Mikumi Park

It's been hard to keep this up since we've been moving around so much.  We have as our base of operations a hotel in Morogoro called the White House, from which we travel to different villages and parks for "field visits" and stay between 1 and 3 nights at a time.  The longest we've had was near Mikumi National Park, which feels like it was so long ago but was only 2 or 3 weeks ago.

The park is big but not the biggest national park in Tanzania.  "Size: 3,230 sq km (1,250 sq miles), the fourth-largest park in Tanzania, and part of a much larger ecosystem centered on the uniquely vast Selous Game Reserve." --from the official website of Tanzania's National Parks.  We saw all the famous wild animals, and not-so-famous, except for lions.  We all really wanted to see lions, and got up early to see them, but they eluded us.  We joked that they probably weren't even in the park, but the guides always told tourists at certain points "Oh, we saw five lions here yesterday."  How would we know?

Sunrise at Mikumi before our safari tour.

And here's some of my best pictures from the drive through of the park

                                      

Giraffe

                                     

Yellow baboon.  They were all over, on the roads, and came close to us maybe expecting food.


                                     

Impala

                                     

Zebra

                                    

Got a close up of an elephant!

                                    

Elephant family

                                   

Crocodile hanging out in the hippo pond.  I'm sure he thought it was the croc pond.

                                   

It was hard to get a good one of the hippos above the water.  It was midday and they just stay submerged until nightfall, when they roam and graze.  They say hippos cause the most deaths of any of the wild animals.  They don't even eat meat--just kill you and leave.  I was glad to not be camping, as some people do.

We visited two villages around the park and asked them how they felt about the park, and were they compensated for crop losses from elephants and the like.  They said at first they liked the park, but the elephants weren't scared of them any more and they wanted to be allowed to kill one so the elephants would be more afraid of them.  They said they hadn't killed any, but the Tanzanian student in our group asked them what was the best part of en elephant to eat, one of the elders said the neck meat, making all the villagers laugh, and us once it was translated.  I guess you just need to ask the right questions!

Since Mikumi we've had many other field visits, and some classes at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, which has a close relationship with our University.  The classes lately have been mind-numbing due to thick accents and poorly put-together and often repetitive lectures.  We're all pretty tired  and have had some strained relations within the group but I think we all cope by sticking with the people we like and switching groups when it feels right.  At least that's been my strategy.

I'm getting used to how they do things here now, but it wasn't an easy adjustment.  Everything moves slower, and sometimes it seems like people really try to be as inefficient as possible.  I feel also slower, like it's harder to move at the rapid pace I like to walk when I'm in Norway and the US, partly because of the heat and partly because you really have to watch your step on the uneven paths and such.  Today I took a group through the market, since I had a really nice introduction to it by our Kenyan student the day before, and now everyone wants to know where we bought the chapati's so I've taken people there 3 times already.  People bargain here more, and I'm not good at it, and part of me doesn't like it anyway because people here make between 10 and 20 dollars per month on average, and really a giant avocado for 75 cents is a great deal.  Do I really need to have it for 50 or 25 cents?  Some people in our group won't pay for anything without bargaining, but the Norwegians don't really bargain and I don't usually, but I have a little, and go some sandals for 18 instead of 19 dollars...I think the guy knew I wanted them.

Tanzania

I'm in Tanzania!  As part of my Master's degree in International Environmental Studies, we have to do a field course in either India or Tanzania, 70 percent covered by our department.  The Norwegian nationals get it 100 percent covered, but who's counting...

Tanzania is a beautiful country with very friendly people, but like many African countries it is very poor.  The currency is the Tanzanian shilling, and the rate is about 1557 TZS to US $1.00.  I pay for my dinner usually with a 10,000 TZS bill, if I have some beer or wine with the meal.  We started in Dar es Salaam, where we learned about the history of the country and about the first president after independence, Julius Nyerere, whose photo is hanging in many places.  From outside our hotel:

                              



Our group is very international, living up to the name.  We come from 12 different countries and 5 continents.  I'm the only U.S. citizen, with others form Iran, Japan, Norway (of course), Slovakia, Columbia, Canada, Greece, Lithuania, Uganda, Kenya and one Tanzanian.  We spend some days at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, and go on field visits to learn about Tanzanian politics, economics in terms of the environment and development.  Last week we went to Mikumi National Park and saw lots of wildlife, and visited the villages around the park to talk to the people there about living close to the park.  One was very poor and was waiting on compensations from the park, and the other was more well off but was still having problems with elephants coming out of the park eating their crops.

Here is me for scale by some sugar cane:

And rice fields and farmers on another field visit:

On days off I was able to go with a group to a nice little island, and another day we went on a long hike  up a mountain to see the views, a run-down German colonial building, and some villages where we bought fruit straight from the farmers.  So far it has been an amazing trip, and I still have months to go.


Island off the coast of Dar Es Salaam:

                            

From the mountain hike:

                               

and:

                                

and the German colonial building:

                                

banana flowers turning into fruit on the way up:


                                          

In Morogoro, an awesome picture of Obama painted on the side of a barber shop:

                                                

I'll post my pictures of wildlife next time, hopefully, but I don't have one of those high-zoom cameras for that, so they're not great.  Until then!