Language

The language that is spoken in Tanzania is Kiswahili, which literally means, language of Swahili. Swahili is originally a mix of languages spoken in coastal East Africa, largely influenced by Arabic, English, and even some German, Portuguese and Hindi. The root of the language both grammatically and in linguistically is bantu, which describes the indiginous African population that moved East from Western Africa hundreds of years ago. Today, Swahili is widely spoken in East Africa - it is the national language of Tanzania, shares the status with English in Kenya, is spoken in parts of northern Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, and is spoken by large segments of the poplulations of Burundi, Rwanda and Eastern Congo as a result of the wars in those countries that have sent many refugees to Tanzania.

Swahili, like most languages, continues to develop and change. When trying to decipher a text message or understand a common saying, I often find my 6 year old brother more helpful than a dictionary. "Chobisi" is one such word. It is referred to often - "lets meet at chobisi" or "welcome to chobisi," and for the longest time, I would even use the word without fully understanding the meaning. It turns out "Chobisi" is roughly translated to "a place that you go when you don't want to be found." So, a bar that you are hanging out at during your lunch break could be chobisi, or perhaps your favorite place to relax after work. Great word. Wish we had one in English.

Other times, slang is rooted in culture that doesn't make sence. For instance, a slang response to "whats up?" might be "fulu mzuka". Neither fulu or mzuka appear in my dictionary, but I am told mzuka is slang for milk, so fulu mzuka is I am full of milk, or everything is good. To further complicate matters, another response could be "haina maji" or "there is no water." Thus, if you ask whats up, and someone responds, there is no water, what they are saying is there must be milk, therefore, things are good. Follow?

There is also a lot of English that makes its way into Swahili, although often the context isn't quite right. I have a feeling that the majority of English slang arrives through rap music and videos, so often the understanding of what a word means comes from the music or video associated with it. With hip hop music in mind, it becomes easier to understand why a young man or woman might invite you into their home and say "welcome to my ghetto." Some words when they are brought in are pronounced like English, but spelled completely different (usually phonetically), such as the word "afisa," which after saying out loud you might realize means "officer." Other words are spelled as in English, but pronounced completely differently. For instance, in Arusha the public transport are small mini-busses. In Kenya they are called "matatu" (threes) in Dar Es Salaam "dala dala" and here they are reffered to as "ice." After a while, I asked why they are referred to as ice, and was told that it is written on the front of the busses. Ah Ha! Turns out the vast majority of mini-busses in Arusha are of the car brand "hiace," and nobody bothered to tell the people of Arusha that this brand is pronounced "high-ah-chee" so instead it gets pronounced "ice."

One last thing I would like to mention, for the pure fun of it and having nothing to do with language, is that there are a large quantity of 19-0 Perfect season Patriots Championship shirts here. Ahhh.... what could have been.

Four Cups of Tea

Before I begin to discuss tea, I want to share some very exciting news: I GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL!!!! As most of you probably know, for a while I have been thinking about going back to school to get a Masters Degree in Public Health. This winter, I applied, and I got in! Starting in August, I will officially be enrolled in the Masters in International Public Health program at Boston University. I am thrilled, and really excited to be going back to school to study public health. I am also really excited to know what I will be doing when I return to the states!

Now for the tea...

As part of my work with MOWAT, I spent the day yesterday walking around the village of Arkatan which is located in the Monduli district. Rose, The woman I live with is the head teacher at the Arkatan primary school, and the majority of the students there are Maasai. I spent the day walking around visiting different Maasai Bomas and interviewing the women there about development, their needs and access to education. I couldn't help but have flashbacks to the stakeholder interviews we did in Tanzania as part of the study abroad program I did here, only this time my guide and interpreter was helping me to translate into KiMaasai, not English.

Regarding education, I have hit a challenge that I am not exactly sure what to do with. When asking women about the positives and negatives of education girls, the answer seems to be, there really aren't.... in the pastoralist lifestyle, education beyond basic mathmatics so that one knows if they are getting the right change, and basic literacy so that one can read a sign or sign one's name, is virtually meaningless... of course it opens up opportunities for careers and lifestyles outside of traditional Maasai culture, but in terms of tradition, it has so meaning - for girls or for boys. So, while money to help with education fees would be appreciated, throwing money in that direction would likely not make any difference in how many children attend school, and for how long they attend.

So, what's the answer? I don't know. Is there a benefit to girls and boys staying in school in order to learn history and geography, english and science when they plan to spend the rest of their lives herding cattle and goats and carrying firewood and cooking? If there is a benefit, such as having other career options, how do you convince a society to change their views when those decisions are made primarily by the old men?

Monduli

Last Tuesday I drove out to Monduli, arriving just after the sun had gone down at a small coffee plantation in the Monduli mountains. As we drove west from Arusha, horizontal lightning periodically brightened the sky to our left, and after 30 minutes or so of driving, we turned off the main road (when we reached Mesarani) and headed north to Monduli. It was just after sunset and the shadow of the Monduli mountains - remnants of past volcanic activity were just visable as a grey outline. After driving 10 or 15 minutes down the smaller road, we began to climb, as as we did, the vast savannah land receded beneath us, giving way to lush vegetation with eucalyptus trees, (and many other trees that I do not know the names of), coffee, bananas and other farms. After a while, we left the tarmac road and drove onto a dirt road, which shortly after we turned off onto a dirt (and muddy) path. That is how I arrived in the small coffee plantation which is my home. It is beautiful. I met Rose, my friend Imma's sister who I will be staying with for the next three months, and Filamina, who is the 18 year old girl who works in the house, and is a riot to spend time with. She loves to gossip, and over the past week we have shared many stories and laughs, in addition to fresh sugar cane.

The organization that Rose has founded is a small NGO called the Monduli Women's Action Trend (MOWAT), and they have very general goals of helping women and children in areas of health, education, development, etc. in the Monduli district of Arusha. After talking at greater length with Rose, it became clear that her main goal is to figure out ways of income generation for women pastoralists. Rose is a teacher, as are the other two women who founded the organization, and one of their biggest frustrations is that many bright students, especially girls, drop out of school after only a few years. Usually the girls want to continue with their education, but they are unable to pay for school fees, or become pregnant. From Rose's experience, the mothers of these girls usually want to help their daughters to go to school, but because in pastoralist (and indeed most Tanzanian) society, the males are in possetion of all the assets, the women are not able to pay for the school fees themselves, and the fathers are usually uninterested in spending their money on the girl's education. So here I am. Over the next few months, I hope to help MOWAT to develop income generating plans to help the women in pastoralist societies - in Monduli this is the Maasai - so that they can pay for their daughters education. This week I have been in town researching ongoing similar projects in Tanzania, and next week I will hopefully be visiting with a number of Maasai communities in Monduli to interview the women to see how we can be of the most service, and how they envision us being able to help.

In the mean time, I am having a wonderful time, I am having a wonderful time getting to know new friends, spending time with old friends (I can give you a price quote for just about any safari now), eating fresh Avocado (our dog Fox LOVES avocados, which conveniently grow on the trees on or farm), getting to know Rose's two sons, Bill (9) and Dadi (6), playing cards, and watching Maisha Plus - the Tanzanian Equivilent of "Survivor." Filamina and I plan to hike up the hills to the top, where there is apparently a crater and you can see elephants. We tried this last Friday, but the rain stopped us after half an hour or so, and we spent the next hour seeking refuge in a neighbor's house, who kindly fed us hot roasted corn as we waited for the rain to stop.

April 7

On the night of April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryarima of Burundi was shot down as it descended into the Kigali airport. The plane was returning from Arusha, Tanzania, where both presidents had been involved in peace talks to end the decades long fighting between Tutsi and Hutu in their respective countries. Within an hour of the plane coming down, roadblocks had been set up in and around Kigali and the massacres had begun.

Today, April 7 is the 15th anniversary of the 100 day long genocide that claimed roughly a million lives. As I look up at the International Rwandan Tribunal now located in Arusha, it is a stark reminder that the atrocities that mostly occured during April, May and June of 1994 could have been largely prevented by the intervention of the international community.

Please take a moment today to educate yourself about what is going out in the world outside of your home. Do not ever think that you are powerless to act. It is your responsibility.

Monday Morning

Back in the United States, I feel confident (or at least hope) that you are all deep in a peaceful sleep. Here it is already Monday morning, and Arusha is a busy city on almost every day except Sunday, which is blistfully restful and calm, even if that means that most stores, restaurants and internet cafes are closed. I can never seem to stay asleep past 5am here - A cacophany of noise greets me in the morning; Dala Dala conducters yelling out the destination of their vehicle and attempting to get riders, the morning call to prayer (there seem to be a few different Mosques which all have various times beginning at 5am and ending around 5:30), large vehicles with bad mufflers and loud horns (part of road etiquette here is to honk to let any pedestrians - which there always are- know that you are driving down the road. It is then the pedestrian's responsibility to get out of the way). Over the next hour, I always try to eak out a few more minutes of sleep, but usually to no avail. The day has begun.

Later today, I will be leaving Arusha and heading 30km west to Mesarani. To be honest, I'm not exacty sure what I will be doing there. My friend's sister is a teacher who lives there, but she also does work with a center for Maasai development, so that is where I will be working, while living with her. Mesarani is located in the fairly geographically uninteresting part of northern Tanzania that separates the lush areas around Kilimanjaro and Meru (and their big cities, Moshi and Arusha) and the Ngorongoro Highlands and Serengeti National Park. Historically, it has been used by pastoralists over the past few hundred years. The creation of the national park system and conservation areas and the resulting expusion of many of of their resident pastoralist has created an environmental catastrophe in areas such as Mesarani, and the Maasai 'capital' of Monduli farther North. Because pastoralists are now confined to a much smaller area, and one that does not contail year-round water supplies, the land has been overgrazed resulting in intense desertification. Even now when it does rain, there is not enough plant life to allow the rain to permeate and nourish the soil, and as a result there are deep gullys criss-crossing the land that carry the run-off away during the rainy season. In addition, the past few years have seen much less rain than many people can remember (although the worst drought of recent memory was apparently in 1997). Even now, it is the beginning of April, and we have only seen a few short showers. While the rains are supposed to start gradually in February and get increasingly frequent over the month of March, and then last until May, since I arrived here last Wednesday, the only time it has rained was a short shower last night. While there was a cloud cover this morning, it is sunny and hot now.

The lack of rain and resulting lack of grazing is clearly problematic, and perhaps most so for the Maasai pastoralists whose wealth is measured in cattle rather than money in the bank. Like putting money in the stock market, a herd of cattle can tripple in just a few years. However, in a bad drought season, a Maasai can easily lose as much as a third of his herd to starvation, and even when he decides to sell an animal in order to get the money to buy food for his family, a thin sheep will only sell for $10, as opposed to the $30 he can get for a healthy sheep. With the land overused and rainfall diminishing, pastoralism is becoming an increasingly risky investment.

So today I head to Mesarani. We will see over the next few months whether this will be a bad year or not. So far their have been no rains, which is problematic to some, but not yet worrisome. But if the rains don't come by the end of the month, then we are in for trouble.

Asante

Perhaps you already know the word Asante from Disney's The Lion King (Where the monkey character Rafiki gleefully hops around chanting "Asante Sana Squashed Banana"). In Swahili, the word Asante means "Thank You." Asante Sana, "Thank you very much." I love how much people say thank you here.

Thank You is universally used when being welcomed into someone's home, when someone moves over on the dala dala, or just because you came. And it is used genuinely, not as a forgetten reminder of something that your mother told you to say when someone does you a kindness.

For instance, someone may ask "How are you finding Tanzania?" I respond "I love it here." Asante Sana. Another time I might be asked "So what are you doing in Tanzania?" I respond "I hope to work as a volunteer in health and development." Again, Asante Sana. When I went to the British Airways office in Dar Es Salaam earlier this week to change my ticket for my flight back home, not only was it Asante Sana, but it was a reduction of $150 in airline charges and fees associated with changing a ticket. Karibu Sana - You are very welcome here in Tanzania.