Zanzibar

This past weekend we went to Zanzibar and had a phenomenal trip. The island of Zanzibar is part of an archipelago of approximately fifty islands, although most of them are very small. The islands of Pemba and Zanzibar are the two largest ones and carry the majority of the population, which is roughly one million people.

On Friday, we took the ferry from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar. It took about an hour and a half and was smooth sailing. In the past several years there have been two or three ferries that have capsized en route between Dar and Zanzibar. Interestingly, the one that capsized this past June was an old Washington State ferry from the 90's. Fortunately, we took the newer, faster, and SAFER ferry. We arrived at Stone Town and began our weekend long tour right away. Stone Town is the older section of the island and has a very rich history. After our arrival, we went to the site of the last slave market in East Africa. When slavery was abolished in Zanzibar in 1873 a cathedral was built at the site of the market itself, with the altar over the exact spot where the old whipping post was. The part I liked most about the cathedral was the huge organ that stood looming over the pew. We also saw the basement of one of the buildings where they kept the slaves; tiny claustrophobic spaces that held 50 men and another that held 75 women and children. To think of these people were forced to walk from the interior, as far as Kigoma, to Bagomoyo on the coast and then shipped over to Zanzibar to be sold. Such a terrible operation that unfortunately brought certain people incredible amounts of wealth. 

From the slave market, we experienced walking through the narrow alley ways of Stone Town, which are lined with dozens and dozens of store fronts selling tourist merchandise, such as ebony carvings, paintings, and textiles. It was fun to shop and bargain with the shop keepers, practicing our Kiswahili and un-American (especially un-Mid-western) demanding and pushy facades to negotiate a lower price. The architecture of Stone Town is extraordinary, as it consists of Arab, Indian, and German style buildings. The doors on these buildings are beautiful with marvelous detail and style.

We then went to tour a spice farm. Zanzibar is the world's number one exporter of cloves. The farm was more like a jungle than anything, but with an incredible array of trees and plants that provide us with so many delicious and diverse spices. Among the plants we saw were: cloves, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, vanilla, cardamom, nutmeg, pineapple, coconut palms, jackfruit, custard apple, mango, orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime, mandarin, and black pepper. The greatest part was being able to eat the fruit, including coconuts that were cut down by one of our guides from a palm that was at least fifty feat tall!

On Saturday, we went to swim with dolphins. It ended up being quite an unusual experience. We took a boat a ways out from the shore to an area where some other boats were already circling a group of dolphins. When we spotted them close to the boat, our guide shouted for us to jump out, so we did. The thing that is misleading about swimming with the dolphins is that they swim away from you. We swam towards where we saw them jumping until they were too far away from us, and at that point were told to get back into the boat. Then we did the whole thing over again. And again. It was a totally frantic ordeal and should have been called "Chasing the Dolphins", instead of "Swimming with Dolphins". In all of the haste, I accidentally swallowed several gulps of salt water and felt really sick because of it. On the twenty minute boat ride back to the beach, both Adam and I were miserably sea sick. It was my first time ever being motion sickness and it is horrible. Luckily, I think it was brought on because of ingesting all of the sea water and not because I am developing motion sickness. 

When we got back to the beach, I took out my frisbee and a number of us began tossing it around with a group of a dozen or so local boys. They loved it! I left it to them when we went to have lunch and could see them from where I sat. At one point I saw them fighting over the frisbee, but mostly they just kept playing with it and were hesitant to give it back to me. 

We went snorkeling on Sunday morning and I learned that you should check your pockets when you jump into water. I learned this because after thirty minutes or so of snorkeling, I realized that I had left my iPhone in my pocket. When we got back to Stone Town our guide helped me to buy some dry rice and a phone repair shop that opened up my phone. I took out the battery and put them in rice, but it was to no avail. Unfortunately, that was my only camera. I left my other camera at home and Katherine sent it a few days  after we arrived in Tanzania, but for some reason it was sent back. Oh well. There are nineteen other people in the group who will be taking pictures and I will have access to them after the trip. 

We will be going back to Zanzibar next week on our break and I hope to share more good experiences (and minimal bad ones). This week we have our Kiswahili final examination and our final research proposal due, before a week break and then north to the field components of our trip! I love and miss everyone back home and hope you are all well. Kwa heri!

Research with the Maasai

The days have begun to fall off of the calendar faster than I can keep track of. It is hard to believe that more than a quarter of the program has already gone by. It is tough because I am looking forward to everything that is coming up and forget to appreciate the present as much as I should. It is a lesson in the perceptions of time I suppose, although tIme can still be terribly relentless. 

One of the major components of this program is conducting an independent research project in the field. In two weeks, we will be traveling to Tarangire National Park in northern Tanzania where we will stay for one month to conduct a research project of our choice. Around Tarangire, there are Maasai villages, which many of us will be going to to conduct ethnographic research. Initially, I wanted to study an aspect of the interactions between the Maasai and the environment. However, our director told us that the initiation ceremonies, which take place only once every seven years are happening this year. So, I decided to switch my research and focus on these ceremonies, particularly how they create and maintain Maasai ideals of masculinity. These initiation ceremonies consist of the rite of passage for age-sets of both men and women. For the men, they are initiated into warriorhood, only if they refrain from flinching during their circumcision and survive a temporary period of wandering in the bush on their own. When the warriors are in their late thirties, the warriors retire this status and go through another initiation to become junior elders, and eventually elders. For women, there is a circumcision ceremony that marks their transition into womanhood. 

According to oral traditions, the Maasai people have practiced pastoralism on the East African savannah since the 19th century. With cattle as that source of their economy and subsistence, the young men protect the cattle and also participate in raiding other groups for theirs. The Maasai organize themselves into patriarchal kinship groups, with the male head of the patrician controlling his large herd of cattle and goats with the help of his family. I look forward to observing first hand the social dynamics of the Maasai and how my research question fits in to that. I highly recommend "The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior", which is an autobiography of a Maasai man who pursued a western style education after growing up in traditional herding community. It is an insightful and entertaining narrative into Maasai culture.

A couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to speak with the tour guide who will be taking us to the Serengeti and then to Tarangire. He is a young Tanzanian who has incredible knowledge about traditional cultures of Maasai, Hadzabe, and other pastoralists. Asking him about my research questions, I was informed that many of the Maasai warrior initiates are not traveling into the bush to undergo the first hard learning experience of surviving on one's own, necessary to be a successful warrior and protector of his families herd. Instead, they are spending this period of time on the sides of tourist laden roads around the national parks, asking for water and money for photographs of or with themselves. Chaka (our tour guide) suggested that I talk with the junior elders who have already gone through initiations and warriorhood because they will be better able to reflect on what the ceremonies and status meant to them. I also hope to interview women, warriors, and men who opted out of the initiations. 

There is a little bit on the research that I plan to do in Tarangire. I am really excited to conduct this type of research for the first time and know that I will learn so much from the experience. I look forward to sharing my findings with all of you.