Chapter One: Tanzania

Going Places

In the two weeks we’ve been back in Tanzania, the word “TV” has not been mentioned. It’s been totally “out of sight, out of mind.” Quality of life remains quite OK. Regarding changes in public transport modes, the world has become “flatter.” By this I mean the transport modes available have become more inter-cultural. Streets of Arusha begin to resemble Dhaka for the prevalence of three-wheeled “tuk-tuks” (from India).

Like flies are the “boda-boda” motorcycles (from Japan). And transport of light goods is mainly by three-wheel “bajado” (from China) displacing the “mkokoteni.” The niche between pedestrianism and four wheeled vehicles is filled (actually packed) with boda-bodas, bajados, tuk-tuks, and mkokotenis, as thick as flies. They are a strategic necessity in this urban setting.

Economic development has led to increased personal wealth and an increase in private car ownership that has outpaced urban traffic management. Every urban point of convergence becomes a cauldron of this combination of these motorbike-based transport modalities. Police (dressed in white) work heroically to orchestrate the flow. But a sense of traffic harmony is not common among drivers. The occasional set of stop-lights work most of the time, but their overall effect is small. A Chinese-built “ring-road” around Arusha is nice to drive on, but I worry that it might become a “noose,” strangling the town.

“Capitalism” seems to thrive. There seem to be as many “shops” as there are adults. The range is from supermarkets posher than anything in Albuquerque to the granny selling roast corn ears at bus stops on the highway.

A “boda-boda” is a small motorcycle carrying driver and one (often two or more) passengers. The title “boda-boda” has an interesting origin. In colonial times the border posts between Kenya and Uganda were a kilometer apart. This presented an economic opportunity for motorcycle owners to help those who were without transport from “border-to-border”
 

Tanzania Is A “Fine” Country

Some letters to the editor in Albuquerque reflect concerns over the cost/benefit analysis of living in New Mexico. Be comforted. Here in Tanzania the government seems to regard the tourist as a giant ATM machine. For every dollar paid to private companies who take you around, a great chunk goes to government fees. For example:

- Each 24 hours presence in Serengeti - $60 per person
- Entry for a foreign vehicle in Serengeti - $150
- Per bed-night per person at any tourist accommodation - $40
- Visa for three months per person - $100
- If the travel agent is not a Tanzania citizen he/she pays $2,500 every two years for “work permit.”

This money, though collected by tour companies, goes into government coffers.
On the positive side, cash corruption in tourism has been largely eliminated by digital technology. You cannot pay in cash for tourism fees. “Credit card only” really works. Even speeding fines on the highway are payable by “Credit card only.” This is quite amazing to behold in a Third World country.

There is regretfully a down-side to this. With digital technology government sleuths can find unpaid bills. Often the bills arise from a helter-skelter flood of new laws of which the victim was unaware. And draconian penalty clauses magnify the bill/fine.
As the bumper sticker puts it “Tanzania is a FINE country.”

I am sleeping and eating well. Enjoying lots of reading under the “acacia cathedral.”


Highway Ticketing in Tanzania

Sophisticated digital technology is thriving on the highways of Tanzania. Thriving to the extent that it is affecting hand-to-hand bribery of traffic police. The secret is a national electronic network weaving together instantaneously and constantly the following elements:

Your vehicle license plate (numbers)
Your driver’s license
Traffic policeman's hand-held computer
Robot vehicle speed recording “traps” on the highway
Your electronic record of interactions with the law such as fines paid
A centralized computer which “knows” (up to the second) ALL about you.

The information is all there, displayed on-screen, almost obviating any verbal communication. The only subjective element is the traffic policeman's own human visualization of your “overtaking” wrongly or exceeding a speed limit. There of course he or she is always “right.”

As soon as you are charged the system is updated. You can pay the fine electronically then and there. Otherwise you can further down the road be stopped for an “unpaid fine.” Of course there is still some verbal dickering over the visual-only charges. But the electronic system cannot be dickered with once you are digitalized.

We were stopped numerous times in the 190 mile trip from Arusha to Pangani. It was interesting to observe the variety of interactions between driver and policeman. There are slower-speed signs at very frequent intervals (every hamlet). So the driver has to allocate a lot of attention watching for them. In addition there are, of equal frequency, speed-bumps of varying sharpness.
So, compared to Tanzania, US highways are rather boring.

On Safari in Tanzania


With Brenden Simonson (Marilyn’s nephew) guiding/driving our sunset game drive in Tarangire National Park, we drove eastward and soon saw a large female lion resting atop a fallen tree trunk. Soon thereafter we saw a male ostrich doing a courtship dance before his mate. This went on to vigorous, full copulation. Not long thereafter we came on to a parade of 21 elephant headed for the river. They were quite indifferent to the vehicle. Ages ranged from under a year to a very old matriarch. Brenden drove ahead of them and parked his GoPro camera in the road and drove farther ahead to stop and watch. The herd passed by the camera and then passed us within 10-15 feet. One tusker, checking out Brenden, had his trunk 5’ away. No hostility, just curiosity. A delightful communion with nature. The road camera produced an ant-view of the elephants’ feet passing by.

Back at Tarangire Safari Lodge (owned and run by the Simonson families) we dined “cordon blue” out on the terrace, lit by candles and a full moon. During the night there was a hyena chorus.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the way KiMaasai language has returned to my tongue. This morning I was discussing age-set names with a receptionist, Rukaeli, whose father, Pastor Mesiaki, helped officiate Marilyn and Steve’s wedding in Arusha in 1979. My age-set is named “OlMeshuku,” formed up about when WW2 began.
Oh the bliss of natural Africa!

Beach Life

We are on the East Coast of the continent of Africa, facing the Indian Ocean. The view is a 180 degree arc (north to south) over the very flat-looking ocean horizon. On that horizon ocean ships can be seen plying the route from Cape Town to Mombasa. We are at “Emayani” the beach lodge founded by Steve’s late brother Jonathan. The lodge architecture and the furniture are of the style prevailing here on the coast for many centuries. Almost everything is wide open, allowing for natural air-conditioning. The fine sand beach provides a soft playground plus a myriad of small creatures who allow cohabitation of the area.
Yesterday we took a lodge boat (15 passenger) a few miles out to a spit which appears only at low tide. It is of interest for two reasons: coral and eggs. First the coral. Kids with snorkel gear can safely view a great variety of life forms which inhabit a coral reef. This includes kelp, turtles, fish and passing dolphins.
The turtles are emblematic of a special story. This spit in past eons was an island with trees. Turtles laid their eggs in the beach sand above high tide, where the eggs safely matured, hatched and waddled down to the water to launch their sea life. But things changed. Men chopped down the trees and rising sea levels meant that the place was no longer an island (at least not long enough to serve as a turtle egg hatchery). But the turtles innocently continue their millennial habit of egg-burying when the spit is exposed. But the unrelenting high water drowns those deposited eggs. The life cycle has been broken.
Happily, this ecological tragedy is being partially remediated. Knowledgeable people (local and non-local) dig up the futilely-deposited eggs and re-deposit them at above-tide locations on the nearest mainland beach. There the eggs can mature normally, hatch, dig their way to the sand surface and waddle down to the water, resuming the millennia-old cycle. One such “re-planting” site is here at “Emayani” and provides rare, fascinating education/entertainment. Of course this “rescue” operation is of only microscopic influence on the overall ecological problem.

“We” are, as follows:
Generation:
I. Me
II. Steve and Marilyn
III. Serena and Andre, Caleb and Heleen, and Lane
IV. Otto (6) and Ivan (4), Colin (10) and Lianna (8)
Generation IV when they are together are as dynamic as an atomic reactor.

While Steve and Marilyn were with us in the US Marilyn habitually set aside a morning (US) hour for smartphone (audio-visual) “Story Time” with Otto and Ivan in their (South Africa) bed-time.

The roof architecture of the lodge is “Traditional-Plus.” Jonathan (aided by son Brenden and nephew Lane) using traditional materials produced a doubly-curved (convex and concave) structure which to me is architectural poetry. Two dimensional photos just can not do justice to it. The architect of Chartres Cathedral would have smiled.
Not being needed for cavorting with the kids I enjoy plenty of time for reading. I am currently re-enjoying Jonathan Reader’s “Africa, Biography of the Continent.” It is a classic.

Good Out of Africa

I am pleased to report something GOOD out of Africa.
Yesterday I sat in on a Neonatology medical conference here in Arusha. “Tiny Feet, Big Steps: Advancing Care of Critically Ill and Premature Babies in Tanzania.”

The conference topic was NICUs (Neonatal Intensive Care Units). The key organizer was Steve Swanson, MD, a missionary doctor. At present, Dr. Swanson is living with his family in Arusha, where he is a member of the medical staff at Arusha Lutheran Medical Center and Selian Lutheran Hospital. He is active in the development of protocols and services for hospitalized children with severe acute malnutrition, and serves as the medical director for Tanzania’s highest level neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The host institution was Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre. The venue was the Gran Melia Hotel.
The presentations were succinct, very well illustrated, very tied to local realities and often posed specific thought-provoking questions to listeners. Presenters represented a variety of nationalities, professions and ethnicities, all obviously well-versed. Instructions were simple and clear so the program “flowed.” Attendance I would guess at 150, predominantly MDs and RNs for their “paras.”

It was gratifying to witness something so “world class” coming “Out of Africa.” On a personal note, an Albany Medical School classmate (1959) had been influential in the modern evolution of NICUs.
“Nende Salaama” (go in peace). 


Getting Plastered

Orthopedic surgery is followed by weeks of post-op care in the confines of a cast. The cast-care is difficult with an adult, and very difficult with an infant.

For an infant in a pastoral setting the management becomes tortuous, far beyond the competence of the typical pastoralist mother.

So a number of programs have sprung up providing group residential facilities where mother and child can board in a “cast-friendly” environment while the damaged bone re-knits. Such is Plaster House near Arusha. There in a simple but culturally-appropriate setting the infants can (in mother’s immediate care) be nurtured, fed, educated, socialized and rehab’d orthopedically.

We enjoy friendship with a number of those involved. The design of the facility was quite a challenge architecturally. The architect was long-term friend John Kraft.

Out on the broad plains of Maasai Steppe you may see youngsters blithely herding their flocks, there because of Plaster House facilitation.

www.theplasterhouse.org

Monduli

We drove over badly disintegrated roads (erosion) up to Monduli Coffee Estate to visit a couple (Lisa and Byron Borden) with whom we share MANY commonalities. They rent the same settler homestead where Hugh Johansen hosted us a few years ago. Then back down to the tarmac, along the main highway west and then up the road (now paved) to Monduli Town on the slopes of the Monduli mountain range.

In 1961, after I attended the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, we came back to East Africa. I was recruited by AMREF, but was seconded by them for two years to the Tanganyika Medical Services as District Medical Officer for the Maasai District, headquartered in Monduli, where I also ran the small hospital. After some scouting around we found our old place, the former District Medical Officer’s residence. I say “former” because it is now the private property of a one-time (after me) DMO Monduli Dr Swai (now retired). He has invested a lot in “modernizing” the place, especially flooring, plumbing and electricity. But it still felt like “home” as we had lived in it from 1961-1963.

The iconic water tank/pool had gone before Dr. Swai took over. The front lawn seemed the same as ever. We recalled so many fun activities there. The large tree had been cut down for fear of its roots endangering the house foundations. The old separate, woodstove “Jikoni” is now a bedroom.

Dr Swai and his nurse-midwife wife and a neighbor gave us a very warm welcome. We processed such a flood of commonalities on a wide range of people and issues. The visit was akin to digging up a long-missing heirloom.

The whole Monduli area has become dominated by the Tanzania Army. This includes their equivalent of West Point, a major hospital, and an Artillery school.

From the old homestead we drove out of Monduli, along a fine paved road up to Monduli Juu. There we traversed the town and drove up and around the mountain reaching some splendid viewpoints over the Rift Valley (Ngorongoro, Lengai, Kitumbeini, Gelai, Longido and Meru).

We drove to a secondary school that had once been the start of an eye hospital. We also passed the home residence of ex-Prime Minister Edward Sokoine. I had worked with him when he was a young Administrative Assistant at Monduli, before he rose to national prominence. I remember him as being quiet, intelligent and above corruption.

We passed the office where my RVA schoolmate Griffith Stephenson had, as District Commissioner (DC), ordained colonial “law and order.” At Independence he orchestrated the ceremonial hand-over of authority. We traversed trails where Marilyn had ridden her horse, singing “Mungu ibariki Afrika” (Swahili for “God bless Africa”).

It was a day of “deep-recycling.”


Olasiti Trees

Olasiti can be the name of a tree or a place where such a tree is found.

In the early ‘30s in Kenya my parents were granted a 40 acre plot of land on a knoll known as Olasiti for the grove of acacia albida trees there. Among Europeans the place name was abbreviated to “Lasit.” The site was on the northeast slopes of Kilimanjaro.
In the 1990s near Arusha, Tanzania Steve and Marilyn purchased 50 acres at a place called “Olasiti” because of the eponymous tree which once grew there. Unfortunately, the tree had died, but the place name “Olasiti” survived. When they bought the land Steve and Mare were unaware of the name “repetition” in the family: Olasiti, Kenya and Olasiti, Tanzania. The name has become iconic.
 

Olasiti Pause

I’m enjoying a program-free day back at Marilyn and Steve’s casa near Arusha, Tanzania.
Apart from Betty’s absence, the last two weeks on safari in Kenya could not have been happier or more efficient in terms of renewal of memories from over nine decades in Africa.

This afternoon we watched a motocross practice session. Great grandson Colin (9) did very well against his dad and others twice or thrice his age. Now Colin’s younger sister Lianna is pony riding with Marilyn.
In an hour or so we will watch, silhouetted against the orange sunset a parade of bush babies leaping from tree to tree out on their nighty forage run.

Today has been a holiday, “Nyerere Day” honoring “Mwalimu/Teacher” Dr. Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s leader from Independence in 1961 through 1985. Africa is in sore need of people with his integrity and his humility. He was a bit overly-zealous on the Africanization of “socialism.” But in my mind he has not been matched for leadership.

Splash!

We recently attended a primary school swim meet in Arusha. Five or more schools from around Kilimanjaro participated. A great variety of ethnicities were there, with backgrounds from around the globe. Two of my great-grandkids (Colin and Lianna) competed.
Daughter Marilyn has taught at 3 of the 5 schools, so there was a lot of inter-personal and inter-generational chatter.

One of the schools was a Primary branch of United World College (UWC) which has a world-wide network of schools which offer the “IB” program (International Baccalaureate degree). It can be compared to a college-prep program. Quite a number of my grandkids are IB graduates and David, Carolyn, and Marylin all taught at ISM (International School Moshi) before it was absorbed by UWC.

I attended RVA (Rift Valley Academy) in Kenya in the 1930s. Betty and I taught there 1951-1955. It has become, in world ratings an outstanding school, producing a broad spectrum of leaders, sportsmen, scientists, entrepreneurs etc. I am proud of that heritage.


Sunday Church and Piki Racing

On Sunday Mare took Eunice and me to Arusha Community Church. Nice reminder of old associations. Service was led by a US surgeon and the homily given by a US pilot based in Arusha.

The rest of the clan were at a piki (motorcycle) enduro race. It turned out to be a rather chaotic event. First dust, then downpour, then mud, then wild crowd behavior and finally Lane beating out his older brother Caleb to win the race.
Great-Grandson Colin is also an accomplished rider. He was born at 11:11 on 11/11/11 so turned 10 on 11/11/21

Chapter Two: Kenya 

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