In Which I Integrate: Updates from 3 Months in the Village

Hey Everybody!

So, it's been quite awhile since I've provided a comprehensive update, and as I approach my three-month mark in the village, I feel rather compelled to get back to some of my "Goal 3" Peace Corps duties: sharing Tanzania with Americans back home.  So, here's a brief rundown of my life, as of late.  After this update, I'm going to start putting up thematic posts regarding different aspects of Tanzanian culture and my service experience, starting with something on Maasai culture and agriculturalist-pastoralist conflict in my region.

The past three months have been, well, difficult.  The Peace Corps has been described by some as a 27 month camping trip, and I'm starting to see why.  Now, I've always loved camping and the outdoors, but I've only ever experienced them in moderation.  After going months without a real shower or hot water (both of which I often had access to when camping!), cooking over charcoal or kerosene twice a day, washing clothes and dishes by hand, trying vainly to keep dust and creepy-crawlers and livestock out of my living space, avoiding getting stabbed by enormous thorns everyday in the bush, clearing animal droppings away from the front of my house, walking miles to get anywhere, using nothing but squat latrines... well, let's just say that I'm a little camped-out.  However, every three weeks or so, I try to get into "town" - which means a dusty, bumpy, altogether hellish 6 hour "bus" ride (one way) - and the therapy of tasty food, electricity, running water, and wi-fi helps cover the impending return to the village.  (But even in town there's no hot showers - unless you pay through your nose for it).

But far more taxing than all of that stuff is the stress that comes from trying to integrate with my Maasai neighbors.  I'll address this in another post, but for now, let's just say that there are some cultural peculiarities that have been making my work difficult here.

But, moving on:  despite all my complaining, these past three months have been incredibly rewarding, and I'm slowly adjusting to village life... and I'm even starting to like it.  Everything is slower here, and I get a lot of time to reflect on daily experiences, really be with people (there’s nowhere else to go, really), and read and write on a daily basis.  Peace Corps policy is that a volunteer should not start a project in the first three months in the village (integration is a full-time job, so they say), so I’ve got time aplenty.  I finally got to read The Brothers Karamazov (unforgettably wonderful!), and I'm working on Moby Dick - two books I found difficult to finish in America.  Granted, having all this time on my hands can be a bit of a downer in itself, as I’m still under the 24/7 watchful life-scrutiny of my neighbors.  I’m very much looking forward to getting going on a project – whatever that may be.

But, I say again, I’ve been having plenty of enriching and eye-opening experiences in Loolera the past three months.  Here’s a brief rundown:

1) Every week, I try to walk or bike out to more remote Maasai households to introduce myself and get that family’s take on development in the village.  This has been… interesting.  Many of these more remote families don’t really know Swahili (let alone English), and some have never seen a white person before.  When I stroll up to a Maasai boma (a thorny enclosure for cattle, surrounded by mud huts), children invariably run for the hills, women back away, and elders and warriors cautiously approach me with quizzical looks on their faces.  I’ve had mixed luck on these outings – I’m never received hostility, but some of my interviewees have definitely been suspicious and even annoyed.  And if nobody speaks Swahili, well, it’s really awkward..

2) 3 days a week, I travel with my village’s health dispensary on what is called a ‘mobile clinic’ – basically, we drive a big land cruiser way back into the bush to far-out Maasai villages, pop up a table and a hanging scale, and wait around for Maasai women to bring their babies to be weighed and given vaccinations.  It’s not much in terms of healthcare, but it’s all the dispensary can do, and it’s better than nothing.  We had been offering HIV tests to the women, but recently we “ran out.”  So, who knows when we’ll be starting that up again.  The health workers who go on these clinic days are generally Maasai themselves, so they facilitate the communication and ‘organization’ (and I use the term loosely) at field sites.  I help by weighing babies (who freak out when they see me), try to talk with the local warriors (who sometimes know Swahili), and generally get stared at and laughed at by the Maasai mothers.

3) As some of you may know, a while back I attended a Maasai circumcision event (for boys, just to be clear – they don’t let men attend the women’s circumcisions; plus, it’s illegal, and while all the women get it done, it’s pretty secretive).  It was pretty, well… I don’t know how to describe it, really.  It is an initiation rite, a test of bravery for boys who are about to join the ranks of the warriors.  No drugs are used, and the boys cannot show any sign of pain or fear during the procedure.  I got up at the crack of down and was led to a Maasai boma by my neighbor.  Two boys, 15 and 18, were undergoing the test that morning.  They looked pretty scared.  The elders were already drunk - they must have started at 4am!  First, the boys were bathed with ice cold water.  Then, one after the other, they were made to sit naked on a piece of cow hide, legs spread apart in front of them.  One man, I think it was their father, held them down by sitting behind them and holding their chests.  The boys had to put their hands under their knees and look straight ahead, without moving a muscle or uttering a sound.  The guy who does the procedure (and charges about $18 per boy), who had arrived on motorcycle about 1.5 hrs late (classic Tanzania), unceremoniously pulled out a fresh scalpel blade and completed his work in about 1.5 minutes.  (Incidentally, I was being urged to take pictures the whole time by those around me!  That was shocking.  Of course, I refused).  When he finished with one boy, he dropped the scalpel, blew a little whistle, and all the elders and warriors who were gathered around watching spat on the ground.  Milk was poured on the wound.  The boys seemed pretty dazed by the pain, and following Maasai tradition, were led back to bed where they would be fed 1.5 liters of cow lard (mmm.. that’ll make it feel better) and would try to rest from the ordeal.  Meanwhile, all the rest of the guys started drinking again, roasting a cow and pretty much partied for the rest of the day.  I didn’t get to stay around for the feast that day, but I did go to another a couple weeks back.  I had the best beef I’ve had in a long time – roasted over an open fire – and got to watch Maasai warriors dancing and singing with Maasai girls.  It was quite a treat.

4) Another Maasai custom I’ve gotten to participate in is what I’ll call, for lack of a better term, a Maasai “Bro-Barbeque.”  Traditionally, every year the young warriors in one “age-set” go way out into the bush for about 3 weeks at a time to camp, bringing a few cows and nothing else.  There, they do nothing but roast and feast on beef, drink traditional medicine (including cow lard), and just chill out.  It’s supposed to be a vacation of sorts, as well as a camaraderie and strength-building exercise.  I got to participate in a watered-down version of this – the warriors I was hanging out with were too frugal and too busy to invest the cows and time required for the actual retreat.  Instead, we did it at my neighbors’ house, for just one night, with a billy goat instead of beef.  I participated in the communal sharing of meat: chunks are cut off the goat leg and handed out in turn to men circled around; you’d better hope you can swallow down that chunk (whatever it might be – fat, sinew, etc.) before your turn comes around again!!  I got to drink some of the medicinal broth (really oily, but okay), and I tried a taste of the goat “oil” (liquefied lard).  I wasn’t able to finish that, but I watched one warrior down a full half-liter of it.  Subsequently he went to bed and was sick for the rest of the day – apparently they inflict this suffering on themselves in the belief that it builds strength and health following the ordeal.  You’re “not allowed” to vomit, whatever that means.

5) On one occasion, I got to go tend the cattle with one my neighbors.  This basically means following a herd of cows through the bush for about 9 hours, whistling, shouting, and brandishing sticks to keep them moving the right way.  It was actually a lot of fun, and a good insight into what a good portion of a Maasai man’s life is like.  I ate a lot of wild fruit, killed a puff adder, and consistently slowed down our progress by sending mixed signals to the cows.

6) Over the past three months, I’ve seen a few wild animals in the bush around Loolera, including:  a dik-dik (small antelope), groups of mongoose, small wildcats (actual ancestors of the domestic cat), a genet (kind of a cross between a cat and a weasel), that puff adder, and a black mamba.  Some nights I hear the hyenas calling at night around the village, and I keep hearing stories about the lions and leopards attacking livestock on the western side of the village.  Recently, some elephants have wandered into the bush nearby, but they have showed up near the village – yet.  Bird sightings continue to be incredible.

Okay, I have to get going, so I’ll let this suffice as an update for now.

Hope everyone back hope is having a wonderful summer!  Goodness knows I miss it – especially the mountains and the woods and the lakes and the trout streams!  And, of course, friends and family!

In Which I Learn of Cows and Lions - Introducing My Village and IL MAASAI

Now, let me introduce my new village home: Loolera (the second ‘L’ is somewhere between an ‘L’-sound and an ‘R’-sound, and the ‘R’ is slightly rolled).

My arrival in the village was fittingly dramatic, at least for someone with American eyes. On the night of my arrival, I learned that a small pride of lions was in residence around the nearby mountain, and had just recently killed a cow. Similarly, the following morning, I woke to find a sick donkey hiding on my porch, which bore the marks of a recent hyena mauling. Welcome to "Wild Africa!" says my American mind!

Loolera is a small village located on the high Tanzanian central plateau, at the southern edge of the so-called Maasai Steppe - a vast, wild stretch of savannah and acacia thickets occupied almost solely by the famous (or infamous) Maasai people, semi-nomadic pastoralists who cling fiercely to their traditions and way of life, despite the modernization and development that has overtaken most of Tanzania.

Perhaps some of you have already heard of the Maasai – they are often portrayed as the “classic,” “true,” “wild,” Africans in popular media (alongside the !Kung “Bushmen” of the Kalahari, and others), in a perfect example of the enduring “Noble Savage” myth, carried over from the Colonial period. Yet such stereotyping is somewhat understandable: the Maasai are instantly recognizable, and hardly forgettable - particularly the young warrior-herders (il murran) with their scarlet cloaks, stout staves or spears, short swords and exquisite jewelry. The women are similarly striking, with bedecked with elaborate beadwork and numerous piercings. Most of Maasai eschew modern conveniences and education in favor of their precious cattle, land, and heritage.

They view themselves as distinct and separate from the rest of Tanzanian society - the Waswahili, as they call all the other tribes. Indeed, ethno-linguistic study seems to indicate that they come from the Nilotic peoples of North Sudan, not the Bantu people groups that now make up most of Tanzania. Their language, Maa, remains their primary tongue, and they avoid using Swahili whenever possible. Subsisting almost entirely on milk and meat, they look down on farming as livelihood, though in recent days some of them have begun to adopt a little farming on the side to supplement their diets. They disdain hunting, and perhaps this disdain has enabled them to live here alongside the great African megafauna for hundreds of years. They blame the Waswahili and Europeans for the recent disappearance of much of the big game. They will, however, hunt lions when the cats prey on their cattle; indeed, the greatest and most celebrated events in Maasai culture seem to be lion hunts… and wars. Almost all of the Maasai – at least in my district – are Christians (or at least nominally so).

These are my new neighbors and work partners, the primary inhabitants of Loolera village. For the next three months, I have no assignment other than to integrate with the Maasai, study the village of Loolera and its environs in a development context, and formulate a plan of action to help improve the public health situation. In my village, there is a primary school (often poorly attended, as the Maasai like to marry off their girls early and send the boys out to watch cattle), a Catholic mission (started by American missionaries who have long since left, seeming to have either ‘given up’ or who viewed their project as complete (it’s not)), and an understaffed health clinic. These are the pre-existing avenues for work available to me. Otherwise, there are couple shop-stalls (little shacks) and a couple “bars” (little shacks) at the center of the village. The vast majority of people live spread out on the surrounding plains, where each family-clan has their “boma”: a thorny enclosure to keep their cattle and goats at night, “safe” from the hyenas and lions (but lions can jump high!). During the day, the warrior-youth and uncircumcised boys take the livestock out to graze, the women and girls work at home, and the elders (men over 30) go to the “bars” to drink (a huge problem in this village!). A small proportion of the children actually go to school. As of now, this is my impression of the village situation – I’m sure it will evolve over time.

About 6 kilometers away, another Peace Corps volunteer from my class, Travis, is living in a different village with the Wanguu people, who are predominately Muslim, engaged in subsistence farming for their livelihood, and often in quarrels with the Maasai over land and water. We’re working together to understand the dynamics between the pastoralist Maasai and agriculturalist Wanguu.

This is my new home. Right now, every day is a struggle to learn how to live alone without modern conveniences, to learn how to live comfortably in a new culture (a profoundly uncomfortable experience, for me, as I think it is for most people), to learn new languages (Kiswahili and Maa), and to better understand why God sent me here. Procuring food is difficult (Maasai don’t like fruit or veggies all that much, nor chickens/eggs, and they don’t sell much milk or meat – presumably because it's assumed that everybody has herds of their own). The simplest task, such as boiling water, is incredibly time-consuming (lighting up a fire or charcoal), and to procure basic supplies I have to walk 5 kilometers through bush to Travis' village. Every day has its adventure, and its many inconveniences. But of course, as GK Chesterton said, "an inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly conceived." The Maasai are very gracious, the scenery is gorgeous, I'm getting plenty of exercise, and I'm finding plenty of time to read and write (by lamplight).

As much as I miss home, and all that home entails, I like life here too.

The Poor, hyena-mauled, donkey

 My House

 Mt. Loolera

 Bush around Loolera

 A Maasai Murrani, warrior-herder

Inside my house

In Which I Learn the Swahilis - Pre-Service Training

Well, I suppose it's about time I write a full-length update for those of you interested in my little stint here in Tanzania. It's been about three months since I departed the United States, though it certainly feels like quite a bit longer! And with somewhere between 21 and 24 months left to go, the rather surprising duration and gravity of my term of service begins to hit me. I knew what I was getting into, of course, but I wasn't quite able to fathom what two years away from home would actually feel like, in my bones. Well, it's something, I tell you.

Let my begin by providing a brief synopsis of what occurred during the 2.5 months of my pre-Service training (as a Peace Corps Trainee), and then, in another post, I'll try to paint a sort of portrait of my new home, the village of Loolera in Kiteto District, Manyara Region, Tanzania.

Leaving New York City during a February deep freeze and debarking from the plane a day later in the humid, sweltering chaos of Dar es Salaam was the rough transition our group of 36 (now 34) trainees had arriving in Tanzania. We stayed for a week at a church-run hostel just outside the metropolis, getting vaccinations, medical and security briefings, learning "survival" Swahili, tasting the street life of “Dar,” and preparing for the move to our long-term training site in Tanga District, in the northeast of the country. That first week was pretty laid back, made somewhat arduous only by the change in climate and the first wave of illnesses that beset about half of us, only days after arrival. But we had (cold) showers, western toilets, ceiling fans, and all the government red-tape one could ask for, and frankly most of us were looking forward to getting out into the village, the "real deal."

We went up to Tanga exactly one week after our arrival in Tanzania. There we stayed for ten weeks, living with host families in small villages near the "scrappy junction town" of Muheza, receiving daily lessons in Kiswahili (the national language of Tanzania), Tanzanian culture, and health/environment development work in-country. Most class days were spent in small groups of 4-6 people who were living in the same village; once or twice a week the whole class of 34 would meet up at an agricultural training center for lectures and technical training. The rest of our time was spent either with our host families or exploring the country around our training site.

Living with host families was perhaps our biggest challenge - even greater than dealing with scorpions, spiders, and bats in our drop toilets; rats in our beds; bushbabies holding dance parties on our roofs at night; and the expected gastrointestinal problems. Our families were enormously protective, treated us like children, and seemed to think that their sole purpose in life was to make sure we gained twenty pounds by the end of training. They stuffed us with piles of ugali (corn mush), beans, rice, and week-old fish. Language and communication was also difficult - they knew next to no English, and we knew next to no Swahili. Nevertheless, by the end of training I was able to converse with my host parents about topics ranging from Al-Shabaab in Kenya to the monkeys destroying the family corn patch.

Despite some of these challenges, training was overall a fantastic experience, my host family was wonderful, and I learned plenty – especially language: the Peace Corps method of "total immersion" language acquisition is painful, but effective. We had several adventures exploring Tanga City and Muheza town, climbing in the Usambara Mountains, and swimming in the Indian Ocean. Although the culture was quite conservative in terms of dress and appearance, we were surprised by the leniency and relaxed nature of a predominately Islamic culture, and by the apparent lack of animosity between the Muslim majority and Christian minority. (This makes the ongoing approach of Al-Shabaab from the north much less of a threat, though a more tragic one, should it ever take hold in Tanzania). We were also exposed to some of the more painful realities of life in rural Tanzania - the dreadful condition of the district hospital (where for some reasons about 50,000 fruit bats roosted every day), the dangers of snakebite (my neighbor's wife was killed by a snake my second week of training), the ever-present threat of malaria, and the near daily announcement of a village death.

Following a slew of technical and language assessments, we finally returned to Dar and were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers of the United States at the U.S. Embassy on April 24, 2014. The very next day, we all began our respective journeys to our village work-sites, scattered all throughout Tanzania – our homes for the next two years.

In Which I Embark on a New Adventure

Hey everybody - friends, family and passersby!  Karibuni to my new page.  I have accepted an assignment to serve with United States Peace Corps as a Health Volunteer in Tanzania!  This blog will serve to document my time serving with the Peace Corps in Tanzania for the next two years, while keeping friends and family appraised of my situation while I am overseas.  

Last May, I graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Philosophy and History.  When I decided graduate school wasn't in my immediate future, I had to figure out something else to do. My Peace Corps application had been simmering on the back-burner for awhile, and finally in September I received my invitation to serve in Tanzania.  

Ah, Tanzania! The land of the Serengeti, Kilimanjaro, the Ngorongoro Crater, and the greatest lion and elephant populations on earth!  The land of the Swahili coast, with its rich, varied, and occasionally dark history of Arab traders, Islam, monsoon winds, slaving expeditions, and spice-cultivation.  The Interior, with its WWI legacy ("African Queen", anyone?), German and British colonial origins, the failed Maji Maji Rebellion, and strong history of Christian missions.  The African Great Lakes!  Africa's great communist (failed) experiment!  The peaceful heart of the continent!  Palm-studded beaches on the Indian Ocean!  Endless savannah!  The "Roof of Africa!"  Miombo Woodlands!  Medieval ruins!  Dozens of distinct ethnic groups!...  And one of the poorest, most vulnerable countries in the world, with a high HIV/AIDS prevalence, high infant mortality rate, low life expectancy, and incredibly low GDP (ppp) per capita.  

For a variety of reasons, I chose to accept the assignment.  

I'll be travelling to Philadelphia in a few days to meet up with the rest of my “stage” (group of new volunteers-in-training), after which we will deploy on February 10 to Tanzania to begin our training - the "boot camp" of the Peace Corps.  For the next three months, I’ll be undergoing intensive training in language (Kiswahili), health issues, food security, and village living.  Updates will probably be pretty sporadic, as our training is conducted in a village homestay setting (e.g., no internet) and I will have very little free time.  We'll be living in a rural part of Tanga Region (5 hours north of Dar es Salaam, the de facto capital of Tanzania), a blisteringly hot, Muslim-majority area close to the Indian Ocean - needless to say, I'm very excited!

Following the completion of training, we'll be sworn in as a full-fledged Volunteers in late-April. I’ll then be sent to “site” - the place I’ll be living and working for my two-year assignment.  This could be anywhere in Tanzania - a country bigger than Texas!  Again, my communication situation there is TBD.  But hopefully I'll be able to access the internet every week or two, so I'll be able to share some sights and sounds from my experiences.  

The details of my assignment are rather vague, so I'll spare you the ambiguous, less-than-informative Peace Corps description of the project.  Suffice to say that I'll be working to promote community health through education, focusing particularly on HIV/AIDS, malaria, and water-borne illnesses.  I'll also probably do some work on food security, especially with AIDS victims and other vulnerable persons.  I won't know much more than that until I get introduced to my final village placement (which won't be determined until mid-April).  I'm very excited to put my agriculture and health education degrees to good use!  Just kidding.  Those would've been helpful.  But I am looking forward to engaging with problems I witnessed firsthand during my stints in Uganda and issues that I studied in African history and development classes at Cornell.  I've seen the scourge of horror that the HIV virus can pour upon a community, and I've studied the superstition and stigma that so often follows the disease in Africa (and America, for that matter!).  I've witnessed the perpetual menace and deadly power of the Plasmodium parasite (malaria) and the Anopheles mosquito in African villages, and read about their transformation into the plague of the "Tropical" World.  I've developed a passionate hatred of (but undying respect for!) the tsetse fly, the vector of the dreaded "sleeping sickness."  Now, I'm eager to put these experiences and my book-learnin' to good use meeting some of these challenges in Tanzania.

I ask for your prayers as I begin this journey - I’m sure there are trials and treasures ahead.  

Thank you!

Justin Tyvoll

On the Road

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

- JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that
I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am
actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for You are ever with me,
and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton