8-11-2010

8-10-2010
The trip to Simanjiro was a great success. The area is stunningly beautiful, situated on a plain about 150 kilometers southwest of Moshi/Kilimanjaro. The great plain stretches for what seems like ever, and is home, to many game reserves for hunting, and Tarangire National Park. Orkesmet, the town I visited, sits on a hill overlooking a major portion of the plain, and is home to a few thousand residents.

I met with a man named Makunzi, who works for the government district office in Simanjiro, who helped me set up meetings with government officials who are working on their own food storage project. I got to tour a few different food storage facilities, both private and public, and we met at great length about the construction process, cost, and the science of food storage.

Makunzi offered the best Tanzanian hospitality, opening his home for me, and his wife provided some delicious Ugali Nyama. Apparently Simanjiro has trouble getting vegetables, so the food of choice is just Ugali (from corn) with Meat (nyama). Not a problem for me, since I happen to be a meat lover, but I had a moment of silence to think of the poor vegetarian traveler that stops in orkesmet.

Makunzi also was very prideful of the fact that he is an avid hunter, and showed me many of his trophies from hunting on the plains. He had about 15 different skulls of different ruminates that he had hunted, some of which had some incredibly huge antlers. I have handled Southeastern American Buck antlers before, but the antelope, oryx, and kudu antlers were titanic compared to anything I had seen before.

Previously, I had been very curious about how hunting became a part of Tanzanian culture, since it seems that with as many cows as there are, it hardly seemed economical to drive for hours to a hunting spot, camp, then hunt, for meat. Makunzi explained that if you have access to a car, the permit to hunt an animal is only about 50,000 shillings ($30), but you can’t sell the meat. So whenever communities, or churches in the area want to have a feast for a certain event (funeral, celebration, etc) they pay him to go hunt Eland, Kudu, or Gazelle, and then use the meat for the feast. If you need a lot of meat, it can save a good deal of money.

He also explained that as a foreigner, I can get permits to shoot a whole variety of animals that are not available for Tanzanians (I remain a bit skeptical of the ethics of such a policy), and invited me to return to Simanjiro to go hunt with him sometime. I told him that I would not be opposed to the idea, but would have to think of a really good reason to have a feast if I was going to shoot an animal for it.

On a more somber note, the research portion of this trip is coming to a end, and this will be my last update before I leave. I will leave Kibaya on Sunday, and won't have access to a laptop anymore to save my posts. I will return to Dar es Salaam. There I will play basketball with the Outsiders, and fly home on the 18th.

I don’t have much time to sum up the research project, and I will do so once I return home on the 19th. But I can say with great confidence that this experience has been a great challenge, that has brought out the best in me. A special thank you to CBR for making this happen, and I look forward to seeing everyone when I am home.

Sending love and spirit for adventure,

Tony