Ruaha with the Villagers.

In the park, a lot of time was spent looking and the villagers clicking away (with the camera's we had provided them) at lions and giraffes, the elephants and their calves. The bulls trying to show their machoism by trumpeting and mock charging us and our poor landy sometimes petrified refused to start when we needed her most to react!

like the massive bull below, too close for comfort!

In some groups, the villagers were all very chattery and filled to the brim with excitement and wonder and other days the groups were shy and reserved. The ones that really tested my patience were the groups where every mama had one baby in tow. And by baby i mean infant - the age when they cry for anything and everything and you must use your intelligence and figure out as soon as possible what the baby wants, unless you prefer going deaf and/or insane and thereby eliminating such issues from your life forever. And sometimes they pooped and the mama's would have to wait until we got to a spot where they could alight and change the baby's clothes. Until then the rover would be intoxicated with the lingering smell of baby poop. Such accidents happened rarely, but they did. And I would give Rowland the look and then stick my head out of the window and try and fool myself into smelling the beautiful aroma of the grass and dust.

The most vivid memories for me are the faces of the villagers when we'd meet the first thing in the morning. The look of anticipation on their faces, the excitement for the day ahead and the smiles, like a child on its way to a toy store, or starting a day of fun and frolic….a picnic! They would usually be dressed in their best clothes, the men in their choicest shirts and pants, the young boys in their most impressionable hip-hopish avatars and the women is their newest kangas and kitenges with heels and sometimes make up. It really made me hope that I could show them things they probably had never seen before, or plant a seed of interest that would grow into a seedling of questions and would be parched thirsty to know more, to discover, to understand. I mean this park was more theirs than anybody elses. So was everything that it contained. And without interest, there can be no way of understanding and without understanding there would be conflict and they would loose what was theirs. I mean it was already happening; conflict with the authorities, with the wildlife, with their own interests.

I remember hearing about a lion that was killed in Tungamalenga village just a few days before i arrived. He was killing livestock and the farmer had to put an end to it. The lion was a pest, taking away the only source of income and livelihood from a man who had probably children and a wife to feed and sustain. And then a leopard who was baited and killed for the same reason. When i was younger I could not understand why they would kill the animal. They were the ones infringing on the animals territory. But today I understand that conservation must be synonymous with compassion. Mechanisms must compensate and include the communities that face these issues. There has to be upliftment of these communities or else conservation will never fulfill its purpose the way we want it to.

Which is why projects like these are extremely important.

One day in the park a lady villager, confused, asked her friend on seeing a lion, "is that a dog?" and her friend told her that it was "simba" and not a dog. She had never seen a lion before, never in books or pictures or in flesh. How was she to know?!! This is the level of ignorance that exists where knowledge is needed most. And it's not their fault. I found it rather unbelievable, but it was true. Or when we told them about the social structure and behavior of lions, elephants or the impalas, they were so amused and I could tell they were interested. This was re-established when we did their interviews and they recalled things they had learnt. Most importantly, almost all of them seemed to understand that the park provided them with some kind of benefit in one way or another. Either the park authorities financed village school projects, or help renovate village offices, or even built small dispensaries and hospitals. And the windfall economics of tourism ofcourse.

Another beautiful moment in the park was lunch time. We always stopped at such beautiful serene locations.

Everyone would lunch in peace and rest before continuing on our journey. And the villagers would often ask questions about the ways of the west, or about me in particular, or often about love and relationships in western culture. And they would share stories with me. What amazing memories! Sometimes elephants would be around, walking in the river bed with their young, or drinking from an almost diminished streamlet. It often rained around lunch and the park would suddenly be reborn. Rain in the Ruaha can be so spectacular!

So park trips for me contained the excitement of watching wildlife (sometimes ours, being the only vehicle in the whole park) and interactions with villagers who were learning things that day that they never knew and seeing things they had never seen. And the most heart-rendering moments were those when one of them wanted a picture with me and the look on their faces when we were returning home, so fulfilled and satisfied. You could tell they had had a great day. And some of them overcome with their gratitude often hugged me and thanked me many times for the day. It was such a humbling feeling.

Chogela Camp.

My first trip into the park was with 10 villagers from a village called Mapogoro. I was slightly nervous. But everything went well and Rowland helped me. It was so amazing seeing the looks on their faces when they saw their first giraffes or elephants or lions. They were clicking away with the cameras we had provided them. That ofcourse was one of the main highlights of the day (for them). What really touched me was when they requested to take pictures with me. They would carry these memories for a long long time. This was the first time they had ever been in the park inspite of being so close to its boundary.

There were times in the beginning when I wasn't so cheerful. Chogela was a lovely, shady property and the tents were quite nice. We cooked our own food and did our own dishes. Lack of electricity meant sunset was the last opportunity to really do anything. We ate all our meals in a dark dining area illuminated with the soft glow of candles. The kitchen was a large open area covered by a thatched banda and the piles of mattresses and mats in a corner made a cozy refuge for everything from rats, Giant spiders to venomous snakes. Sometimes they even hid in the iron-meshed cupboards where we stored our food and utensils. And it could be quite heart-breaking to know the last potato or carrot had been munched on by a hardly famished rat in the night and that would mean that you couldn't have the noodles or curry you had been craving for since the longest time. Im sure little unidentified bugs made great sacrifices by enriching our meals with much needed protein. A little bulb hanging from the roof on the rare occasion or the candle in the kitchen was a magnet for all sorts of bugs and beetles and the bats and lizards came for them. There was always usually one of the masai askaris (guards) and camp staff who hung around as we prepared our meals, sometimes helping us chop and stir. So the kitchen was always an area of much much excitement with all sorts of beings and bugs who grew to develop a choiceless camaraderie. And to consider that most of the meals were cooked in such dismal light, they turned out quite good.

Washing was something i didn't particularly enjoy (to put it politely). So I preferred to cook while Michelle and Sondra usually shared washing duties. Mind you everything was done under the cover of absolute darkness. Well, head lamps assisted us. So i'm not really sure what really went into our food and what was not cleaned right.

The beauty of this was the simple things I took for granted back home became a task. To begin with, you must ration everything from rice to vegetables to cooking oil. And drinking water. The water you use to wash your food and cook is rain-harvested water because treated water is too much of an effort and packaged water is too expensive to use for such purposes. Washing of dishes sometimes meant scrubbing it with a sponge or metal wire loofah (minus any soap when we ran out) dipping it in one bucket of cloudy water and then rinsing it in another filled with hot water (collected from the tin barrel with coals burning under it 24/7). This is when you miss plumbing and warm water that flows out of a tap labelled "warm". When you go to the toilets you must always check the dark corners for reptiles of the poisonous kind. And who knows what creepies crawl out of the shower drain when you're soaping. And this was Chogela, the more equipped of the two camps I would alternate between for the next two months. But all this aside I cannot tell you how much I grew to love this little oasis. The bushbaby screams at night, the monitor lizards crossing our paths, the beautiful birds, the hyena crackles, the most absurd looking beetles and bugs and ofcourse the staff!

First Impressions.

I landed early morning in Dar-es-Salaam on a Sunday morning and the first right turn out of the airport was stuck in this horrible traffic jam! I just couldn't understand what so many cars were doing, so early on a sunday morning! And people walking everywhere, some with firewood or perhaps going to church? So through roads filled with craters akin to the ones you see on the moon, we went in and out finally hitting the proper city. Exchanging money seemed like an affair you had to be cautious about. And ofcourse, its good to be cautious but people love to scare you about Africa. Its true horrible things happen, but when you know you have to live there for 2 months its not a good thing to be constantly living in fear. I mean hell, if im going to be robbed so be it! So i was smart about things but slowly my fears compounded by years of detailed atrocious stories of robberies and murders told by friends and relatives were washed away by the heavy clouds that burst right over me with warmth and affection of a people so simple and friendly.

I had never sat in anything smaller than an 737, atleast not that I could recollect. So the next morning at the domestic terminal I was ecstatic to see the largest plane on the tarmac was perhaps a 14 seater. They kept my luggage aside in the terminal building. I sat around, walked onto the tarmac, the morning air was beautiful and birds were feeding around. Nobody seemed to be going where I was. Everyone was bound for Zanzibar or the northern circuit (serengeti, ngorongoro, manyara). And then a man came and announced that my flight was leaving. So i walked onto the tarmac and the pilot was polite and considerate enough to warn me that it was a 2 hour flight and if i had to go to the toilet I should do it THEN. And ofcourse I didn't go. I mean how many times can someone go if they've been up only 3 hours?!!! But as murphy's law suggests, if something has to go wrong, it most definitely will. One and a half hours into the flight I could have passed out from the pressure. The situation was one of utmost urgency. And the Ruaha airstrip seemed like a distant dream. When we landed in Jongomero to pick up other guests I was ready to break open the doors and jump out of the moving plane. A tin door toilet behind a woody patch put an end to my dire misery.

Finally landed in Msembe, the airstrip located at the park headquarters. My new friend (1 hour 45 mins new), Gilles, encouraged me to look for elephants and crocodiles and hippos from the flight. He also made the flight extremely interesting telling me stories about the Africa he had known for 28 years and pointing down as we flew over areas telling me what was special about the place. Like the Military Base outside of Dar-es-salaam which was hit by a series of explosions (the ammunitions room caught fire) a few weeks earlier. The whole area looked like a blob of black from the air. Definitely another reminder of the seething corruption. And then the Udzungwa mountains, which were lush green and looked almost impenetrable (and much of the region is yet to be explored), this is where they discovered the primate and the small cat and other amphibians and reptiles. It definitely looked like the kind of forest that hid secrets. And the vast Selous Game Reserve on the left, the largest game reserve in Africa covering a massive 50,000 sq km.

So at Msembe i waited for the project guide/driver/man-friday to come and get me. Rowland is the quintessential Tanzanian man and safari guide. I waited 5 min until he got there with the warmest smile and most welcoming greetings. As we loaded my bags, we started conversing immediately!

Just out of the park the car stalled! and I finally felt welcomed. I felt like i was in Africa. But alas, it was just Rowland who had forgotten to fuel up the car. SO….. we sat in the bush waiting for our interpreter Julius to come by on his peke-peke with a large canister of fuel and then we continued to Chogela camp.

It was a beautiful quiet camp about 20 mins from the park gate. It had well constructed bandas (grass roofed structures) that housed well spaced tents below them. On entering Chogela i was welcomed by Rafiki , project musketeer, monitor lizard arch-enemy, clown, sandal snatcher and love hungry puppy; followed by volunteers Michelle and Sondra.

They would teach me the ropes of the project and beyond. More beyond.

My first day at project was quite eventful. As chogela was a public campsite there were, sometimes other guests as well. The day I arrived there was a group a Italian clowns and they were putting up a performance in Tungamalenga village. Im not sure I really wanted to go but i definitely didn't feel like hanging around by myself in camp so i walked with Sondra and Michelle, limping rafiki in tow to Tungamalenga. The first thing i noticed which is a reality that dawned on me later was that there were TONS of children in the village, the demographics were slightly skewed. Lots of children, many young adults, fewer mid aged adults and the sparse septuagenarian. The villagers were all very warm but still amused by our presence and it was definitely causing a great commotion amongst the children. They are always amused by muzungus (white person) but even my brown skin amazed them!! They would just come and crowd around and stare and smile, perhaps they expected me to do something spectacular, I must have been so disappointing.

When the clowns began their slap stick, clumsy acts the villagers all crowded around. It was so apparent how much joy and gaiety there was in the air. What a noble act to spread cheer and happiness!! And this is what they did as a profession. They all performed independently in Italy but once a year they formed into a group and chose one country to take their acts to. And they always chose interiors, tiny villages, the capillaries of the land. I remember one clown telling me that this is what he did in Italy too. He went to hospitals and performed for terminally ill children and he did this because he didn't care about money, this is what made him happy and made his life meaningful. I thought it was such a beautiful way to live. I mean at the end of one's life, how many people can really look back and say they have lived, truly lived. I mean, made a difference profoundly in someone else's life? and what is the point of life if we exist only for ourselves, for our selfish motives. I mean we are selfish in everything we do. Even if you do something for someone you care about, a friend, a lover, a brother, a father, a mother, it is still selfish. But how many people at the end of their journey really say they did something profoundly unselfish, something born out of pure, true love?

''To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice'' - Khalil Gibran.

An African Impact.

This time around Africa was different. Seeing life at eye level is so different from being there as a tourist. I remember feeling quite low when i first got there and it surprised me! There is nothing i wanted more than to be in Africa. Africa had the ability to keep me away from the world and now the world was keeping me from being with Africa. I, surprisingly, felt lonely and anxious.

The project was fairly easy. It was a socio-environmental study, but part of a Human-Elephant Conflict project. 11 villages surrounding Ruaha National Park are chosen as a part of this study. Each month 10 villagers from each of these villages gets a chance to visit the park. A full day game drive with lunch and breakfast, replete with cameras to take pictures for each visitor. In exchange for this outing and day of fun, they furnish us with answers to a questionnaire. A pre and post interview. And these questions probe into their attitudes regarding wildlife and the national park. (do you see any direct benefits, How do you feel living close to the park, how do you feel about protecting wildlife etc). A way to assess attitudes and any change in their attitude before and after the park visit.

While this was fairly easy, living in Africa especially rural Africa is not, unless you're rich. (to say the least).

I have lived a fairly sheltered life in Mumbai. Lived and still live with the family, they paid for my education, we went on holiday's, I had parties. When i was sick i was tended to, when i was bored in the city i could take a break, when i needed a new dress I could have it. If my hair was not the way i liked it any longer i changed it. I had a car to drive and I ate at restaurants, went to the movies, partied on weekends…….Basically life was a luxury.

And then there was Africa.

I was always interested in the environment and wildlife. Social welfare less. Anyone would tell you that i'd show more compassion to an animal than a human being.

And then there was Africa.

I was always conscious of my spending and put it in relativity to what was around me. But i did not think it was wrong to spend the way i was, it was MY money, MY parents didnt oppose, so why should someone else. Besides I was always doing my bit of giving back to the society.

And then there was Africa.

I realized that the people who live there are sometimes so immersed in the problem they cannot even see that they have drowned and sunk far too deep and then it ceased to be a problem. They lived with it. It became a way of life.

What touched me most is what I discovered about the people and the way they live. Their customs and simplicity, how close they are to calm and beauty yet on the verge of breaking and entering into the world of globalisation and chaos. They are trapped in this limbo between the past and the future. Holding onto their culture and norms and yet wanting so desperately to embrace western ideals and living. And ofcourse living in Africa is tough unless youre rich. If youre rich youre mostly corrupt too. And if youre not corrupt youre poor. The middle class is so slim, it holds no power. Very soon into my time there I realized how deep seated corruption is. And then the more you listen and talk to people, Africa's endless cycle of wars, poverty and disease seem obvious. Power is so concentrated in the hands of a few and so focused on one singular purpose. And that purpose is not the people or the land. Its the instrument of preference to get richer.

Sell the minerals, traffic the drugs, buy arms and ammunition, test the pharmaceuticals, compromise safety. Africa is a conglomerate run by businessmen who feign ingnorance towards social and environmental issues until they turn into catastrophes. Because it does not benefit those who own her. And nobody saves Africa because it does not benefit them. War perpetuates the existence of the Africa that we know. Very sad but true. And the result of years of political unrest, war and unstable governments is no more, more apparent than at the grass roots. In the interiors, the villages. I mean ofcourse, its apparent everywhere, in the cities too. Everybody warns you of being robbed, of not walking alone after sunset, of not venturing into certain areas by yourself. In Africa if you're simple, you're safer.

But after spending 2 months in this land of bewildering juxtapositions what comes to my mind when I think about Africa is an Africa I discovered beyond my fears and conditioning. The people who i met, the land i feel in love with even deeper, the sights and smells that intoxicated me and the spirit of this beautiful nation so alive, through it's happiness and sadness, through its joys and pains, through its peace and turmoil, through its euphoria and anguish, that it possessed me.

I knew it would be an amazing experience. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it to make an impact on me so profoundly. An impact that weaves itself into the micro-fibres of your philosophy and understanding of life and living, of morals and ethics. And then how can perception exist independently of these things?

My following posts relate to incidents or observations that really made an impact on me in those 2 months.

An Afternoon to Remember.

What an unexpected afternoon. And what an afternoon!

Making the most of an empty afternoon beach, I decided to take Skittles (my english cocker spaniel) and Schubert (my miniature schnauzer) down for some midday fun.

We never intended to get into the water, perhaps just let them off the leash and run to their hearts content.

But something in my head said, "damn it, lets just do it", so fully clothed, I followed Scubert to the waters edge.

While he halted there, I continued to walk in.

Skittles really bemused looked at me as if asking me if she was expected to follow in.

All it took was a little "skittles come come come" and her gundog instinct took over. And she frolicked around, jumping and skipping the rush of waves, throughly enjoying herself.

Terriers don't have a particular affinity towards water and it was so evident. While he wanted to join in the fun, the waves just made him uncomfortable. However he slowly lost his inhibition and ventured a few steps in.

A rotten baby coconut provided us with plenty of entertainment and it became quite obvious that it was the the object of desire this afternoon.

So we spent a good amount of time under the scorching sun, prancing around like sea horses and gathering a crowd of some bemused onlookers who had nothing better to do (why else would they even be on the beach at 1pm?)

Lots of chasing

Lots of Running

Lots of missed opportunities

and buckets of saline water tucked away in my double-coated dogs later

we headed home

all good things must come to an end, our wonderful afternoon ended with my newly purchased turbo hair dryer.

But what a marvelous day!!

Making ends meet

Im really trying to figure out how i'm going to fit in everything i want to do while in tanzania.

for one,

i'd really wanna do a scuba course and get my license.

and who wouldn't want to do it in zanzibar??

I dont know if I want to do it alone or let it go for lack of company....

Secondly,

I would die to visit the Serengeti again. Would be a shame to be so close and not visit. But i guess i'm bieng so greedy!

Im looking at ways of saving and cutting costs in other places so i can do this at the end of my trip in May. Would anyone be interested? :)

The Quarter of Commitments.

So theres a lot thats going to happen in March!

Kritika and Jaimini get engaged, amazing to see a relationship between two such close friends mature into a commitment for life.
pressing signs that everyone grown up and life is finally happening. Whether you want it or not!
Awesome for this twosome!
They're not your typical boring couple, they're always bringing laughter everywhere they go!!
Theres a certain comfort around this development.

Then africa happens! dont know the dates yet, but will be in the first week.
cannot wait to be back and try something new.
Going to be working as a research assistant helping do a conflict survey! more learning, more fun!!!

Have to admit though that im slightly nervous as im getting closer to march. Not so confident yet of my capabilities. yikes! but i'm very eager to learn and i suppose i'm not stupid so i'll hopefully pick up quickly. Also its much easier to learn something new when it interests you.

Before that, Anvita will have a fairytale wedding in Samode, cannot believe she is moving away. for love thats worth it. :)

Sagar will also get engaged, will miss this one to be in Samode, do not wish to miss either!!!!

Cannot wait!!