Prof Huster

Tue. 2017-Dec-05 PM

Around Arusha, Tanzania

Briefing

Our guide for the next few days, Fahid, met at and briefed us about Tanzania
and our plans for the next part of our trip. He is from Arusha, and trained
as to be a guide. He has a great sense of humor and will be a good resource
for our trip to the national parks.

The Tanzanite Experience

We drove to the Tanzanite Experience which is a short drive from the guest
house. Tanzanite is a unique gem, a beautiful deep blue to violet-blue stone
that resembles sapphire, found
only in Tanzania. It was discovered in the 1960's and they estimate it will be
mined out in another 15 to 20 years. The Tanzania Experience is an exhibition
run by one of the companies licensed to mine the mineral. They had nice
displays and a guide described how Tanzanite is mined, cut, and polished.
This was a good example to show students how a scarce natural resource is being
managed.

I resisted the impulse to buy unmounted jewels.

Shanga

In most African countries, disabled people are severely disadvantaged and
often live as beggars. Shanga (which means "bead" in Swahili) is a non-profit
that employs these people to make
crafts and curios so they can make a living and provide for their families. As
we visited the site, we saw weavers, sewers, glass blowers, and others making
crafts for export. Some were deaf, or mute, or had a visible physical
disability. Almost all of the items are made out of recycled materials.
For example, we saw wine bottles skillfully blown into a water pitcher with an
elephant motif, and throw pillows made out of men's dress shirts. Clever items
but also bringing hope and provision to a neglected group of people.

Lunch at the Arusha Coffee Lodge

Next door was a beautiful restaurant in a carefully tended garden. Like many
restaurants, the seating is
outside under a structure that provides shade, and if raining, shelter. In the
US we expect restaurants to be indoors, but here, like other tropical countries
I have visited, open air restaurants are normal. In fact, it seems to me that
most people here spend a lot of their time outdoors. The lunch was buffet-style
with grilled meat, vegetables, potatoes, rice, and amazing fruit to end the
meal.

Reptile Village

Our next stop was at a Reptile zoo. A young man was our guide.
There were a couple of amazingly large
pythons with newspaper articles, complete with gruesome pictures, of people
being swallowed whole in South America and Africa posted on the enclosures.
I'm not sure I needed the reminders of all of the poisonous I might encounter.
A black mamba is aggressive, can rear up over a person's head, and inject venom
that kills a person in 15 minutes! Yikes! The Gabon viper is also deadly, and
blends into dry grass so well that is took a minute of looking to even see it
in the display. A minute later, it still took the same amount of time to find it
again even though it had not moved!

Stop at Village Market

Fahid told us, "The bus can stop at any time," so we yelled for him to stop at
a large roadside market in Maasai village. It was a teeming beehive of free
enterprise. The most common items for sale were fruit and vegetables, cloth
and clothing, cooking utensils, and cell phones. There were many Maasai men,
tall and thin dressed in red wraps of cloth. The women dress in very bright,
colorful clothing. Plaxedes looked at some beaded bracelets and bought one for
$2. (US dollars are universally accepted in Tanzania.) The woman and her
husband were greatful, and followed us through the market and to the vehicle
offering to sell us more.

Cultural Heritage Center and

The next stop was on our way back into town. The Cultural Heritage Center is a
very "fixed-price" gift shop. Amazing carved work was for sale. I bought my
first purchase there: a clever nativity carved out of a single piece of wood
that rolls up into a stick. The art center next door had large museum-quality
paintings and sculpture. All for sale. You could buy a 30 foot tall family
tree for $1,000,000 US. But talk to the manager for a possible discount.

End of the day

We returned to Arusha and the guest house in time to walk to a restaurant for a
sunset appetizer before dinner at the guest house. The weather was just beautiful. Throughout the day at times
we could see the top of Mount Meru, the second tallest mountain in Tanzania,
about 15,000 feet tall.

It was an amazing day with many opportunities to discuss how my course can fit
well in this environment. Tomorrow we leave Arusha at 8:30 for our safari.
I can't wait! I'll try to post some picture tomorrow evening.