Massive Four Day Post!

The past few days have been extremely busy. For the past three days, we have been staying in Maroroni Village, at the home of Marthe and Reuben. The day before that, we were at a Maasai village. I will attempt to be brief, and explicit, all in the same post!

The Maasai Village visit did not go as well as I would have hoped. Partially because there are issues of development, Westernization, imperialism and white supremacy inherent in almost any visit of "developed" white people to an "undeveloped" culture. One thing that frustrated me was that I felt the exchange was not equal, I feel that our group got more out of the interaction than the Maasai did, if it is even possible to measure that. We kept being told by the women that we had to pay for pictures, but our guide kept saying we didn't. Apparently, the miscommunication was that the Maasai women thought we were tourists. And in some ways, we were. We were coming in with our digital cameras, tennis shoes, sweatshirts, backpacks, clean teeth and stay for a few hours, ask a few questions, harvest some beans (and not doing the best job) and leaving. It's hard to avoid judging any culture that differs from your own, but by passing judgment, you assign a value to that different culture. That frustrates me, because who are we to judge? For example, the Maasai still practice female circumcision, female genital mutilation (FGM), in order to prevent their women from being promiscuous. I think this is a horrible practice that needs to stop. But is it my place, as a "rich" white American female, to say that? The only way for effective change to happen in the area of FGM is if Tanzanians educate each other and insist FGM stops.

The day after the Maasai boma visit, we had a lecture on Tanzanian family structure, then we went to Marthe and Reuben's. We drove up to the farm, and Marthe, Franael and Reuben's sister Mame ran down the road ululating and throwing flowers at our trucks. It was a pretty cool welcome. We had greetings, had lunch, and set up our tents. In addition to Reuben and Marthe, Mame, some boys that worked on the farm, Stella (Reuben's niece, who has been adopted to be Reuben and Marthe's daughter since they have no children), and a girl named Dorcas, all lived at the house. After setting up our tents, we beat millet stalks to separate that millet from the stalk, and the millet from the chaf. Almost everyone got blisters, which Marthe teased us about, saying that our skin was like eggshells. After bandaging our wounds, we walked to the village center to meet the village chairman and see the primary school. After that we returned to the house, ate dinner, and then had a discussion with some of the village people. It was a great discussion, and both sides learned a lot. We talked about farming, politics, Bush, the World Bank, American culture versus Tanzanian culture, whether or not poverty existed in America, and education. The next day, we woke up, had breakfast, collected more millet from the field, walked to the school, talked with the headmaster, taught some children a song, mixed mortar, then went back for lunch. After lunch, we went to the secondary school and talked with the kids there about HIV/AIDS. It was astonishing how little some of the kids knew. One of the most surprising questions came from a young man who asked if using condoms stole "power, proteins and nutrients" from men and made them get very sick a few days after using one. We were astonished. Other questions included asking about the US economy and development, what kind of animals we had, why we weren't married, why we didn't have children, how condoms work, where HIV/AIDS comes from, if HIV/AIDS can be transmitted by tears, and how HIV/AIDS is transmitted. After that, we returned to the village and sat around and talked. Later, we had dinner and another discussion. The discussion that time centered around HIV/AIDS education for children, sex education, media, and politics. In particular, a rousing debate between the Tanzanians occurred about the new president, Kikwete, and Nyerere, the first Tanzanian president and "father of the nation." Everyone agreed Kikwete is a good president, but the debate was about whether or not Nyerere had aspects of dictatorship in his methods of political action. For example, after he was president, while he was alive he had the final say in who was president. On the other side of the argument was that he stepped down, and also said that the people were the source of power. But, he also did not really consult the people about his plans for Tanzania and did not involve them deeply in decisions. So it was interesting. This morning we had breakfast and took camp down. Then we returned to TCDC, and showered.

It was a great visit. Hanging out with the children at Reuben and Marthe's was a lot of fun. I learned a lot about Tanzanian socialism during the time of Nyerere, and also learned more about HIV/AIDS in Tanzania. One of the best parts was being able to actually become friends with Tanzanians, and not just visit and leave, but to actual cook with, eat with, and have in depth conversation with Tanzanians.