Tuesday 31 October 2017

Every day challenges in Africa

A week ago, I was travelling from our home in the Kiteto district to Dar es Salaam with two friends who had come on their first visit to Africa.

Travelling in rural Tanzania is often challenging due to bad road conditions but I had not worried too much about this trip as it had not rained at all yet this year and the dirt road was dry.


One of the many rural settlements we pass when travelling to Dar es Salaam.

This changed though when we were about 2 hours into our journey and it starting raining. The dirt road turned to mud and our bus was more slithering than driving along it.

Then we met a truck which had broken down and had not managed to move to its side of the road so as to let passing vehicles by. Our driver thought it wise to attempt passing it despite the slippery road and - unsurprisingly - the heavy bus slipped to its left and into the side ditch at such an angle that even the front door would not open anymore.

I only realized that there was no way to exit this bus to get ourselves to safety before the driver would attempt to reverse out of the ditch, when people starting climbing out of the windows.


Myself exiting our bus through the window.

I had a hurt foot and the jump out of the window was 9 feet so I had to think about this one for a while.

Luckily we were with some Masai from our village and they managed to climb out and assist us in doing so ourselves.

I felt bad for my friends who are not used to encountering such difficulties when travelling but they took it well.
We took shelter under some nearby shop windows as it started pouring down.

Passengers watch as the bus crew works on getting it out.

Soon, to our luck, another bus came past and we squeezed in to continue our journey, leaving our bus being worked on by the crew.

We made it to Dar es Salaam the same day.

It was an adventure that, as so many things do here in Africa, tested our spirits and resilience. We emerged from it unhurt if disillusioned and it taught us a valuable lesson about how lucky we are in the first world where road travel is so much safer and comfortable.

It was not the first time I experienced a bus discontinuing its journey due to roads having become impassable and it will not be the last.

It is in fact how people in rural Africa travel on a daily basis - and they never lose their smiles despite it.

Saturday 21 October 2017

A love letter to Africa

I have never shared with you the story of how I came to stay in Tanzania - so here it is: 

I came here as a volunteer for a conservation NGO. I was meant to stay for a mere five months, but I knew even before I boarded the plane, that I would stay longer.

Our research crew at a camp close to Selous Game Reserve. 

It is hard to put into words how Africa puts a spell on you, how it draws you in, warm and welcoming and beautifully exotic and how it
touches your soul with a force that turns you into a completely different person.

During my earliest days in Tanzania: enjoying the view with my fellow volunteers.

And what is it that moves you so much? 

Is it the street vendor making a living selling fruits on the dusty streets of Dar es Salaam, who presses an orange into your hand just because she liked the way you smiled at her?

Is it the farmer you visit whose children only get one meal a day, but who insists on cooking a meal for you out of hospitality?

Is it the children who run up to you touching your hair and your skin amazed by the strangeness of it? 

Is it the women carrying their babies on their back, plowing fields in the searing sun with such strength and endurance? 

Is it the fact that nothing ever seems to work yet it always works out? 

Is it that you feel humbled by people who live in what we think of as povery, yet who complain less about their lives than we do in the First World? 


It is the strength, the warmth and the generosity of the people I have met here, that made me fall in love.



My husband and I when we met on Mafia Island. 

So when after a year of volunteering close to the Selous Game Reserve, I moved to Mafia Island and met a Masai warrior whose beauty confirmed that I had not seen anything yet, I had even more of a reason to stay.


 Eight years later I am still here and as in love with this beautiful continent as I have always been.

Saturday 14 October 2017

Circumcision ceremony - Elatim

This week we had a big circumcision ceremony, an Elatim, for nine boys and girls.

Masai women dancing during Endomon

Whereas the boys (layiok) have to actually undergo circumcision, the girls' (endoyie's) involvement is only symbolic.

An Elatim takes part over two days. On the first day, there is the Endomon, which is a good luck ceremony for which there has to be some offering. This offering varies from family to family but for my husband's family it is a sheep that is slaughtered.

If the Elatim involves girls and should they be already promised to someone, there will also be a Saikelosi. A Saikelosi involves the arrival of the future groom's family and gifts that they bring to his chosen bride.

At the arrival of the Saikelosi, the women dance and by nightfall the warriors, the Moran will dance too. The actual circumcision does not take place until anytime between 1 am and 4 am and often the Moran dance right until that time.

The person circumcising the boys is often of the Hadzabe tribe as the Masai believe the spilling of blood of a fellow Masai, brings bad luck.


During Ilmasin 

The coming day is the actual Elatim and a bull is slaughtered to feed the guests.
The parents of the newly circumcised children have to perform Ilmasin, where the father sits outside the hut where his son or daughter rests and his wife and other female relatives gather around him to shave his head and spill milk on him as a blessing. Ilmasin is completed by women dancing and chanting.

The boys rest inside for a month or until they are fully healed.

They won't be full warriors however until the current Moran have taken the Ilmaho ceremony in which they pass their rights and duties onto the new generation of Moran.

See below how the Moran dance during the Elatim.



Friday 6 October 2017

Gender division

Masai life is strictly divided between male and female.

Men and women do not ever eat together nor is it common to see husband and wife go places together or socialise as a couple.

Masai women are not allowed to watch warriors eat and a warrior can never eat alone in a woman's house as it is marked by the presence of Enkotiook, hollow pumpkins in which milk is stored and the cow's tail with which these are cleaned.

In each Masai hut, there is a female and a male bed. 

A woman at the waterhole 

Work is also divided between the sexes with women doing the bulk of it, collecting water and firewood, cooking, washing and looking after children. 

Men herd the cows, take them to water and move them great distances in the dry season and provide an income. 

When it comes to clothing, female and male Masai cloths are also very different. The men's cloths are commonly any shade of red with vivid patterns while the women clothe themselves in plain purple and blue. 

Warriors dancing at a ceremony 

Warriors and older men wear a belt onto which they holster their knife and club (Olokoma).

Uncircumcised boys and girls often wear nothing but an old piece of clothing handed down to them by their older siblings. They also ever wear one cloth, whereas circumcised Masai always wear at least two.

Both men and women adorn themselves with jewellery but while women put heavy brass wires around their ankles and wrists, warriors wear white beaded anklets and bracelets.

My husband and I on our wedding day

I mostly wear western clothes but for special occasions I dress like a Masai woman.