"Witty Title"

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to blog. We had midterms the last week of home stay, there was also a home stay party and figuring out what I was going to do for ISP prep days (the week that we go to the site where we will conduct our independent study project to make sure everything will work out). My home stay was a learning experience, although I believe that I made connections on personal levels, I think the presence of SIT students in Bangata is negative. As a result, analyzing why I am here in Tanzania and what it means looks different than it did before when our group was just on safari. To quote another SIT student's blog, my friend Chloe,

“Bangata is a very fortunate community in most respects. Situated up on the slopes of Mt. Meru, it has plentiful water, good agricultural land, and it’s only about an hour (road conditions permitting) outside of Arusha. These people are doing well for themselves, and they don’t need or want our sympathy. But there is still no denying that this is a very different standard of living, and post-colonial Africa is used to looking for foreigners for gifts and aid. And most aid doesn’t work. I’m not a cynical person, but most of our readings, discussions, and observations suggest that foreign aid is a guilt-fuelled commodity to maintain the status quo. And by coming here – just by being here – we are legitimizing this system. Even as we learn the language, customs, greetings, and dress appropriately, we are inescapably wazungu (white people, European) and we are promoting Westernized lifestyles, fuelling what is, realistically, an unattainable desire.”

It may sound negative but our presence is perhaps not the most positive thing for the village as a whole, nevertheless, I am glad that it happened, regardless of what it means.

As soon as we left home stay there was a lot to do, it was a sort of a last minute decision but I decided to go to the coastal village of Ushongo, which is right on the Indian Ocean.

Travel: 

·         8 hour bus ride from Arusha to Tanga: 14,500 tsh

·    1.5 hour dala dala ride from Tanga to Pangani: 3,000 tsh

·         5 minute ferry ride across the Pangani River: 200 tsh

·         1 hour taxi ride to Ushongo: 6,000 tsh

These rates are per person (there are 9 of us on the coast) and our travel budget is 20,000 tsh… so we went a little over, but we were able to make all the prices much cheaper on the way back.

We camped out on the beach in front of a hotel, merely meters or feet from the water itself (especially during high tide), the Indian Ocean is beautiful and it was great to relax and get a chance to see what I would be able to do on the coast. The villagers were very welcoming, Ushongo has about 700 people in it but there is a area that has more tourists called Ushongo Mtoni (named after the river) which is where I will be interviewing the locals about their perspectives of tourism and finding out what direction they want their town to go in. The area has become more of a tourist area within the last 12 years, attractions include:

-snorkeling

-fishing

-swimming in the Indian Ocean

-cultural tours

-horseback riding on the beach

-seeing sea turtle eggs hatch (April 25, I can’t wait)

-diving… and more

And the dynamic between the local people and the tourists was not expected., more harmonious than I would have guessed. Before we got there I wanted to study perspectives of tourism and then after interacting with the local people, I only want to study it even more.

The food was good, we went to homes in the area and had mamas make us food, mostly local, chapati and beans, and very very fresh fish, rice and veggies. The hotels had food but it was out of our budget. Either way, I found a translator that will help me interview 1/6 of the town, and I should be able to complete my ISP in enough time. The next two weeks are for the Serengeti, the Ngorogoro Crater, Lake Natron and our Maasai Homestay.