Malawi 2004 - 2007

 Vacation Trips - Tanzania

The Night I Slept With A Massai.

Memories of Tanzania.

Arriving in Arusha at close to midnight is not the ideal start to a relaxing Xmas break, especially when you have spent a day and a half on coaches. I had met up with a Kenyan VSO worker from a Mozambique University placement. He was nervous and I was disorientated. As I opened the door of the matola a rough bearded face pushed close to mine. A stale smell of booze and fags wafted into the car.

" Where are you going, you want a hotel?"

He was quickly jostled aside by other men desperate to carve a slice from the mzungo's fat wallet. I looked around desperately trying to find a point of reference in the dark, whilst brusquely waving the verbal spam aside. I could see nothing that I remembered from my passage through Arusha last year. Henry was worried.

" We should just pay them and get a hotel. It is dangerous here."

I was, as usual, prepared to be stubborn. After all I was a veteran of one night last year in Arusha and was not prepared to get conned by taxi drivers and street hustlers. Henry and me came to an agreement. We would go into a bar and hold a discussion over a cool drink and hope to rid ourselves of the 'wallet flies'. However, the bearded one was not to be denied and loudly proclaimed the advantages of his beer-stained company. Eventually I gave way to Henry's fear of a sticky end and agreed to take a taxi for what turned out to an expensive ride to a hotel that took five minutes to get to but was 200 metres from our bar. Henry was happy and I was pleasantly surprised by the standard of the rooms.

The trip to Arusha had been full of beautiful scenery and unexpected delights. Steep-sided valleys covered in variegated forests that tumbled down to river edges. Villages composed of severely square houses in a standard design were spread along the road and what seemed like black Lowry figures, from our high coach position, ran and shouted as we passed. At mid-point in the journey we passed through a National park and African children excitedly pointed and shouted as they spotted giraffe, kudu and elephants, for many, viewed for the first time. Miles of neatly-rowed sisal fields filled the flat lands. Stops were only long enough for us to fight our way from the bus in a tangle of arms, legs and bags, get to the toilet and grab a cold chip omlette from one of the many fast food kitchen stalls.

Waking up in Arusha was pleasantly peaceful and unhurried, as Henry waved goodbye with un-kept intentions to meet again, perhaps on the way back. I decided to go and get a chip omlette for breakfast. As I left the hotel I was aware of a presence at my back.

"How was the hotel?".

It was the rough, dishevelled, man with the scrubby beard from the previous night. I immediately tensed and climbed into my tourist shell.

"You have been here before?" he said in a much calmer manner than I remembered from our last contact. " I am Arthur, do you remember?". I peeked out from the shell and slowly remembered a pleasant but short breakfast time spent with this worldly, hustler on my transit visit last year. He became my companion for the evenings I spent in Arusha, pleased with a few beers and the odd cheap meal, Whilst I was glad of the local knowledge and conversation. For a couple of nights we teamed up with a young Tanzanian Doctor preparing to marry the following week by having a last sin- binge.

It turned out that Arusha was a great base from which to explore. Although, the Rwanda tribunal was closed I found a helpful tourist office which had leaflets on community tourist projects. Within an hour I had fixed up a trip along with a young Chinese woman to a Masai village some 40 km from Arusha.

I was up early to be greeted by a tall, young Masai man in an old European style suit. The Chinese woman met us at her hotel but was ill and stayed behind. The trip was the first indication I had seen of the problems that were already building up for pastoralists in the horn of Africa. The windswept dusty village was almost deserted. A few older men and women were brought to greet me and I was told lots of Masai tales about moran boot camps and tests of bravery. But where was everyone? Simple, the drought was already severe. The winter rains had not come. The pattern of drought and starvation that had always decimated East Africa's population back to the beginning of time had come again. Some weeks later, in Malawi, Ndambuki was to tell me of roads and streams littered with the dead carcasses of domestic cattle and wild zebras as desperate Masai herdsmen drove their emaciated cattle in search of water and pasture. He said that the stench was terrible and many lost nearly all of the cattle that were so deeply integral to their culture.

Arthur was not surprised and told me I had made a bad choice. Tomorrow was Xmas Day. I asked him where would be a good place to go for a long walk.

Xmas day is nothing very special in this predominantly muslim society with 120 tribes with different ways of looking at the world, and it took only about an hour and a half to travel the 60 km to Monduli Ju. It was a sprawling small town of mixed tribes in an area of hills and streams. Brightly cloaked Masai men and women joked and chatted easily with other tribal groups in western clothes. A Masai market was here today. Tomorrow it would be in the next large village. The market was growing a beard by the time I reached it. There were some aging fruits, a few animals, household goods and Masai jewellery. I decided to walk to the Masai village more than an hour's walk away. It was just what I wanted for an xmas day treat - its strange how one marks xmas even in a totally incongruous surrounding. The walk was ruggedly uphill on dusty paths through small forested areas. Cautious greetings were exchanged with shaven headed women on the way to market and cheery waves with herdsmen driving their cattle to pasture. As I reached the surprisingly settled Masai village at the top of the hill I was getting worried about time. It was now mid afternoon. I had decided to go straight back to catch a matola before dark. Two boys in their late teens approached. We chatted about standard tourist issues.

"Why don't you come back and stay with us? We can take you for a walk in our area.". " We won't charge you anything" they added hurriedly.

So it was that that I arrived back two days later carrying the best, giant Tanzanian pineapples, mandasi (donuts) and other food gifts. The boys were waiting and were both excited and bashful about showing me to their house in the village. Their mother was alone, father had died and she tried her best to keep her garden going to keep the boy at school even though her body was beginning to fail her. We had dinner, and ate one of the pineapples voraciously - " I thought we could take the other to the chief when we visit the chief's boma tomorrow.". " Oh they won't even know what a pineapple is. They won't eat it.". After dinner we went for a drink at the only bar in town. It was a treat.

The bar was home to the whole of Masai village life in one long tin-roofed shack. As we approached the soft glow of the doorway we were assailed by a potent cocktail of odurs and noises that set the senses into search mode. Inside we were greeted by a jolly Masai woman behind a brai (BBQ), her face, earings and necklaces almost obscured by the thick, meat-saturated smoke that billowed up into the rafters. To her right, at one end of the shack, a man was butchering identifiable parts of cow whilst a queue of eager purchasers stood in slovenly postures, like Madame Tussauds figures melting gently in the heat. Looking past the butcher a bar knocked together out of scrap wood served softies and beer, whilst further on into the side a T.V. blared its distorted commentary in accompaniment to the flickering screen. On the rows of benches set out like pews in front of the TV were a range of poorly dressed males of varying sizes and ages, alternately watching the screen and engaging in banter with others in the mall. At the other end of the shack I was surprised to see a pool table with loudly enthusiastic players commentating as they hit the balls as hard as they could. The atmosphere was lively, friendly and adolescent. We had a happy hour at the bar.

When we got back to the house Joseph's brother had arrived home. He was taller than the boys and his English was good. We exchanged pleasantries, made arrangements for the walk next day and washed in a bucket in the now decidedly cold night air. It was then I realised that I was to share the narrow bed in the front room with the big brother. For the next two nights. It was just like camping apart from me being squashed against the wall.

Next morning Mshoke greeted us at the door. He was in full moran (warrior) dress, cloak, spear and all. We decided to go around the local villages to meet the more traditional Masai dwellers. By the time we reached the first Boma, the sun was getting scorchingly hot. The scene in front of us was typical of Masai life. Groups of young men walked across the wide expanse of tawny, flat pasture land driving cattle at a leisurely pace. Boys to the age of 18 years stayed with the women and cattle until they became moran. On this dusty plain we were seen from a long way off and had a reception committee of small snotty, dirty and under nourished infants and young children. I distributed the mandasi, causing argument and tears and we approached the women sitting in front of the wattle huts surrounded by more snotty threadbare infants. This was the chief's boma and he had a large number of wives who came only second in his affections to the large number of cattle he owned. Both were important symbols of his wealth and status and cows were all given female names to signify their beauty. Although, he was away with the cattle we were not allowed to sleep with his wives. We were, however, allowed to share our biscuits and treats with them. They did not last long.

On the way back we called at the compound of a relative, a young woman recently widowed and not allowed to re-marry, who along with the second, older wife had the lonely task of surviving in this small remote compound. The track through the fence at the back of the house betrayed, at least, an acceptance of her need for some company and comfort in the cold nights. Masai are very practical about these things as long as decorum is respected.

On the long trek across the parched plain we saw with some discomfort that the Rain Gods had chosen this moment to end the drought. This they chose to do right on top of us and we shivered our way back through the torrential downpour, with no shelter in sight. We squeezed out our clothes , their cotton cloaks drying much faster than my euro trash.

Many of you will have read with varying levels of interest my descriptions of Masai culture in the past. So I will not bore you with lots of detail save to give you a general idea of the structure. The society is very age-based for men, with women never getting beyond the status of 'child'. Boys remain with the cattle and women until they become 'morans' at the age of 18 years, when they undertake a period of isolation and training under the tutelage of an elder. They are only allowed to eat meat, milk and cows blood. Traditionally they would then kill a lion as a group, surrounding the beast and closing the circle tighter as they sang, mostly about cows and particularly their bulls. The first to land a spear claimed the lions mane as a tribal adornment and won the approbation of the tribe. The morans then became the warriors, whose first duty was to protect and expand the wealth of the tribe. As Masai believe that all cattle belong to them, stealing cattle does not have the same meaning for them as us rustler-hating westerners. They can marry as many wives as they wish although the parents choose the first. They can also sleep with any women except the chiefs wives in their peer group. Past thirty-five years the male becomes an elder and carries his stick/spear across his shoulders with arms draped over the stick as he walks.

My morans took me on a long walk on the second day through parched grasslands and forests and on into hilly areas very close to the Ngorogoro crater, a magnet for wildlife tourists. We saw occasional animals such as zebra, gazelle etc and had fun with a lone young giraffe who tried to dodge behind various rocks and objects without ever finding something that could conceal his neck. Eventually we came upon a group of highly decorated young morans from the area, who were, they said, looking for stray cattle. We shared food with them, joked about their spears and then the truth emerged.

A lodge had been built on the next hill by a mzungo who had done a deal with the local chief to charge tourists a high price for staying in return for some money going to local villages. We had strayed into the territory of the chief and these young warriors wanted a share of the huge payment they suspected my morans were receiving. $50 was the demand. It seemed that even when people think they doing ecotourism their thinking does not extend as far as the cultural ecosystem. These young, traditional morans had only the rich tourists as a benchmark for price and they were as acquisitive as the rest of us. They were now focussed on money and the freedom that morans had to wander as they pleased was very much in question. The green-eyed dollar God was in the ascendance.

I wandered off to sit on a rock while the argument followed its elliptical orbit. As I sat I saw a small group making their way along a path on the next hill. There was something very ecclesiastical about this group scurrying at a fast pace towards us. It was almost as though some time-warped scene from a mediaeval catholic drama was being played out before our eyes. Within fifteen minutes this group of purple-robed women hurried past me without any halt in their scurrying gait. The image was breathtaking. Each was dressed identically in what might have been a clerical robe consisting a heavy cotton cloak and pure white circular beaded necklace giving the appearance of a ruff all around the neck and onto the upper chest.. Within a few minutes they were gone, probably to sing at a wedding at a distant village.

I was dragged back from my Magus reverie by the raised voices from behind. The head moran could not believe that the boys were not receiving a huge fee and that I had no camera. They, like all Africans, assume that all azungos are endlessly wealthy and there is little conception that azungos are a varied bunch. My clever-clever question asking if all masai owned a thousand cattle, caused only a momentary pause for consideration and irritation. This moran was wedded to his quest for money and would not brook any logic that did not take him towards his goal. The heavy spears carried by the offended morans gave the discussion an even more edgy feeling. Eventually, the boys had to promise to give the group a gift, collectable at the administrators office back at Monduli Ju. The stand off was resolved, even though the offended moran was not convinced that he could trust the young warriors and left us with dire warnings for failure to deliver.

On the way back my morans had a mixture of feelings. They were hurt that their status and Masai rights had been abused. There was upset that villages they were trying to mobilise to fight HIV were so ungrateful and there was a gloom over the stubborn and greedy attitudes that had developed, in their minds, due to lack of education.

This theme of lack of education became a constant in our discussions. There was little doubt that people in this area were, generally poor. Children were ill-clothed, often dirty, carried sores and had runny noses. At almost all of our stops the spread of HIV, the poor health, the lack of money etc was put down to poor education. I argued with them that what they meant by education was western-style book learning. I asked them to consider how long I would survive in their culture if I was given a few cattle and told to get on with it. The Masai have had an education in the boot camps and the villages that has enabled them to survive in harsh conditions for thousands of years, but now they are told it is largely worthless by evangelists for western values and an American God. The warriors, however, were going to finish their schooling and look for work away from home. My sleeping partner wanted to join the army. Time is passing for the Masai way of life..

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The pastoralist world also drew me to another tribe some eight hours drive away in central Tanzania. I had read of the Barbaig (Wasabaig) tribe before I left Malawi and saw there was a cultural project. The trip was hard. Roads were full of dust, rocks and hazards; the bus was full people in all sorts of undignified positions. No-one was refused entry and this tardis of a vehicle somehow managed to defy the known laws of physics to accommodate all matter entering the black hole of its door

At last I wearily pushed my way through the multitude in the aisle of the bus to step onto another patch of parched dusty land in Katesh - the latest town. It was mid day and very hot. I asked for the contact who arranged the programme. I was greeted by puzzlement. I became annoyed.

"Look it says here..." I said groping for the crumped details. "Contact Mr X at the Project Office office in ......". My voice trailed away as I realised that I should have descended at Barbata the previous town some two and half hours back along the unforgiving road. This was, of course, no problem. The young man in front of me was a Barbaig, knew English, and could take me to his village. Within one hour we were walking the 16 kms in the afternoon sun, having bought what we could in the local market and visited his small, one- roomed house. We were entertained by a tiny and very drunk older man from the neighbouring Iraqw tribe that co-existed with the Barbaig, being farmers rather than pastoralists. The chance to have company on the long walk seemed to put fresh energy into his undisciplined legs and he staggered along at some speed trying to keep up. The conversation carried on at a louder and more strained volume as he gradually fell behind until he eventually waived a cheery goodbye at one of the few dust road junctions.

The village was a series of compounds with heavy grass and thorn-bush fences encircling five huts. Two slim fine-featured boys, with close cropped hair emerged to shyly greet us. They were dressed in the manner of pastoralists with purple cotton cloaks and sandals. I looked around the compound. On one side a goat skin was stretched on pegs in the hot sun. A grass-roofed hut was filled with maize, and from one large circular hut two women in cotton wraps emerged. This was their hut and they lived separately from the men. The chief ate alone and before everyone else save for the occasional invitation to a favoured son.

I was quickly shown into the men's hut where the shy young men with close-cropped hair and delicate fine featured faces and their aging father greeted me. I was offered a seat on the bed made from sticks and stretched animal skins. As we sat round the fire I felt drowseyness pulling at my eyelids and soon I was asleep in my temporary home.

Maybe about an hour later I awoke to a feeling of nausea and felt I had to leave the hut. I stood, put one foot forward, staggered and fell like a helpless infant into the embers of the fire to the astonishment of the chief and his sons. To this day I suspect they talk of the strange fire rituals of the azungos.

The next day I was given a tour of the compound. The women had dressed in their goat-skinned finery and the men treated me to interactive displays of spear throwing, bows and arrows games and fence building. They had an impressive array of barbed, and straight home- made arrow heads each with a different animal or human function. These days the arrow heads are as likely to made from the discarded spring of a Toyota.

I talked with the chief for a long time through my increasingly irritable young guide who could not understand why anyone would want to ask so many useless questions.

The world of the Barbaig, like most tribes is conservative and heavily proscribed. A boy must not talk to girls outside of his family before circumcision or risk a beating from the girls, but after circumcision can take a girl for sex to show his power over the females. Brothers can sleep with their absent brother's wife as they share the same blood but not with another man's wife. Girls are expected to say yes to sex, but find ways to do it without penetrative vaginal sex before marriage. They also traditionally circumsise girls but now only about half undergo the private ceremony. Pregnancy is, of course a special time with girl's forbidden to eat sheep, and accompanied by a woman with special powers for some months after birth to ward off witchcraft.

The old man politely and patiently answered all of my enquiries, but it became obvious that he had things to do. His job as chief was to set the tasks for the day and everyone in the village was waiting his instructions. It was also obvious that in spite of the wonderful hospitality that this was a difficult time. There was little water and it transpired that people had to travel seventeen kilometres to find clean water. It was no time to be hanging around, wasting precious resources on holiday fun.

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Tanzania is such a varied and rewarding country. The 120 tribes not only live in such varied and fascinating circumstances but the whole place was sculpted in myriad forms by the Creator before the European Work Time Directive forced him to take a day off.

The Pare Mountains are part his art work and form a great semi-circle of mountains curving round from Arusha to Dar-Es-Salaam. I headed for what looked like a promising site deep in the mountains and found a school that was home to the local tourist project. I signed the book one of only a handful of people in the last three months and a vacationing teacher was assigned to be my guide.

We walked up steep slopes through heavily populated compounds and small villages. Most had a cow ,often being fed from maize stalks chopped with a panga knife. Small gardens produced vegetables. My attempts to greet people in Swahili drew laughter as I greeted children as though I was the child and they the adult. Age and respect create a structured approach to meeting and conversation. At the top of the hill we sat by the magic pool that was the focus of traditional belief for the local Pare People. They had been the refugees of one of the many wars two centuries ago, having been first chased from Mount Kenya by the Chagga and then beaten up by the Masai when they reached the plain. The mountains were their last refuge and it is only in the last 15 years that Masai and Pare (Taita) have managed to co-exist without killing each other when they meet. As with all tribes the memories are strong, but the customs are changing. It was only a few decades ago that babies were taken to the cliff edge and rolled off if their first tooth showed on the bottom rather than the top jaw because it signified evil magic. They still sacrifice goats at magic trees when praying for rain or some great need for the tribe, but other customs are adapting to the television age. Taboos exist around food and menstruation for women. There was a tradition of making a woman pregnant before marriage and a clever woman would try to get pregnant with a man from a favoured clan. However, during initiation for women men are forbidden to enter the house on pain of loosing the power of erection, thus becoming a woman.

Interestingly, at death the head of the dead person is put in a jar and the last to die is the one you speak to if you have a worry or need. He or she will then pass the message on to the other heads - the original talking head. Witch doctors often trace bad things in life to problems with the heads.

God is unknowable so is represented by deities located in stones, trees etc which become the focus of ritual and sacrifice. Myths often relate to the sacred places.

In the Southern Pare Mountains the drive to the top was simply, breathtakingly, stunning. Every bend brought a new vista as we wound our way up the side of the steep sided slopes. Long views over thickly wooded mountains. A chalet-style tourist project hotel, with no guests had grabbed the prime sight overlooking the Game park as far as the Kenyan mountains which had once been home to the Pare. It was here that I met Shadreck and his older brother 'The Captain' who had fought in Mozambique, South Africa etc, but now managed the staff at the hotel and was the most charming of hosts.

Shadreck and me had endless discussions about how this artist's paradise could attract more tourists, how his own local tribal peers mistrusted his motives even when he brought bridges and other benefits and how most development projects came to nothing. He was a University-educated, engaging and charming companion, full of desire to improve his homeland but frustrated by the challenges of progress. In the end I accompanied him to Dar where I stayed in his home for three days.

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When I had mentioned my trip to Tanzania to Jill, our Country Director, she said "Oh you must visit Zanzibar." . Zanzibar is a magnet for VSO volunteers (some 15 this xmas). When I told Shadreck I would go he raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

So I left on the cheapest overnight boat and arrived next morning at the quayside filled with a Asterix scene of mixed tribes, races and costume. We were arriving in Stone Town, the heart of the historical Arab slave trade. Narrow streets of muslim traders, heavy carved doors, high walled churches and mosques squeezed into impossible spaces and people sliding past each other in every direction. It was an evocative entrance to this middle east outpost in Africa, the place that David Livingstone planned and requisitioned his great expedition. But, for me the glitter turned out to be anything but gold.

As I walked through the town looking for a bed that was not more than 3 times anywhere else in Tanzania I saw that I had landed in 'Africa On Sea'. An Italian tourist bus pulled up in front of me to disgorge its load of pot-bellied middle-aged men in sporty gear and women in Mediterranean beach wear. The same people in the same garb would walk past the notices on the museum asking tourists to be respectful to the conservative muslim traditions of dress. But they were only paid respect to the European traditions of spending power. After all they had paid for a holiday and by jove they were going to have one.

I sat on a bench watching the vast array of tourists with their wake of attendants beating the bounds. Two boys approached me and sidled up close on the bench. They started their soft sell and I began my soft rebuff. Eventually we had established that I wasn't going to go on a spice tour, ride to the beaches or to visit their uncle's shop. We started nattering about how they found the tourist take-over of their town. They had mixed feelings. On the one hand they liked the excitement of people coming but found them insensitive to their religion and culture. It was after all an opportunity to find some money in a place where jobs were hard to find. Their parents were less ambivalent, however. They resented the impact of money tourism on their culture.

After an evening sitting listening to enthusiastic and sensitive souls from long distance trucks agonising about whether to take another plate of sea food from the long row of exotic food stalls I ran into Doctor Sin and his new wife. She turned out to be pleasant company and I had to exert discipline over my conversation about our time in Arusha. He tried to talk me into joining his spice tour, but by now I was already looking for the next boat out of here. I the many Masai estranged from their cattle for a life of trinket selling preparing to set up camp on the grass by the sea.

The next boat out of here was another overnight ferry back to Dar. The Asian owner had warned me that it might get full so advised me get there early. Sure enough I found my sleeping mat, set out my pyjamas, toothbrush and toiletries on the mattress and settled down to watch the evening prayers on the cabin T.V. After an hour or so an eager, scrubbed young American joined a group of other weary tourists and regailed them for the next two hours with tales of how he brought them to his TV evangilist God and particularly how he managed to beat down everyone to the lowest possible price on the beach, at the chalet, in the restaurant and at the tourist market. Without any sense of irony he ended his monologue thus "The trouble with these Masai here is that they are too concerned with money."

I was about ready for sleep, but before I could stir myself from my chair a huge commotion started at the bottom of the staircase. It was the arrival of the 5th panzer beach division, heavily armed with suitcases. Now I would not call myself prejudiced - well actually I would - but this crowd of German tourists must have rehearsed for weeks. Mother marched across my bed, squashing my toothpaste tube, and barked orders to the six others to commandeer most of the cabin for their luggage. No opposition would be tolerated. The teenage girl and the other couples were allocated their mattresses and the poor defenceless African cabin steward was summoned to receive complaints and orders in that sequence. Eventually the father took up his position on my mattress nearly creasing my pyjamas. This was a perfectly executed pincer movement and I was in a hopeless position. I pointed and appealed to the steward. He looked pleadingly at me and begged me with his eyes to not make any more trouble. In the face of such overwhelming odds I beat a hasty retreat to the other end of the cabin.

It took the two days in Dar, an unremarkable city, to recover my composure. After all it could have been worse. The Director of Police had been summonsed to Parliament to outline his new strategy for combatting the rising wave of violent crime, only to find on his return that his house had been burgled.

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