National Farmer’s Day Holiday (Nane Nane) in central Tanzania replacing the 2016 Illinois state fair
I have continued to experience and learn about a new area of Tanzania, visited a second university and hospital, and made a water filter systems from 2 buckets. The 3 recommended methods are: Boil, filter and chlorine. Tanzania time is 8 hours ahead of Illinois Daylight savings time so I am getting up when you are going to bed. There are several habitats with seasons in Tanzania. These include Semi-arid desert; Savannah, and woodlands. The temperature for their winter or high season right now is milder than our summer. It is cool at night here with a breeze, but in the afternoon sunny and hot but not near as bad as Illinois summer heat and humidity. I see some Tanzanians in winter coats so guess you get used to winter being warm. Along the bus route were rural areas with brush, crops, dryness and a few watering holes. We saw small villages with the market place along the street and homes in rural areas where 75% of Tanzanians live.
The government offices were supposed to move to Dodoma in the 80s but that did not occur and though the legislature meets in DoDoma, the main economic and political center has been Dar es Salaam. With the new political party President who took office last fall there is a new push to make all governmental offices in Dodoma. Sounds similar to Springfield and Chicago in Illinois. If you try and take pictures of governmental buildings here you may get your camera or phone taken and the pictures deleted so that is different.
In walking around the town there are new multi-story apartment buildings (Chinese built along with the parliament building) and not so affluent homes, a very large new multi-building campus for the University of Dodoma on the outskirts of town with 40,000 students, a convention center and government buildings. Then you will find occasionally herders bringing in cows and goats as you are walking along side streets in town. There are no stoplights here, a few sidewalks downtown but more dusty side streets. There is traffic but not near what there was in Dar es Salaam though you do have to watch crossing streets to avoid motorcyles, trucks, buses and cars.
I know many want some interesting pictures and up until now I’ve just given you some of my GHSP colleagues. I could post some sad and harsh ones but over the year I want to focus on the strengths of this country, their people and their resources. I would not want someone to come to the U.S. and only post pictures of homeless individuals or poverty in an area as this has no meaning without knowledge of a place, its history and people. I would want the pictures to depict the good in our society and its people. I take pride in my country just as Tanzanians are proud of their country. Time and interactions will allow me and those who read this to have a better understanding of Tanzania and its people. Both in the U.S. and Tanzania there are contrasting towns, living conditions, geography, people, colleges, shopping and work places.
One of the first strengths I’ve seen is how Tanzanians place a premium on politeness and courtesy. Greetings are essentials and inquiring about another person and their family occur before any other agendas. There are not just quick good mornings but stopping to ask about your day and then a response as well as another greeting by both parties. Those younger are trained to greet their elders with a respectful Shikamoo(I hold your feet). So since I am older I will get a lot of those and have to respond back. Chai each morning is an entirely new concept for someone who is used to working long work hours, often eating lunch at my desk with maybe an occasionally happy hour or pot luck at work to socialize. In one class on culture some of our Tanzanian staff said they view Americans as being dictated by time whereas Tanzanians value people and family thus our frustration with events that may not start on time. This is not what happens during our orientation program but what we might experience in more social settings. So I am experiencing their culture and behaviors, will have to practice this and learn some new positive behaviors to take home with me.
So the pictures are from National Farmers day, a holiday which is August 8th but we went on Sunday as it would be less busy and more safe for us. So I felt a little more at home with my agriculture background and interests. Though I will miss the state fair in Illinois this year, I experienced some agriculture from Tanzania. The events seemed similar to a county fair. There were animal and crop exhibits, marketing of farm equipment, marketing of services and goods: bank and phone services, solar and technology items, clothes, shoes, and kitchen items. They had for sale the same type of vegetable slicers (the wavy cut ones) the state fair has for sale:)
The university tent had information on their majors, science programs for children, a geology rock exhibit, a health screening area, and one faculty showed how to make a solar powered heated egg incubator from a cooler. There was a tent with information on a nutrition program with the food groups available here and their nutrition education programs for mothers and children. They had exhibits of garden growing containers for areas with water shortages (a bag and a recycled water type container with soil and plants growing in them (ideas for the garden seeds I brought). They had information on how to raise rabbits for their meat. Not sure I’ll do the eggs or rabbits until I see where I’ll live and who my neighbors will beJ
There was a crop area where you saw growing Tanzania agricultural plants like corn and grapes vines with a few John Deer equipment pieces on display. There were tents where there was information on bee keeping, and breeding of chickens and a place to get a chicken feeders. It was fun to talk to the people at these areas as I knew a little about honey bees and chickens and since they spoke very good English told them about our fair and honey ice cream. Think they were surprised I knew about queen bee removal and pollination.
There was information on the environment (forests, national parks & safaris). They had information on the need to change the Tanzania’s charcoal sector which exceeds the sustainable supply needed by the 95% of households in Tanzania who use wood fuel and charcoal for cooking and heating. This results in a lack of protection of the ecosystem and deforestation. This work is being done by the Tanzanian Forest Service, several other Tanzanian forest conservation groups and a Swiss organization. There was information on a post college degree of African wildlife management. They offered courses on tour guiding and interpretation, conservation, professional walking safari, snake capturing and handling, ecological monitoring in protected areas, cultural tourism promotion and management, plant and bird identification and interpretation, and governance in the management of natural resources. I picked up some information on the Ngorongoro Conservation area where the Serengeti Reserve park is not too far from my site and a CD on Tanzania National parks (in English). There are many beautiful sites in the 15 Tanzanian national parks, 14 wildlife reserves in the country that I hope to see some of this year.
The animal area required you to pay an additional small fee to get in after you paid the entrance fee (paid by the Peace Corps). So similar to our fairs there were many parents showing their children different animals as well as adults there. Some of those we saw included: Tumbus(hawk), Krongo(a pelican), a hyena(Fisi), fox (Mbweha Masikio), Lions (Simba), blue monkey(Kima), Giant Tortoise (Kobe Mkubwa), Porcupine(Nungunumgu), python (Chatu), Tiger (Chui), and yellow baboon(Nyani).
There were many food vendors selling meat, vegetables, popcorn, ice cream, and other things which I did not try but did try a grape soda. I almost made a vendor mad by taking a picture of his hanging meat. We were told not to take pictures of people without asking but I thought I was safe with the meat. He was ok when I told him we were learning Swahili and I was trying to learn the names of foods. I saw one game area where they were doing a ring toss type of game but no carnival rides. There was a very popular area where nontraditional medicine was being promoted where you could get your picture taken with a snake around your neck. The snake looked pretty sedated but none of us participated.
All in all for myself it was a fun experience that was outside of health care and mingling with local people. I know they were as curious about us as we are of learning of them. Some just looked while others asked who we were. I know I may sound like I am not working but learning about the culture and Swahili is my job for right now.
Disclaimer: This is a personal weblog. The thoughts and opinions here are those of Jennie Van Schyndel. The information does not in any way represent or reflect the opinions of the Peace Corps or Global Seed Health.
