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Background, Tanzania trip
February 6th, 2007 by riffelma
As part of my sabbatical plan, my friend Ellen and I went to Tanzania in October 2006. We spent time with friends from Ellen’s 1988-89 and 1999 trips there, and we visited some new places. One of the questions that I wanted this trip to answer for me is “why wouldn’t a rural peasant in a ‘third world’ country benefit by taking a ’sweatshop’ job?” I got part of my answer on the first trip and I was fortunate enough to go back for 6 weeks in the spring of 2007. This blog records my observations and my reflections on work and worth in the context of global multinational corporate expansion.
First, a few words about Tanzania. The country was formed when Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged in 1963. Tanganyika had been the center of German East Africa and later a British colony until independence in 1961. Zanzibar was ruled by the Sultan of Oman until it became a British protectorate in 1890, gaining independence around 1962. So the legacies of German and British colonial policies shaped the early years of Tanzania’s existence. The country’s ethnic mix also has shaped its history. Tanzania has over 120 ethnic groups and yet is the only sub-Saharan African nation that has not had a civil war. The “uhuru”? freedom torch lit on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro at independence was to be a beacon of cooperation and peace.
The 1960’s-80’s were shaped initially by the democratic socialist vision of Tanzania’s first president, Julius Nyerere. Under his leadership, the 1967 “Arusha Declaration”? nationalized businesses and set up state farms and “ujamaa villages”? or cooperatives. When this didn’t succeed in raising agricultural production, the government began a “villagisation”? program in 1973. This (forcibly) relocated rural people into settlements and abolished district and town councils. The settlements were governed by a central administration, thought to be better able to “efficiently”? provide medical dispensaries, schools, and water facilities. Over 9 million rural folks were relocated. You can imagine the disruption to families and communities - all had depended on herding and smallholder farming (<5 acres) to support themselves. Still Tanzania remained one of the poorest countries in the world and a debtor nation. By 1977 the dictates of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s “structural adjustment plans”? (the acronym is “sap”? for a reason!!) had again restructured the country. Today Tanzania is moving toward privatization of businesses and services. But the infrastructure is notoriously poor. Only 4% of roads in Tanzania are paved, 35% of the population lives below the “basic needs”? (food/clothing) income guideline, only 2.4% of the population has access to a land line or cell phone (although this is growing very fast) and 0.3% of the population has Internet access. The average Tanzanian household does not have electricity or running water and the house itself does not have modern walls (concrete) or roof (metal).
While Tanzania has been moving toward universal primary education, enrollment is still about 60%. Access to secondary education is still very limited, with only 5% of children enrolled. Barriers to education include distance (about 1/4 of all households are more than 20km from a secondary school and there are few to no cars in rural areas), fees for school uniforms (most families have little or no cash), and the need for children to work at home (62% of children age 5-14 do subsistence work with their families). We (my guide/translator/traveling partner Ellen and I) had stumbled onto a connection with a private secondary school near Moshi, TZ, an area we would be visiting. So we made arrangements to spend three days there. It turned out to be a good learning experience, and one that I would expand on for 6 more weeks in the spring of 2007.
We traveled only a small part of Tanzania, the northeast section, but we took an awesome safari in Arusha National Park and had a wonderful visit with Ellen’s former neighbor, Naitwell Mbati (known as Mama George) in Usangi in the North Pare Mountains. We spent time with the young woman that Ellen has supported through secondary school and college, Barbra Mbati, Mama George’s granddaughter. (Mama George raised Barbra and her three siblings after their mother died at age 36, not uncommon in Tanzania. Barbra was only 7 when Ellen lived next door to Mama George and the children. She asked Ellen to “adopt”? Barbra and Ellen has provided for her ever since.) And I learned more than I ever thought I could learn about living by one’s own two hands. Folks in Usangi grow all of their own food and live a simple life with electricity only for lighting, water available at designated sites to carry, an occasional radio (only 40% own one), no TV, computer, or Internet. It is a life in sync with the seasons and dependent on the earth…and one’s neighbors. While we stayed with Mama George, NINE visitors stopped by each day!! Although her knees are bad and she can’t venture outside her home/barn/cooking shed/chicken coop, the “village comes to her”? as Ellen says. And we spent three days in Bagamoyo, the coastal village from which African people were shipped, to be sold as slaves, to Zanzibar and then on to the rest of the world. Bagamoyo means “leave your heart here,”? and we could understand that sentiment as we walked the village.
The posts in this blog are transcribed from my daily notes and include my reflections since then. Happy reading. I’ve had quite a time getting the photos to upload into this blog, so I hope you can see them. They’ll help to orient you to the land and the people.
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