Christmas Trees -- Merry Christmas!

Most of you with a Northern Hemisphere predisposition have put up your Christmas tree, a conifer of some sort or maybe a synthetic tree.  It is snowing outside and your Christmas tree twinkles festively.  Here, in Tanzania ‘tis the season’ of Christmas trees too, but of a bit different type.   Two trees in particular are worthy of mention. 

First the Christmas tree (Delonix regia).   This tree is in the legume or pea family (Fabaceae) and is native to Madagascar.  It is also called the flambouyant tree, flame tree or poinsettia tree (though it is not at all related to poinsettias).  It produces a spectacular array of red and yellow flowers and eventually long pods.   It has been cultivated around the world and blooms at different times of the year depending on where it is found.  Here though it blooms just before Christmas, and is a fitting salute to the holiday. 

Second is the jacaranda tree (Jacaranda mimosifolia) in the Trumpet Creeper Family (Bignoniaceae) which produces spectacular lilac-blue flowers and small round pods.  Jacaranda is native to South America but like the Christmas tree is planted around the world because of it’s magnificent display of flowers.

 

Spectacular, stunning and magnificent are all apt words to describe these two trees.  Equally impressive  is how long these trees are in bloom.  Jacarandas have been in bloom since October and Christmas trees since November a striking contrast to the crab apples of North America which are stunning but short-lived. I have poinsettia bushes in my yard that have been in bloom since I arrived in Tanzania September 2009!

 So I offer this blog post  to those of you who are tired of the white landscape… enjoy these “Christmas Trees”  Wishing you the best this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Can't you just feel the ocean breeze?

Advanced Diploma Class Safari, 
College of African Wildlife Management

(9 Nov – 19 Nov)

Advanced diploma and post graduate class

I just returned from a class safari and these are a few things I am thankful for...

• 22 students, 3 instructors, one driver and one Unimog (best vehicle in the world!)

Unimog...goes anywhere!

• Ocean breezes, sandy beaches, mangrove and coral reefs … no freezing rain (my sympathies to Minnesotans) 

Sea grass community

• Community Conservation Assessments with baboons and blue monkey in the species lists (those of you who remember this exercise from con bio… imagine conducting it in an African savanna or on a coral reef!)

Kitchen and women who cooked for us

• Manyara Ranch, great example of a conservation corridor for elephants and other critters

•  Advanced diploma students (like seniors in US system) with worthy aspirations.   I learn from them and they from me.  

• K.I.S.S.  (Keep it simple stupid)

• Keystone and charismatic species

• Wali, maharagwe,  vijani, Fanta, ugali, chapatti, chai, ndizi, viazi

• Humor and patience as I practice Kiswahili!

• Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion…too much fluff!

• Flamboyant trees in full bloom

Flamboyant Tree -- aptly named

Flamboyant flower

• Stilt roots, pneumatophores and lots of mud -- mangroves
  

• Short rains … why does it always rain when biologists conduct field work?

• Spoons (wicked card game)

• 4 national parks:  Saadani, Mkomazi, Tarangire and Manyara, one marine reserve: Maziwe

• Green sea turtle nesting sites and good dolphin viewing

Darn transect lines get hopelessly tangled.... what was that species anyway?

• Fetching water at the river edge for cleaning up after hot day in field, with a wary eye for crocodiles

• Goat roast in recognition of Eid

• Students set up and take down my tent… I could get use to this!! 

I have many blessings to be thankful for including teaching great students in great places with great colleagues… safi sana!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Enjoy some extra turkey for me!)

Pangani Beach!

Lugha (Language)

Kiswahili class at MS TCDC in Usa River, Tanzania, Mama Elda (teacher) on the right.

I grew in a home in which the spoken language, English, was broken and misused.  My father barely finished high school and my mother completed her high school diploma through correspondence.   The language I learned was the language of small towns, farmers, homemakers and of those less educated.  They spoke their own version of English which I adopted.   It wasn’t until college that I learned that the language I had acquired was crude and riddled with errors.    In college, I remember the embarrassment of learning that the word ‘speciment’ didn’t have a ‘t’ in it.  Slowly a transformation occurred through undergraduate and graduate school where I learned to write and speak English, Spanish and German.  

Grammar, grammar, grammar...

Market Words.

Now, years later I find myself in a Kiswahili class with mostly younger classmates who pick up this beautiful language with ease and grace.    I admire and envy their ability to grasp the language and speak without embarrassment.   I, on the other hand, struggle with the words and grammar, embarrassed and hesitant.   ‘Did the word end in o or an a?’  I grossly mangle and mispronounce words, creatively making up words that exist only in my own version of Kiswahili.   Subtle differences in pronunciation are missed by me and words that differ by a letter or two are hopelessly confused.  I intend to say “see you later” in Kiswahili and instead say “we will marry”.  Or instead of saying “I don’t understand”,  I say “I am not drunk”!

Language acquisition is surely easier as a young person!  As a ‘mature learner’, I struggle with new words, grammar and pronunciation.   Listening is especially difficult as I confuse words and struggle to differentiate words in the babble of sounds.   I try to understand why the teacher is talking about chickens (kuku) when in fact she is talking about a Tanzanian holiday (sikukuu).  When my brain finally realizes the error, the teacher has moved beyond this point on to another.  When I add a new word to my ubongo (brain) another one falls out.  Will I ever get the hang of this stuff?

Learning is more fun with games!

Like many things in life, quitting is easier than persisting.  But quitting is not an option for me and I will doggedly persist to master enough Kiswahili to communicate in my own fashion.  I am reminded of my own students’ struggles to acquire the language of biology; a language I know and love and one that comes more naturally to me.  Now, I try to apply the techniques I recommend to my students for remembering the language of biology to Kiswahili.

Struggling to master new ideas, big and small, is part of the growth of being a dynamic human being .    It doesn’t matter if one is struggling to learn the language of Kiswahili, biology or sorting out one’s own personal growth.  These all require an acceptance of who we are as learners.  It requires us to see our strengths, weakness and goals.  We continually access what we have learned, our progress and the position where we want to be.  Small steps allow us to make steady progress.  Every day we are required to re-imagine ourselves in a changing context of life.  What was, is no longer and we must learn new.  Do we face the challenge with slow steady steps or throw our hands up in despair?

Memory game... now where was that card?

Pole pole (slowly) I will get the hang of Kiswahili.  In the meanwhile I have provided ample merriment and laughter to all those who have walked a few steps with me on this journey.    After all, when was the last time a biology professor told you “We will marry tomorrow”!  

Laughter, a required component of learning a language!

With gratitude and thanks to Anne Perera, the 'official class photographer', for the pictures.

“When the animal is in your sight….fire!”

This is the command given to the students releasing them to position, aim and shoot their firearm at paper targets 100 meters across a scruffy field. We are at the Moshi policy academy shooting range, a dirt bank in an abandoned cornfield, to give students practice shooting firearms. Ballistics is not a course we teach back home so it is fun to tag along and observe.

The students have completed a module on firearms including care and use of guns as well as wildlife enforcement practices and policies. Many of these students will end up in positions where they must confidently know how to handle a gun. Some students will be employed in poaching patrols where they will be tracking and arresting poachers. (Elephants, bushmeat and illegal firewood are poached items.) Others will lead hunting safaris and will assist clients’ bag their trophy. Still others will need to be prepared to protect clients on photo safaris from the Cape buffalo caught by surprise.

The day starts with a serious reminder about gun safety, reminders for proper gun handling, gun assembly and a strict set of operating procedures for the day. Safety is paramount and anyone even remotely in violation of safety is docked points for the exercise. There are a dozen or so rifles and well over a hundred students so they must crowd around for demonstrations as the guns are taken out of storage and assembled.

Each student is coached through the proper position, aiming and shooting. Five students at a time are lined up and take aim. The instructors offer encouragement and praise as well as critique and comments regarding errant bullets that have sailed beyond the missed target and backdrop (identified by sound). After several rounds, the students and instructors trot out to the targets and inspect their results.

Scores range widely as does comfort with shooting a gun. Some have significant experience and others grimace while squeezing the trigger and bracing for the kickback. Mostly they are eager to handle the guns and shoot. With serious faces, they carefully position themselves, aim and pull the trigger.

The students are eager for me to try and I am reminded of the pistol training I once did ‘eons’ ago. I politely decline holding my camera in shooting position. They have many questions and stereotypes about Americans and guns which I respond to as best I can. They are convinced that all Americans carry weapons and are surprised that we don’t teach ballistics as part of our wildlife management courses. They compare notes on the ease of owning a gun in the US versus Tanzania and like young people elsewhere they are fascinated with the images of power associated with firearms. Many enthusiastically volunteer to have me “shoot” their picture, gun in arms, looking very powerful.

The day stretches on and round after round of students take their turn. The sun heats up and those who have already shot seek the few meager shady spots cast by the trucks. The day ends with lessons on cleaning, safety and demonstrations of different guns (including an automatic) before we head back up the slopes of Kilimanjaro to home. Just another day in ballistics class at the College of African Wildlife Management.

Incidentally, uniforms are widespread in Tanzanian schools. Though the students at CAWM don’t wear uniforms to class when in Mweka, they do wear the standard green safari uniform during field classes and fieldwork.

Yesterday Was a 3 Slug Day

The first one was on the door (outside the house) on the door frame adjacent to the lock. It ‘stood’ there while I locked the house and welcomed me back in its own smug slug way. It was a midsized slug, perhaps 5 inches. The second one was discovered late in the afternoon on the kitchen floor (almost stepped on it). The third was a small one in a water bucket that got washed down the drain. Yup, I am back in Tanzania.

Home in Tanzania. It feels like home. Instead of waiting in the line at the airport for a tourist visa (which is always a really long line) I whizzed through the line for ‘residents’! I received a ‘hero’s welcome’ at the airport and breathed deeply of the night air. (Arriving at night means relying on senses other than sight and I have always enjoyed those first smells of Tanzania.) It feels really good to be back.

Unlike last year when it took us weeks to settle in, I am settled on day 2. The house is good, my office is ready and my head is ready to get to the business of working on this book. I don’t yet know what my teaching assignments will be, but I think I will be on safari (teaching) in November.

Returning from the United States to a place that feels truly like home, yet is so different, is hard to explain. Here are a few things that feel wonderfully like home to me…

-Slugs and internet …speed isn’t the objective
-Warm welcomes from colleagues
-No water for most of day 1…waterless cleaning, better for the environment
-Wildly enthusiastic student greetings, hugs and waves and yes invitations to dance.
-Chapatti with chai for morning tea (Yum!)
-Bush babies calling in the night; mosquitoes humming outside my mosquito netting
-Discovering that I need yet another car safety sticker (TZ government likes safety stickers)
-Kilimanjaro beer (good and inexpensive)
-Kiswahili
-Malaria medication for breakfast.
-Being white in a sea of black
-The swishing sound of grass being cut by hand (machete) in my backyard.
-Silver-cheeked hornbills in my yard, raucous and outrageous.
-Children in oversized clothing; roosters crowing; long trains of ants in the house
-Brushing teeth with bottled water… no more drinking tap water
-Driving on the left side of the road with the shift on the left feels perfectly natural
-Putting away my credit card. This is a cash based society; credit cards are useless in most places.
-My beautiful royal blue land rover, Matitizo (Kiswahili for troubles)
-Markets where merchants compete for my business calling me rafiki (Kiswahili for friend).
-Passion fruit, mango juice, little bananas
-Living in the clouds on a mountain
-Bumpsi (speed bumps which are ubiquitous here)

Such is life in Tanzania, always something to learn. Perhaps this is why I like it. It is not complacent, routine or dull, but instead vibrant, challenging and life giving.

Homeward Bound

Home Sweet Home

Coming Soon!

Welcome to "my" blog, which is a continuation of Mara's blog (Tanzania 2009-2010).   I will do my best to maintain Mara's high standard of literary contributions regarding life in Tanzania. So join me as I venture into my second year as a Fulbright Scholar in Mweka, Tanzania.  My posts will likely commence in early September, but in the meanwhile get yourself acquainted with Mara's posts and sign up to follow this blog!