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!