Apr 1, 02:31 PM
Cultural tourism on Mt. Meru
Yesterday we enjoyed a traditional meal of banana and beef stew prepared on a stove burning gas fermented from a “slurry” of cow urine and manure. It was delicious.
Lema, our cultural tourism guide, said that the neighbors in the Tangeru village at the of foot Mt. Meru had all laughed when his family made the decision and paid half the cost to install this “biogas” system on their little farm. That was 1992, and it was easier to find firewood then. Now many of these neighbors might like to have gas-burning stoves in their kitchens, but the program to install them, which was run by the development agency of the German government, has long since ended.
“All the programs that are run by foreigners disappear as soon as they are handed over to the local people,” Lema (pronounced lay-mah) said. Twenty-four years old, Lema has the enthusiasm you hope to find in someone of that age, but in his thoughtfulness he seems wise beyond his years. Our tour included a walk through the small, tree-shaded fields where the people of Tangeru, who are members of the Meru tribe, grow banana, maize, tomatoes, and coffee; we had a pleasant late afternoon walk to a local lake. Primarily, however, we got to know a way of life, and we learned about one smart young man’s impressions of life in a “developing” country.
As we sat in a little treehouse living room, Lema drew diagrams and sketches while telling us about how his people had migrated from the Usambara islands to Mt. Meru in the 15th century, how they had fought with the Masai people who came from the plains to steal their cattle, and how these battles had led the Meru to build houses in which they could live with their cows. We sipped lemon grass and ginger tea and he told us about how the Meru and Arusha tribes, who live on the opposite sides of Mt. Meru, had banded together to kill the first German missionaries who arrived, only to succumb to the combined force of guns and Bibles in the years to come. He told us that the practice of selling children to neighbor tribes has long since ended, but that his grandfather had been sold to the Masai as a young boy, still spoke the complicated Maa language, and bore the large earlobe holes that are distinctive of that tribe. He told us that most Meru, taking advice from missionaries, teachers, and government workers, now live in modern homes (which means they are made of brick and corrugated metal and have windows); and the few cows they keep, primarily for milk that is collected by motorbike and sold in Arusha, are under separate roofs.
Lema’s grandmother and mother place a high value on education, and Lema himself graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam with a degree in wildlife management. Lema is the oldest of all his siblings and cousins, and his father was killed in an automobile accident when he was still young. Thus, while we sat roasting coffee from Lema’s farm, his grandmother (Bibi in Swahili), came to tell him about a younger cousin who was not doing well in secondary school. Lema was expected to have a talk with this teenager so that she would meet the family’s expectation that every child should go to university.
Yet while Lema believes strongly in education, he regrets that education has often meant abandoning traditional ways of life. Children, he said, who arrive in primary school are taught that traditional housing or dress is something to be ashamed of. “Some people go to university abroad, and they come back and live in gated houses in Arusha, and if you want to see them you need an appointment,” he said, offended by the idea that you couldn’t just stop in to say hi, or to ask for assistance in time of need.
As we talked about all this, Lema’s mother, Mama Gladness, came over to borrow his mobile phone; there was something wrong with her mobile; they were speaking in kimeru, but I think she just didn’t have the number she needed entered into her phone’s memory.
But few other modern innovations work as smoothly as biogas and Tanzania’s mobile phone network, and as much as his natural personality appears to be an optimistic one, Lema is discouraged about Tanzania’s future. Although the current president has made it a point to fight underhanded practices, the government is still “fucking corrupt,” Lema feels, working primarily to enrich cronies. He told us that rights to the local mining of Tanzanite, for example, were sold to a South African company, which has gotten rich extracting the precious stone without paying any taxes. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is a big money maker for the area, and Arusha is home to a growing Tanzanian middle class. But most of Tanzania, dependant on agriculture in a multi-year period of drought, is poorer than ever, and little is done to develop even the most basic infrastructure in areas that do not see tourists.
As we rode back to Arusha in a “dala dala” minibus, Lema told us that many of our fellow passengers were on their way home from jobs in large greenhouses that sell flowers to the United States and Europe. Everyone working in these greenhouses eventually gets sick from the pesticides and other chemicals, so the owners, rather than deal with the problem, just fire each employee after two years of work. There are always more ready to take their place. Very sad, and it gives you a rather different take on Valentine’s Day.
But I don’t want to end on a down note, because even if he maybe doesn’t see it, I have hope for Tanzania because of the many people like Lema whom we’ve met. He told us to come back and visit him whenever we wanted, “not as tourists, but as friends.” I hope he meant it because we intend to take him up on the offer.