Village Life in Tanzania

While in Tanzania last month we traveled by vehicle through parts of the large cities of Arusha, Mwanza,and  Dar Es Salaam.  We were also on the island of Zanzibar, including driving through part of the historic Stonetown district.  And of course, being on Safari we also traveled through many rural areas.  Traffic was heavy in parts of the cities, and on Zanzibar.  The rural areas on the continent were a different matter.  This post will provide a few observations on travel and the villages and small cities, particularly Nkololo, the small city in which the Songambele hospital is located, and which hospital I wrote blog about that you can find here.

Concrete block and stick houses are common
As money becomes available they gradually build a concrete block home
Stick homes are covered with mud, and the sticks re-used when the residents relocate
This photo is from a village on the way to the Ngorongoro Crater

Nkololo was a small hamlet when Fr Paul Fagan decided to build a hospital and regional parish church at that location.  He had known about Nkololo as he established a parish south of the hamlet.  Health care is an issue in Tanzania.  Overall, the CIA Factbook identifies Tanzania (in 2010) as having .7 hospital beds/1,000 population (US in 2013 had 2.9 hospital beds/1,000 population).  In regard to physicians per thousand population Tanzania has .04 and the US 2.9.  The road to Nkololo was built by Father Paul so he could build the hospital in a central location to an under-served area.  The road is primarily dirt and in need of drainage improvements.  While the roads were built by Father Paul, they were turned over to the local unit of government.  He worked with the various town elders on road location.  The roads would be at least better than no road, but are certainly much more hazardous to travel on than most in the US, but this is a developing country and not the highly developed US.

Market in Village near Tarangerie 

As we traveled from Arusha to Tarangerie National Park on a Sunday morning, we saw many persons near the road edge, but few homes in site over the plains of northern Tanzania.  We came to the conclusion that the inhabitants walk an awful lot.  I think the little rain received to that point (we were at the end of the dry season) ran off the paved road and allowed more vegetation to grow which is why the cows and goats were attracted to graze along the roadside. It is necessary for vehicles to slow down or stop to allow animals to get off, or cross, the road.  This was a common occurrence on our trip, with our drivers.  While education is compulsory, I sometimes wondered about that as we drove in the very rural areas and saw young children tending herds of cows and goats.  Whether or not it applies to all of Tanzania, I don't know, but on Zanzibar children go to school either in the morning or in the afternoon.

Cattle grazing

On our second Sunday afternoon in Tanzania, a couple of young persons: Everett an attorney in Dar Es Salaam, and is the son of the Songambele hospital administrator was home for the week, and his cousin, a nursing student in Dar Es Salaam, and the young women's father drove us around Nkololo and surrounding areas.  The miles of roads built by Fr Paul has allowed the government to build schools to serve, the these former remote populations.  Universal primary education has been a policy of the Tanzanian government for years, but it has outreach, staffing and other problems.  Everett and his cousin explained the school curriculum, and other aspects of the schools and the related community.  We visited two school campuses, one south of Nkololo, and the other on the north side.  We could see some new classroom buildings under construction to handle the high number of young children in the area.  The school buildings are constructed of concrete block and the windows are open except for metal bars; that means there is no glass.  This can work in the temperate climate of Nkololo. There is no heat or air conditioning.   The school campuses had a separate building for each classroom, and usually two buildings per grade.  Some classrooms would hold over 100 children.  A group of boys, probably early high school age, were studying outside a classroom building that Sunday afternoon in the shade of a large tree.  They were working on trigonometry.

People congregate after Sunday morning mass

Classes in Tanzania for the primary grades are taught in Swahili, although they start learning English in the primary grades with a period a day set to learning English.  Starting in Junior High, classes are taught in English.  Hence, I looked at the trigonometry problem that the boys were working on, and  I don't think I would have wanted to tackle that problem.  English is quickly becoming accepted as the primary secondary language; we witnessed this among those of different language cultures using English as the common language.  This  was evident on airplane flights between flight attendants and non-primary English speakers on the plane.  It was also evident at places of lodging.  English as a second language was quite prevalent in Tanzania.

Inside of a school building, perhaps 6th grade

What was fairly clear to me in large and rural cities is that street signs were not common, and they did they have regular highway identification as we see here in the United States.  The rural communities are very basic.  As we drove around Nkololo, that Sunday, I have to say the layout and design looked chaotic and unplanned, I wondered how things were kept straight.  However, once I got home and looked at the area using an online air photo, the layout of the community tended to follow a modified grid pattern.  There is some method to what appeared to be madness.  Thinking further, I believe the chaos comes from the lack of clear demarcation as to what is a street.  Being dirt roads there is no curb and gutter, there is no hard surface sidewalk.  Buildings often would enfront the street, but vehicles and people have no set location for separation.  Hence a very chaotic appearance that overrode the appearance of any pattern of streets and buildings on the ground.

School buildings

What is interesting is that, there are no street signs and no house numbers.  When I inquired how one would find a building, I was simply told you have to ask if you do not know where it is.  For example, if the driver of the ambulance is in a village of which he has little knowledge, he may well need to pull over and ask a person how to get to the desired home.  How this works late at night or early morning, I don't know.  House numbers are not the only thing missing.   There are no parking lots, those massive places of asphalt which consume half or three quarters of a commercial building site. (As an aside, as a rule of thumb, in the United States, a commercial or office project will usually occupy a lot 4 times the size of the intended building floor area, regardless of one, two or three stories to the building.)  Most persons in Nkololo, and other communities, travel is by foot, with bike or motorcycle secondary and tertiary.  Few persons have cars.   Parking, and delivery just happens,usually along the edge of the road in a chaotic manner.   With no parking lot, that means that while buildings are single story, the community is compact, and appears fairly dense.  This makes sense as to be able to walk things need to be closer than with an automobile.

Inside of a primary school classroom
Up to four students will sit at one of the desks

Besides schools, the only other public service provided to most villages and small cities, is Police (sort of).  Electricity is available, by private utility, but as we found out, even at Mwanza airport, it is subject to interruption.  I realized I did not want to know how human waste is handled with all of the houses. According to the CIA Factbook, only about 1/3 the of urban population has access to an improved sanitary facilities, meaning 2/3 does not.  In rural areas only about 8% of rural population has an improved sanitary facility.  (Improved sanitary facility means flush or poured into  sanitary sewer system with treatment capacity, holding tank or septic system.)  At Songambele, it appeared they had a holding tank.  Developing countries use much less water than we do in the United States, but that makes the waste that more concentrated.  A home or group of homes may be lucky to have a well, but many rely on the river.  Everett's mother, aunt, and uncle all share a well among three homes.  Father Paul noted the importance of being near a river for creation of a settlement.  The ubiquitous woman you see in photos carrying a five gallon bucket on her head hands free is still part of the culture. It is amazing what they haul on their heads.  The balance they have is extraordinary.   In some locations they may haul on bikes, or by donkey. Most of the household chores, and animal care is accomplished by the woman and children, which left the woman in our group asking what the men do.  Everett's cousin noted that the five gallon pails used to be carried near full, but now most are carried about half full.  Does this portend a decrease in the tradition of carrying goods on the head--hands free?

School Yard

The construction of a road network was not only necessary for health services, but also for education and economic development to enhance the quality of life of the population.  Education is one aspect to help overcome poverty.  According to the CIA Factbook, agriculture, much of it near subsistence, accounts for about 25% of Tanzania's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but accounts for 2/3 of the work force. Of the total population of Tanzania, 22% is below the poverty line.  Growth in Tanzania has been about 6 to 7% a year due to natural resources and tourism.  China is purchasing many of the mineral rights in third world nations, and that is said to explain their road construction in Tanzania.  After all, China needs better roads to transport their illegally obtained elephant tusk ivory.  We were on roads in Zanzibar which the Chinese built.  Pretty soon, the way China is cornering the market on mineral rights, all mineral rights will go through China.  For rare earth minerals, China has many and undercut the market which made the only US rare earth mineral mine go out of business.  The Chinese later bought it.  Rare earth minerals are important in the tech based economy on which we no rely.  A Toyota Prius uses 24 rare earth minerals, many in its battery.  One thing China cannot buy is location, so they buy the mineral rights in far off lands.

Banana Tree in a Banana Plantation Associated with
a Village near Ngorongoro Crater

Being south of, but near the equator, northern Tanzania would have been spring at the time of our visit.  Because there is little temperature variation due to the closeness to the equator, I realized that the residents really don't  go by the seasons as we do--spring, summer, fall and winter.  What makes sense is they go more by the variation in precipitation that is evident in that area of the world:  dry season, wet season, and short rain season.  Our varied weather patterns make me wonder if we too need a different metric.

Street scene

Metric or not, there is an interplay between the built environment its inhabitants, values and social relations.  In other words, community vision is expressed in a variety of ways, most importantly through the built environment. Geographer David Sack, once wrote: “Understanding the spatial manifestations of behavior becomes increasingly urgent as social relations continue to increase in complexity.”  In Tanzania, the need to make a living is profound, and buildings start as stick homes and gradually may be replaced by a concrete block house.  However, the concrete block house is generally built in stages as the owner can afford to add to the walls, add the roof, etc.  We saw some were the walls were starting to fall down, that is how long it took some to make the earnings to build the house.  Even the stick homes covered with mud and with a thatch room, the sticks are reused when the house may be moved.  Some villages are still somewhat nomadic.  But, yet what I think we all found among the population was how happy they were, and proud of what they had.  I think of the nuns at Old Maswa who were proud of their convent and its adjacent animal pens.  Their hospitality was unmeasured; we had the best ginger ale at their convent.  I think of Everett's grandmother who invited us in to meet one of her daughters who has MS, or some other disease, but yet they wished us to come in to the house, into her bedroom to meet her.  Fr Paul brought back a wheel chair for her to use. They embody giving and thanks.

Cooking food over open fire

Overall, Tanzania is still a developing country and its lack of proper sanitation reminds me of many communities in the United States in the late 1800's into early 1900's.  While the Western World has much influence in terms of language and culture, there are things we can do to better emulate what is being done in Tanzania.  Let me just name a few: water conservation, use of LED light bulbs, and a ban on one time use plastic bags, such as grocery bags.  We could also walk more for our daily activities, but then again our form of development since WWII lacks good walkability. 

Photos by author or Antoinette Hovel, October 2019.  Tanzania