of Tanzania is set aside for natural preserves or parks.

The thrill of seeing these wild animals in their natural setting is unforgettable. I have heard the cough of lions hunting at night, seen a leopard with its prey dragged up into a tree for safekeeping, watched ostriches mate, and danced with Masai women. We learned to watch the skies for rain, for this was the short-rain season, that time when the trees and grasses shimmer green on the plains and the wildebeest and zebras begin their Great Migration.

I will try to post an entry a day about some aspect of this amazing trip. For now, I begin with a video of these graceful giraffes on the Serengheti Plains.