I felt so much better when I woke up. Before departing for the Yaeda Valley, we discussed a brief history of Tanzania with our guides and then were off for a long journey. Tanzania is a country that was colonized by the Germans then taken over by the British. After the British departed, they attempted to become a socialist country. Due to their Ujamaa socialism the country does not identify with their ethnic groups first like the Kenyans and many other African nations do, they identify with their country. The community overrules the individual. Over the last twenty years, they are becoming more capitalist and democratic but the politics have made the country much different from other East African nations.
Driving to the valley but a cold, bumpy, thorny ride. But we saw a cheetah on the way up so it was worth it.
We arrived at our campsite and on Hadza land and basically everywhere you looked was brown. We all thought to ourselves, “How do they survive here?” Everything looked dead except for the thriving, grotesque baobab trees everywhere and hints of green here and there.
As we began to eat dinner, we kept wondering who the men were by the nearby fires. They looked like ordinary Tanzanians. When we asked, the guides laughed and simply told us they were the Hadza. They were wearing ordinary clothes and were smoking tobacco around a fire. After dinner, we had a brief question and answer with Hadza. We asked them about marriage, birth, celebration and what they hunted. The people get married at pretty reasonable ages in the eyes of the west. Eighteen usually; women usually younger than men. They only celebrate the gathering of honey. They do not celebrate killing any animals, birthdays, or mourn death. They do not keep track of birth either so everyone only roughly knows how old they are. The people hunt everything from small rodents to lions and giraffes. They are too afraid of elephants to kill them and they cannot kill hippos or rhinos. Everything else is fair because they hunt sustainably with bows and arrows which they have been doing for 10,000 years. At first, I thought this was pretty awful but then again they are not injuring the population and are trying to survive like all early people did. Plus they use every part of the animal so, why would I care?
When we asked them if they had any questions for us they simply asked about dating in college? My reply was we are hunters and gatherers of dating.
That night I slept under the most beautiful stars I have ever seen in my life. No lights for miles so I could see the milky way. I slept outside on a rock but of course I dropped my sleeping bag in a puddle before going to sleep. I did not sleep much that night but every time I woke up the sky looked completely different.
I woke up at 6 AM for the sunrise. I climbed half asleep up a rock to watch the sun come up over the hills. All you could see was baobab trees scattered all over the hills. It looked like the only thing surviving in the hills but every animal was still asleep at this point. All you could hear was the birds rising for a brand new day.
Living in East Africa is living from every sunrise to sunset and I feel I have not valued the beauty of the sun’s daily routine enough in my life. Days seem beautiful and longer when you live this way.
The first day adventuring with the Hadza was an interesting one. We began our trek to one of the Hadza camps which was made out of straw. This was where I met Moshi Moto, the fan favorite Hadza of St. Lawrence University. I opened up conversation by roughly saying “I like shoes” when I meant to say “I like your shoes” in Kiswahili. Good job Jordan. The good thing is I think Moshi was always way too stoned to really know what any of us were saying.
We walked down to the larger camp where there were many women and children that unfortunately looked very afraid of us. So I avoided this situation and hung out with the funny men who were showing us how they smoke tobacco with newspaper and how they burn the hell out of their lungs with the charcoal and marijuana. It was the most incredible smoking I have seen. They just suck puff suck puff. Unreal. Moshi then realized how much we loved dogs so he began joking around with the puppy by imitating us in Kiswahili. Hilarious. POLE PUPPY, HABARI GANI PUPPY, JAMBO PUPPY.
We walked down with the women to gather roots. On the way, we ran into a man with a baboon mask. Very bizarre. The women leisurely sit on the ground with their children talking and just digging for roots. They will eat berries and baobab fruits as they do so. It is so laid back. We helped out as best we could but mostly plaid with the children.
Afterwards they showed us how to make fire from scratch. They did this in under one minute. We attempted and were epic failures.
We wandered around with them to the honey trees. WE ate honey from a stingless and sting bee hives. The honeys were both very different. The first was like molasses and the other very sweet. While getting honey, we see a bunch of Hadza running up the hill from another location. The guides let us know that they heard elephants and ran because they were sooo scared. The funniest thing I have EVER SEEN.
By one o’clock, it is hot and time for a nap. But finally some hot weather haha. We headed to places around the campsite for some serious naps.
When I arose from my slumber in the back of the bus, I wandered over to the rocks to learn how to make arrows. Basically, they use a certain type of stick and they initially put it on the fire. The heat helps you to peel off the outer layer of the stick. Then you begin to shape the stick with a knife. You peel it to make it smooth and use your teeth to make the stick straight. Once you have that down, you create a point at then end. Then the men will carve designs around it and wrap giraffe tendons around feathers to make sure it can fly! This old man assisted me greatly on this project. When I finished my arrow, he handed me another one 5 minutes later. I don’t think he thought I did a good job haha. Also, some other men were showing us how they make the points out of nails.
That night some girls and I went to hang out with some of the Hadza. We ended up dancing and singing in a circle and it was fantastic. SO much energy. Of course Moshi was off beat screaming, “MOTO!” (“HOT!”)
When I was getting ready to go sleep on the rocks, all the Hadza were gathered on the rock with bows and arrows. All I could hear were some random animal noises. I quickly realized elephants were nearby and the Hadza were not happy. We could also hear hyenas as well. Eventually the sounds died down and the Hadza relaxed but the wind did not.
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