Field Trip to the Fields

The first week in November, I got a chance to travel from Dar es Salaam through Morogoro to Dodoma, the capital in the center of the country. Along this journey I had the chance to meet with farmers, extension workers, local government officials, professors of agriculture, and management of the largest grain market in the country. Going on this field trip literally to the fields was extremely helpful for increasing my knowledge and awareness of the conditions facing agriculture in Tanzania.

A few impressions:
-there are exciting developments and lots of potential
-the areas we visited were much drier than I expected, and irrigation was often cited as a need by farmers
-the 2 lane road stretching through the central part of the country is fairly decent, but anything beyond that is guaranteed to be dirt or sand and bumpy
-saw a lot of charcoal - a livelihood for many of the poor, since this is a primary source of fuel, but it unfortunately leads to Tanzania having one of the highest rates of deforestation. How do you balance the challenges of poverty with farmland, pastoralist land, and forests?

The pictures included here are: women's group in Mlandizi with a greenhouse where they are growing green peppers; farmer's association that is growing tomatoes and will soon install drip irrigation; the president of the farmer's association; discussing the new vineyard with agriculture extension agents and farmers.

SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY: shamba is a field or farmland

Kariakoo Market

On Saturday, my adventure was to explore the Kariakoo Market, which is a thriving, vibrant market, inside a two-story shopping area, but also sprawling onto the streets and shops around it. I loved just soaking it all up - the sights, sounds, and - well, maybe not all the smells. I picked up a few household goods, a pot, a wooden spoon, and a couple items of produce. Inside the market building, I smiled at the election campaign banner hanging prominently on the side. (Note that Swahili word of the day from earlier in the week - Chagua Kikwete - choose Kikwete). My nerdy little self was amused by finding the agricultural goods second on the second floor, and using context clues to figure out Dawa la Kilimo = medicine for agriculture aka fertilizers, etc.

I enjoyed the market just as much for the artistic displays that I tried to capture in a few of my photographs that I took there on the sly (not exactly the kind of place you want to be flashing a camera around - petty crime is pretty common in this city).

So the following pictures are my snapshots of analogous colors, secondary colors, and all-around lively chaos.

And the SWAHILI PHRASE OF THE DAY is "Bei gani?" How much is it? Of course, it's helpful if you know the numbers in Swahili, too. So this was my crash course in learning and understanding numbers as well. (1,2,3 = moja, mbili, tatu)

Nyerere Day

On Thursday, it was a Tanzanian national holiday, celebrating the first leader of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere. Since I had the day off work, I seized the opportunity to continue exploring around the city. I went with a coworker Elizabeth by minibus (dalla-dalla) downtown. We passed by the Lutheran church, where we stopped for a bit to listen to the church choir performing outside with beautiful harmonies and coordinated movements.


Down the road, I quenched my thirst with some coconut juice. The street vendor cut open the top so I could drink the liquid inside, then he sliced the "meat" off the edges for me to munch on. The texture and color actually reminded me of calamari (mmm...), which I could have had if I had kept walking down the street to the fish market. But today's adventure called for crossing the bay on a ferry to the other side of the port of Dar es Salaam.

After our 10 minute ferry ride, we strolled down the busy market streets over to where we could grab a motorcycle taxi to a nearby beach. There as Elizabeth lounged, I took photographs and waded what seemed like 100 meters out into the Indian Ocean. It was low tide and extremely shallow, so I was still only ankle deep. On my way back to the sand, I watched as herders moved their goats and cattle across the sand. It was a wonderfully pleasant way to spend the afternoon. We made our way back to the place where we stay and I cooked up some delicious dhal stew and rice for dinner, with papaya for dessert.

The SWAHILI WORD OF THE DAY is mwalimu, which means "teacher." Nyerere was a teacher and made education an important part of the development of Tanzania. In the music videos I watched on this memorial day, they repeatedly called him Mwalimu with great affection. (I'm so glad I know Arabic, which has given me a huge jump start with Swahili. Muallim is teacher in Arabic).