Moringa trees

Life is very comfortable and simple for us here in Karatu, Tanzania. Some of you have expressed concern about our personal safety, given the news from some places in Africa. We feel no sense of danger here; even the wild animals are in the distance! Tanzania isn’t prone to the same political, military or personal violence that makes headlines in the U.S.

There are two houses, one for Jolene, the country director, and the other for volunteers. A wall surrounds the property. This keeps down the number of people stopping to ask for money, and petty thieves. At night there is an unarmed guard, and Jolene has a couple of dogs.

We can walk anywhere, with nothing worse than children occasionally asking for pens or money. Sometimes kids who might be in secondary school will practice their English, and that is fun. At night we do limit the area in which we walk, but during the day we feel perfectly comfortable taking long walks, exploring the town and area.

The volunteer house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, one western and one eastern. There is a modest kitchen without a refrigerator, but we use space in Jolene’s. We shop in local stores that are quite small but packed with goods, or go to the market for fruits and vegetables. Since we there isn’t a lot of variety here, we brought along provisions and spices to fill in some gaps.

Our office is about ¼ mile away, an easy walk. We are busy during the day, come home for lunch and have the evenings free. In addition to the books and Kindle we brought, Jolene has a wide variety of books and movies at her house, and past volunteers have left supplies of the same. It is a very simple and very relaxing way to live.

We currently have a housemate who is volunteering with another organization, and in February there will be two more volunteers for WellShare. That can make organizing cooking time and other activities interesting, but we’ve done it before.

The simplicity of living here reminds us of a TED presentation we saw on the internet about the problem with too many choices in our American society. There are so many opportunities, so much we can purchase, so many TV stations, that our lives can become far too complex. Unless we can find the right balance, the richness of our environment can make us miserable.

Here, those aren’t the problems, and for us that makes life very comfortable. However, outside our protected environment, it can mean something else. For example, agriculture is the dominant way of life (even though we are in a town of about 15,000 people, cows or goats frequently are grazing outside our office window). Farmers depend on a short rainy season (November and December), and a long one (March to May). As with farming the world over, when the rains don’t come as expected, it can be terrible for the farmers. In eight of the last nine years the short rains haven’t come, and the long rains have been unpredictable.

For subsistence farmers, this can lead to terrible challenges. Resources are limited, but people are resourceful; they have to be or they wouldn’t survive. Last year when we were here the government was distributing seeds because of the terrible drought the year before, but the supply wasn’t enough to plant a typical field.

And yet, we aren’t surrounded by a sense of gloom and doom. The people are wonderful, warm and welcoming. The staff we work with is great, and villagers we visit are enjoyable to be with. For example, we were in Basodawish today. This is a village that has been adopted by our friend Welcome and her group in the U.S. The village leaders were there to greet us, and gave us a two hour tour of the projects they are working on to improve their village. In every village we visit kids come to see us, laughing and smiling.

Of course, there are huge challenges. At independence in 1961, Tanzania had very few college graduates. In spite of the effort to develop teachers, doctors and so on, it is still difficult to find enough professionals to serve these rural locations. It is similar to what the U.S. faced in the past, and to some extent still does when it comes to doctors in rural areas.

How do they educate children without enough teachers, with a shortage of textbooks, without electricity or reasonable access to the internet? These problems aren’t unique to Tanzania, and these wonderful people are working hard to address them, step by step. Basodawish is a shining example.

We have a guess as to why it doesn’t feel oppressive in comparison to our lives back home. Here, as in many areas we have visited in the developing world, lives are relatively equitable. There are some who are better educated, live in much nicer homes, have cars and can send kids to private schools. But there isn’t the stark contrast between the ultra rich and everyone else that there is in, for example big cities. Or, in places where there are tourists staying in the pampered isolation of very expensive hotels, with most the citizens living a hard-scrabble existence. Karatu is in the heart of safari country and luxury places exist here, they just aren’t as visible as other places we have visited.

We don’t in any way mean to diminish the challenges many face here. Or, for that matter, can we ignore people in many places who face starvation, or the violence of war, sexual exploitation and economic slavery. It is just that our experiences have been surrounded with warm, kind people that make our time here very rewarding.

The past week, was very interesting, and we think, productive. We worked hard on the concept papers mentioned in our last blog entry, which will be used to try attracting financing for two projects. For some background on one, you might find it interesting to visit wikipedia.org, and type “Hadzabe” in the subject box. We are hoping to get funds to put together several programs for them and the neighboring Datoga tribe. These projects are based on requests coming from their communities because they recognize the inevitable changes they face.

In addition, we spent some time investigating the possibilities of villagers growing moringa trees (actually moringa oleifera; we know that information is important information to you). They are drought resistant, with very nutritious foliage and seeds. Moringa are high in protein and a range of vitamins and minerals. They grow quickly and also can provide natural fencing and firewood. Many see them as a solution to malnutrition. They are grown and used extensively in Asia. Nearly every part of the tree is useful, including for medicinal purposes and water purification and thus have the moniker “the miracle tree.”

One possibility is to have moringa planted as an additional crop. This could provide animal fodder, especially during the dry season. In other places in Tanzania and the world, people eat the leaves, flowers and seeds, either fresh or dried. The possibilities are very attractive, and we expect to visit a commercial site soon and hopefully meet with someone at the university in Dar es Salaam who is doing research on the plant.

We hope all of you are well.

Rick and Sharon