Yesterday at Morogoro Secondary I handed back my students’ weekly tests. Overall I was really pleased with their marks. Out of my 200+ students from my four classes, at least 15 students scored 100% on the exam! I’m really ecstatic about that because it’s incredibly unusual here for students to score even above 80%. In one of my classes alone more than 1/3 of the students scored in the highest marking bracket (82-100). Although coming from America an 82 is a B-, here it’s a great score. In fact, on average most students score between high 50s and high 70s on their exams, which are considered acceptable (although not the greatest) scores.
The ways the system works at my secondary school in Tanzania is that students go to class to learn the material, but they’re hardly ever tested on how much they know the material during the school week. Seldom is class work or homework ever assigned to students here. The assumption is that students wouldn’t complete the extra work anyway (perhaps because they’re doing a lot of work at home washing, cooking, helping take care of younger siblings, etc. or they do not have materials at home to complete the assignments properly). Therefore most teachers don’t assign practice work for their subjects. But teachers must evaluate students somehow, right? Thus every week the students take weekly tests, each of which is 1-1.5 hours long, on three to four of their subjects on Saturdays. That’s right…students here must go to school on Saturdays for at least half a day. If in America you’re used to saying “TGIF” just imagine what a privilege it is to have two whole days off from school every week. Here, students are more likely to say “TGIS – Thank God It’s Saturday…afternoon!” Haha.
What’s more, students in secondary schools in Tanzania must study a plethora of subjects. In all, students study the following subjects every week: Civics, Home Economics, Commerce, Economics, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Math, Geography, History, Swahili, and English. That’s twelve subjects total! I remember only having to study between four and six subjects each semester during high school in the U.S. Hence, students here are expected to learn about almost double the number of subjects American students are responsible for learning about within the same amount of time. They study at least five subjects a day (there are 12 periods in a day, each 40 minutes long, although most subjects occupy double periods like my English classes do). It’s no wonder that being a student here is challenging, let alone being a successful student. Every teacher expects students to be experts and perform well in his or her subject each week. Expectations are so high that if students perform poorly on their weekly tests (scoring below 50 usually) then their teachers will cane (hit them on the hands with sticks taken from the woods) as punishment.
In all my time at Moro Sec and in Tanzania in general, caning has been the most difficult cultural custom for me to stomach. In America if a teacher hits a student he/she could go to jail! It could be considered as child abuse and serious measures would be taken to ensure the student’s future safety so that such an event would not happen again. For sure, if you think back to what American classrooms were like fifty years ago it was normalized back then for teachers to hit students to whip them into shape. They used rulers rather than sticks, but they still beat students harshly for misbehaving. But that was fifty years ago and we’ve come a long way since then. It’s no longer okay to hit a student for misbehaving. Instead we mandate bad students to serve detention to complete their homework individually in silence under the watchful and attentive eye of a teacher. What’s more, the punishment happens after school hours so that the students studies are not interrupted as a consequence of their misconduct.
In Tanzania, things are very different. At any given moment while I’m teaching a class it is highly probable that a colleague of mine will come to my class, interrupt my lesson and beckon several students to leave class to be punished. They can be punished in several ways. They could be caned by a teacher; forced to clean the school grounds by sweeping up petals and leaves that fall from trees outside or washing the concrete floors of the school with old rags and buckets of water; or told to slash (use machete-like clubs to manually cut grass – there’s no such thing as lawn mowers here…) the overgrown grass on campus. Since the school does not have employees whose jobs are to attend to these cleaning and maintenance tasks, the school – in a way – is dependent on students misbehaving in order to keep up its aesthetic appeal. I find this outrageously frustrating! How can a school be dependent on students misbehaving in order to maintain a good appearance? Then again, maybe it’s not so much a dependent relationship as it is a causal reality – there will always be some students that will misbehave, so perhaps the school is putting two and two together and figuring that it might as well use students for free labor that will consistently get done.
I’ve gone over this in my head so many times that I don’t even know what I really think anymore. All I can say is that in all my time in Tanzania I haven’t likened to the fact that students are taken out of class to be punished. Sure, I might not agree with the methods Tanzanians use for punishing students, but taking students out of class and forcing them to miss valuable class time (during which time they would be learning information that they would be tested on in the future) to serve their punishments is hugely detrimental to their performance. Sure, threatening to take students out of class to miss their lessons is an incentive for students to not misbehave (especially since they’ll get caned if they perform poorly on their weekly tests), but in an educational environment shouldn’t students’ learning take priority over all the other bullshit, like proving a point that students shouldn’t show up late for class?
That’s another thing; students who show up even five minutes late to school are held at the front gate and caned for being late. Most of the time, however, they’re put to work for as long as an hour to clean the outdoor school grounds to make the campus look more appealing. If the intention of a school is to help students learn and grow, then why are students forced to miss up to an hour of valuable class time cleaning when they would’ve only missed the first five minutes when they arrived late in the first place? To be honest, does much happen in the first five minutes of class anyway…anywhere in the world? In my experience at schools in America, Tanzania, and South Africa, the first five minutes is always fluff time for teachers to prepare themselves for their lessons, take attendance, and get organized and for students to get out their notebooks and prepare themselves for class. So then is it such a big deal that students miss the first five minutes, or even ten minutes, of class? Isn’t it preferable to allow students to go to class immediately after they arrive to school, even if they’re late, so that they’re able to perform well? Shouldn’t a school’s top priority be that it ensures that its students are able to learn as much as they can and perform as well as they can? In my ideal world, schools would function around that goal. For, what is a school if its main goal isn’t to educate its students?
What’s ironic to me, also, is that teachers rarely take their jobs seriously here and often treat their duties as teachers superfluously, as if they’re not worth their time. Since there’s a huge frustration here among teachers of government schools (like my school) that they do not get paid enough for their work, teachers willingly show up exceedingly late to class or do not show up to class at all, often leaving their students to fend for themselves and teach themselves the information they will need to know on their national exams. I know this kind of apathy is common among employees of any profession who feel they don’t earn as much money as they think they deserve, but when one’s job performance completely determines the success of others (like students in the case of teachers), apathy among employees should be remedied at all costs – otherwise many people will negatively be affected at no fault of their own (such as students who cannot control their teachers’ salaries).
Nevertheless, teachers can afford to be inconsiderate of their students’ success because they are hardly ever monitored, nor are they ever punished, for their apathetic behavior. If a teacher shows up late to school or doesn’t show up at all it’s treated as no big deal – it’s damn near normalized and expected of them, which is really awful; the other teachers and students don’t make a fuss about it and just assume something worthwhile must’ve kept the teacher from teaching so his or her absence is just. For sure, I agree it’s appropriate for a teacher to miss class for certain things like being sick, when he/she has a baby, when a close friend or relative is very sick or dies, but not showing up to your job just because you know you can get away with it is shocking to me. Or, it’s not shocking; it’s just disappointing and disheartening. Especially since many teachers sometimes don’t teach because they just don’t feel like it.
Teachers also compulsively lie about when they arrive to school in order to avoid being confronted by the Headmaster or the Second Headmistress of the school. Many a time I’ve come to school following the footsteps of another teacher who has just arrived before me around 8:50am (just before the third period of the day when my classes start on Mondays) and when I look in the teacher daily logbook later on to sign in I’ll see that the teacher before me lied and said he/she arrived just after (or even sometimes at the same time) as the teacher before him/her on the list. So, a teacher who arrived at 8:50 could lie and say he/she arrived at 7:30 just like all the other teachers. If he/she lies, it’s not like anyone will care…yet we still punish students at school for lying and cheating. It’s just a funny system to me.
What’s more is that the teachers not only don’t care much about doing their jobs well, but they feel entitled to feel that way on a level that’s almost dangerous to students. Or perhaps not almost, but that is dangerous and which jeopardizes students’ success. Since most of the teachers at my school were beaten in school like they beat their current students, they feel entitled to serve their students a dose of the medicine they had to endure when they were pupils. I swear some of the teachers carry around sticks ready to cane students at any second and they walk around as if they’re looking for an excuse to smack a student in order to get their personal frustrations out. For example, while I was teaching my class yesterday an older teacher interrupted my class and walked around caning students who did not have proper uniforms. Why it’s important whether a student is wearing a tie or whether his/her top button is buttoned on his/her shirt is beyond me – especially in how the dress code pertains to how well the student will be able to learn in class. Also, since it had been raining yesterday the whole morning one of my students had taken his shoes off to hang them up in class so they could dry. He’d soaked them while walking to school through heavy rain after trying to show up on time. Since he was barefoot, the teacher caned him because he wasn’t properly dressed. In his defense, if I had been him I would’ve also hung up my shoes to let them dry! In fact, he should’ve been rewarded for making such an effort to show up to school on time for our first period class because he was willing to walk in the rain before school. - - - Believe me, walking to school on heinously muddy roads is NOT an easy task. You have to walk extremely slow to avoid slipping and ruining your clothes for the day while also trying to avoid getting sprayed by mud-filled puddles that cars and motorcycles go rushing through beside you. No matter how fast, slow, or delicately you walk to school on a dirt road when it’s raining, your shoes are likely, if not guaranteed, to get incredibly soaked and muddy. Hence it’s the logical thing to do to hang up your shoes and let them dry once you’ve arrived inside the dry comfort of your classroom. - - - However, this teacher could not be swayed. She had a look of serious determination in her eyes to hit the students. It was as if she were craving to hit them. Now it might sound a little blown out of proportion, but seriously some of the teachers look so satisfied when they’re hitting or have just hit students. They laugh in a cocky way and act like they’re hot shit as if they’re untouchable and completely in the right. Maybe according to their cultural standards they are and maybe they are indeed entitled to hit students when they’ve done something bad – but boy it’s been disturbing and unsettling for me to observe their habits.
Now, I’ve been over the issue of punishment with teachers here time and time again. Even though I’ve tried to hide my distaste, or perhaps more accurate, my disgust, for caning, there’s no denying that I haven’t been able to hide my anxious facial expressions and nervous body language when a student around me gets caned. The teachers especially use the Staff Room to hit students, which, being the only available space on campus to work, is unavoidable for me. When the other teachers watch me as they cane their students they can read me like a book and they see that it bothers me, hence they always inquire me about how I feel about it. To be honest, I’ve been very blunt with the teachers about how I feel, but I’ve been guarded and careful about coming off as judgmental. I usually state in a matter-of-fact way that in America we don’t cane students and that such behavior would be considered very inappropriate and punishable for the teacher, even illegal. It’s almost considered along the lines of child abuse these days. I refrain from putting in my own two cents about how I think it’s wrong and immoral and awful and just gruesome and unnecessary. After all, I’m a guest in their culture and who am I to walk in here with my outside cultural perspectives and impose my own cultural views and values on their ways of life? (For sure when it comes to hurting other people I feel like there should be some universal cultural standards for what is okay and what is not, but it’s a delicate issue to try to share my opinions without sounding like a self-righteous American who’s come to Tanzania to tell Tanzanians what’s the right way to live. That’s a struggle almost all volunteers from other countries undergo when working in another country. Basically, it’s a superiority complex and it’s been really hard to negotiate – a learning experience for sure).
After expressing the unaccepted nature of caning students in America, teachers then ask me whether we punish students and how we do so. After explaining the concept of detention to them, the teachers just shake their heads and say that such a method would never be effective here for deterring students to misbehave. For one thing, since there are so many students on campus (easily 800+) and there are so few teachers and staff (approximately 30), it’s impossible to expect teachers to force students to stay after school. It’s too easy for them to escape and avoid the watchful eyes of teachers. What’s more, the teachers argue that Tanzanian students wouldn’t consider staying after school to study and do their work as punishment – they would consider it as normal. Many students stay after school every day on their own initiatives in order to study and get work done. Furthermore, the teachers at school are simply unwilling to stay after school to monitor students who need to be punished. They perceive it as a waste of their time and would rather use time during the school day, during which time they’re expected to be at school, in order to punish students so that they can return home at the end of the school day to spend time with their families. Finally, they insist that African children are different than American children and that they need to be caned in order to become proper people. They agree that detention might work for American students, but that nothing else is more effective for African students than caning and putting them to work as punishment. I’ve heard this shpeel from almost every teacher at Moro Sec who’s questioned me about punishment. My argument for them to consider is that if caning is such an effective punishment then why do the same students continue to misbehave. For sure, most of the students who get punished are repeat offenders who clearly haven’t learned their lessons no matter how many times they’ve been caned. Also, being able to resist the temptation to cry out when getting caned and to just “suck it up” is regarded as a status-worthy quality among students. Students almost compete with each other to try not to make caning seem like a big deal, especially the boys. While girls might cry (because it really does hurt like crazy!), boys hold back their tears and try to act like tough guys. They earn respect among their peers by doing so. Hence, if they can tough out a quick beating like a “man” then they don’t care very much about having to face the same punishment again in the future. Hence, they continue to misbehave.
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I want to add a disclaimer here that even though I’ve been critical of teachers’ behaviors at my school that their particular behaviors, attitudes, and ways of teaching that I’ve critiqued do not represent every Tanzanian teacher’s ways. For sure I’ve come across teachers at Moro Sec who are incredibly dedicated to teaching, in fact some of whom love teaching, and who I would consider to be very good teachers. They care about their students’ success and really want what’s best for their students. They strive to be the best teachers they can be because they know how important getting an education in Tanzania is. It’s a rare privilege to even reach secondary school in Tanzania and many teachers recognize and honor this fact. Hence, in defense of my criticism about some of their behaviors, I’ve simply chosen to be honest and forthright about the dilemmas that I’ve faced being an American teacher coming from such a different teaching atmosphere compared to the Tanzanian teaching climate.
I come from a privileged educational background in America that has shaped the way I perceive the world and the way I think teaching should be. I grew up in an educational environment in which students were treated like special gems, nurtured and pumped up with information by caring teachers in hopes that they would use their knowledge as power to contribute to the American economy someday. Educating students in America is seen as a worthwhile cultural investment of time and energy for the good of America’s future. Americans value education so highly because it goes hand-in-hand with the American creed that if you work hard you will succeed – namely, it is an essential piece in the model of meritocracy that fuels the American dream. Many Americans think that if you work hard in school and achieve good grades then you will be successful in the future and hence have a good life. That is perhaps what motivates so many high school graduates to fight tooth-and-nail to get into colleges or universities that will help them achieve higher education.
Growing up in a country that puts such a high value on delivering the highest quality education to students has not only been a privilege, but it has forced me to interpret my experience teaching in Tanzania through certain cultural lenses that I cannot rid myself of. While I cannot prevent myself from forming perceptions of Tanzanian education that my own experience has informed, I can be completely humble in admitting that my views here are not right or wrong, but merely a perspective I’ve been willing to share about what it’s been like for me to come from one culture and integrate into another culture’s ways of doing things. Furthermore, in no way do my views represent every American teacher’s experiences working at schools in Tanzania, nor can I say with certainty that they properly reflect the opinions of my fellow WorldTeach colleagues. Every person who goes abroad (no matter one’s country of origin or destination) to serve, work, volunteer, study, or conduct research is likely to undergo deeply reflective moments like this when he/she questions what he/she has always known as normal and what he or she has been confronted with in another culture. In fact, I encourage travelers to push themselves to be incredibly self-reflective and provocative of their roots that have formed their opinions about the world as I have tried to be here. It is only when we question ourselves that we have the greatest potential for growth.
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As if a student’s life at school isn’t challenging enough, as I’ve already revealed, the schedule at the secondary school also demands a lot of students. School starts at 7:30am and lasts until 2:30pm. Within that amount of time students only get a short break between classes. Students attend classes until 11:30am and then they get a 20-minute break during which time they usually buy snacks. There is no cafeteria on campus similar to the likes of American high school cafeterias that serve different kinds of food each day. The only food available on campus every day is always the same every day and it’s also largely unhealthy and not the best energy-boosting food to enhance students’ learning capacities inside the classroom. The main choices of food on campus include fried cassava (a root vegetable similar to the potato or yam) and fried chapatti (flour mixed with oil and then fried again like an oily tortilla). One piece of fried cassava is only 50 Tanzanian shillings, so most students buy little baggies of 6-8 pieces. One chapatti is 200 shillings and students usually buy two of them. Other less popular options include samosas (minced meat, spices and cooked vegetables inside triangular-shaped fried dough), maandazi (fried sweet doughnuts), kitumbua (fried sweet rice cakes), “ice cream” (homemade frozen popsicles inside tubular plastic bags that’re filled with frozen sodas and juices), and peanuts (perhaps the healthiest option).
By 11:30am the part of the campus right near the staff room (where the other teachers and I usually are when we’re not in class) floods with students. That is the area where the foods are sold. Students compete to get chapatti or cassava as fast as they can. To avoid crowding since the area is so small, friend groups usually send one person to buy food for all of the members of the group. Since they only have 20 minutes, which is more like 15 minutes when you factor in the time it takes them to walk to and from their classrooms to the area where they sell food, they try to be as efficient with their time as they can be. I would too if I only had fifteen minutes to refuel.
Since most of these students have to walk to school from even as far as 1-2 hours away (and hence they must leave their homes between 5:30am and 6:00am), they may go as many as six hours without eating before break (assuming they have something for breakfast before they leave for school)– and even the food they ingest isn’t the most fibrous or filling! I usually have hearty oatmeal mixed with sliced bananas for breakfast every morning around 6:30am and by 11:30 I am really jiving for some food! Since I don’t prefer the fried foods offered at school, I usually try to bring fresh fruit from home or that I buy from the small Madizini (meaning “Many Bananas”) market I always pass by on my way to school.
It’s shocking to me that no one comes to campus to sell fruit because I feel like if the option were available then at least some students would buy fruit. But then again I’m a foreigner from New England – a land totally lacking of fresh fruits and vegetables of its own for at least half the year due to long and harsh winters – so of course I can’t get enough of the fresh produce here. Tanzanians are able to take for granted their plentiful quantities of fruits and veggies all year round, hence when they’re at school it’s preferable for them to get something cooked that took time for someone else to prepare. Tanzanians also greatly favor eating almost anything over fruits and vegetables, I’ve observed. In fact, if you are Tanzanian and you go to the market to just buy fruits and vegetables and you do not buy rice, ugali flour (made from dried corn), and/or beans, other Tanzanians will assume you are lower class. Since fruits and vegetables are so cheap here (usually only 100 shillings per item – at least for me as a foreigner…I’m sure they’re even cheaper for local Tanzanians), it’s assumed that people who only buy them cannot afford the starchy staples, like rice and ugali flour, that compose the heart of the Tanzanian diet. It’s funny how status can be powerful enough to deter people here from trying to eat healthily! In America, it’s the total opposite; fruits, vegetables, and other healthy products are much more expensive and usually associated with cuisine for people in the higher classes than the unhealthier products like chips, cakes, and other starchy/fatty foods that are highly valued in Tanzania. It could have something to do with the scarcity factor of it all, too, in that if fruits and vegetables are plentiful here they are less desirable, whereas when they must be shipped from other parts of the world to New England during the cold months they are coveted and greatly valued.
No matter the cultural mores of Tanzanian food, I’ve tried to maintain a healthy diet since I’ve arrived, eating mostly fresh produce from the market and brown rice, brown bread, and oatmeal – all of which I can buy at the supermarket. That’s another thing – most Tanzanians I’ve met have never even stepped foot inside of the two main supermarkets (Murad’s and Pira’s in downtown Morogoro) where I go to purchase Westernized food products that I can’t get at any local shop or at the market; nor do most Tanzanians known where the supermarkets even are! Not only are these shops more expensive (duh) than most other places that sell food, they sell food that’s mostly foreign, unknown, and hence undesirable to the majority of Tanzanian people. For example, when my students asked me what I eat for breakfast and I told them I eat oatmeal they asked me, “Madam, what is oatmeal?” Even if you wouldn’t expect it, trying to explain oatmeal to people who aren’t even familiar with what oats are in the first place is extremely difficult, haha. I’m not sure if I succeeded in describing it. Oatmeal might be one of those foods you can only know by seeing it once.
Yet, Tanzanians are just fine without purchasing anything from the fancy food selections that the town supermarkets boast. They take a lot of pride in cooking traditional Tanzanian dishes for their families instead that often take a couple hours to prepare. Girls as young as four-years-old start learning from other women in the kitchen about how to prepare Tanzanian food from scratch so that by the time they’re even ten-years-old they know all the recipes by heart and can whip them up with ease. As I’ve said before, a Tanzanian woman who does not offer to help cook in the kitchen, even when she is a guest somewhere (like my friend Correta who recently came to my house for brunch), is sorely looked upon by other Tanzanians – men and women alike. Even a very young woman who does not at least offer to help in the kitchen is considered lazy and hence more undesirable as a future wife, for a proper Tanzanian wife is expected to have a complete knowledge of Tanzanian cooking so that she can make food for her family.
I really admire Tanzanians’ commitment to maintaining their cultural traditions in these ways, even if they might be a little sexist (but who’s to say Americans’ norms of mothers doing the majority of the cooking isn’t also sexist?). Coming from a melting pot culture, I’ve found it extremely difficult to describe the quintessential elements of American cuisine, especially. We have a lot of Italian food, sure, but we also love our adopted courses from other countries ranging as far as Mexico and China. When my students ask me what are typical American foods, all I can really think of listing is pizza, boxed cereals, hotdogs, hamburgers, spaghetti and other pastas. It’s hard to think of something that’s completely American when the nature of America is to borrow and adopt from so many other countries! O ann incredibly humorous side-note, recently I tried to explain what Mexican food is to my students – they had first asked me if I missed any foods that I could get in America but not in Tanzania and I had mentioned Mexican food. As an example I tried to explain to my students that I like to eat “tacos”. As soon as I mentioned the word “taco” all of my students roared in outrageous, uncontrollable laughter and they totally lost it. After the laughing dissipated after five minutes they clarified that “taco” in Kiswahili means “buttocks.” HAHA! So essentially I had said that I like to eat butts, haha. Gross! When they told me that I couldn’t stop laughing along with them. It really was one of my favorite moments of teaching in which something is so beautifully ironic between two languages that you cannot help but laugh yourself into the ground!
On the topic of Mexican food and tacos, I’ve been keeping up my Spanish club at school. I always look forward to the club meeting every week because only my best and brightest (and let’s face it…my favorite) students attend the meeting. It’s a real privilege to work with a small group of 15 or so students who are really dedicated to learning and eager to know so much about the world when they’re only 14-15 years old! Their high energy motivates me to keep up my own! Yesterday I hosted the club meeting and taught my students vocabulary for family members in Spanish. Somehow we got a little off topic and soon I was teaching my students how to dance the tango and how to sing “Besame Mucho” (“Kiss Me A Lot”) in Spanish. I had a hell of a time. I’ll never forget it!
As I was about to leave to go home to tutor some women in English after the Spanish club meeting, some of my students stopped me at the door. One student gave me a special Tanzanian-style handshake which I’ve gotten down pat since I arrive ten months ago. As soon as I proved myself by doing the handshake properly, six other students lined up in a row so I would give them handshakes as well. The last student, Francis, held my hand in his after we shook and wouldn’t let it go. He looked me right in the eyes and said, “Madam, don’t go. You can’t go.” By now all of my students are well aware of the fact that I only have three more weeks left in Morogoro and two more weeks of teaching left at Moro Sec before I have to go back to the U.S. As soon as Francis spoke, all the other students started nodding and bouncing up and down in agreement, protesting my having to leave Tanzania so soon. As Francis looked into my eyes with such a sad face I almost couldn’t help but well up in tears. I managed to keep it together, but damn, that was a really special moment. Seeing the expression on his face and feeling how tightly he was gripping my hand really made me experience fully in one GIGANTIC moment what my time here has meant to him as one of my students. It was clear that I’d made an impression on him that he’ll never forget. Maybe that sounds egotistical, but the truth of the matter is that no matter how much of an impression I’ve made on any of my students in the past months, they’ll never be able to grasp how much I’ve gotten out of this experience myself just through knowing them.
Getting to know my students has been a privilege of a lifetime that really is beyond words. Their ability to welcome me into their classrooms every day; hearing them say “Good Morning/Afternoon Madam!” enthusiastically as they stand up to greet me as I enter the room; and answering their hundreds of questions about English, America, how I find Tanzania, what I like about this and that, and about me has been deeply touching. Even if other teachers aren’t so gung-ho about teaching for the wholesome benefit of their students, my experience has been all about the students. My students have made my experience.
That’s my favorite thing about my whole time here – that it’s been a mutual exchange in which everyone I’ve gotten to know has learned/gained something from me and I’ve learned/gained something from them. Too often study exchange opportunities that have the potential to be incredibly enriching and mutually-beneficial cross-cultural experiences become very one sided; sometimes the visitor gains more from the hosts, offering little in exchange for all the cultural insights they’ve offered, or the visitor is disinterested in learning anything about the hosts and is instead more preoccupied with dumping his or her (perceivably superior) own foreign knowledge on the hosts than to bother him/herself with getting to know anything about the actual people he/she is working with. That’s not the case for me. I can say with utmost certainly and satisfaction that this experience has been all it could be because my students and I made it as good as it could have been. I’m so proud and, most of all, so thankful of all the people who ever motivated me or supported me to pursue my goal to teach in Tanzania. I’ve become a better person because of it and I want you to know that you’re better people too for helping aid me throughout this whole journey.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Morogoro Mountaineer
Three weeks ago I finally made an ascent into the Uluguru Mountains, which have been looming behind my house ever since I moved to Morogoro in September of last year. A group of friends from Belgium, Holland, and Germany who are currently living in Dar-es-Salaam met my housemate and I in Morogoro on Saturday morning around 8:30. We went to the tourist office in Morogoro together and met the three Tanzanian guides that would be joining us on our hike for the day. Our guides were Pamfrius (Pam for short), Samuel, and Immanuel (Imma for short).
We were scheduled for two hikes that day: Choma and then Morningside. We would hike the Choma tour first, a four-hour hike on its own, then break for lunch on top of the mountain. After lunch those of us who wanted to continue would then proceed to the second hike to Morningside, another four-hour hike, and those of us who were tired of climbing would descend the mountain.
We took off from the tourist office by 9:00am after we’d bought several liters of water for the hike. We began the tour by walking down a long paved road away from town to the foot of the Uluguru Mountains. As we passed along the road we saw a small group of men and women in a choir from Dar-es-Salaam who were filming a music video together. All of the men were in black dress pants and lime green button up shirts. The eight of them were in a row dancing synched choreography together. They looked like they were having a hell of a time. The women who were also intending to appear in the music video stood around behind the camera chatting and watching the men as they waited for their turn to go on film. As the group of us walked past we decided to pay a short visit to the dancers to greet and observe them. They were so enthusiastic to have our company that they got the two guys in our group to dance off camera with one of the directors along to the music the men were dancing to. It was such a hoot watching the guys try to keep up with the dancing. African choreography, no matter for men or women, usually involves a lot of fast hip and waist movement, which the guys, coming from Belgium and Holland, were not used to. Even so, they tried their best and we all enjoyed the experience a lot. After ten minutes we said our goodbyes and continued our attempt to scale the Uluguru Mountains.
Half an hour later we finally veered off the paved road to a dirt road at the base of the mountains. Since I walk at least an hour every day going to and from school and I often run in the evenings I’m in pretty good shape so I didn’t have trouble going up the mountain. I was often leading the group. I’m so used to walking fast that it just seemed natural. I even ran up the mountain at one point with another girl in the group. It was pretty fun.
About an hour into the hike we reached a rest area that has a small restaurant and places for climbers to sleep. As soon as we approached it I saw that there was a swing set. I immediately rushed down the labyrinth that led to it and hopped onto a swing. I pumped my legs so I was soaring high above the ground in no time. It felt incredibly liberating to be floating above the ground. Each time I reached as high as the swing would take me I could see all of Morogoro below me. All of the buildings in the town looked like the tiny white flecks inside a snow globe, scattered around and moving beneath my eyes as I swung above them. After a short rest on the swing we were on our way again.
Along our hike our three guides were having a friendly competition amongst each other naming as many plants as they could by their scientific names. To my surprise, they were able to name off the scientific names for pretty much everything we saw. Throughout our journey we spotted a ton of edible plant life ranging from banana, mango, passion fruit, and avocado trees to pineapple, carrot, corn, and cabbage plants emerging from the earth. Although some of the plants were wild, most of them had been cultivated by the Luguru people who live in the mountains.
It’s reported that more than 3.5 million Luguru people live in the Uluguru mountains …hence how the mountains got their name. All throughout our hike we saw whole societies of people living on the mountains. They all seemed like thriving and very self-sufficient communities. Being at least a four-hour hike from the main town of Morogoro requires nothing less of the Luguru people. There’s no electricity, but there’s a plentiful supply of really clean running water – some of which flows from waterfalls. The guides told us that the Luguru people come to town usually just once a week to get rice and other things that they cannot provide for themselves on the mountains. Since cars and motorbikes can only make it partially up the mountain, the Luguru people have to carry everything they get from town up to their home places by hand. In fact, we passed by dozens of women with all sorts of heavy loads balanced on top of their heads as we walked. Many of the women walk so much through the mountains that the heels of their sandals are completely worn through. As you might assume based on all the daily work it takes to get around the steep mountains and get between town and home, the Luguru people are some of the healthiest and longest living people in all of Tanzania.
Although it seems like really hard work living on the mountainside (and it is), the hard work pays off… One of the greatest rewards for living on the mountain is having access to plentiful sources of crystal clear and disease free water flowing from the tops of waterfalls. Another perk is being able to gaze at some of the nicest views I’ve ever seen in my life. Many people’s back yards look like the real versions of some of the most coveted and majestic post card images the world has ever seen. I’m not exaggerating. It was absolutely gorgeous from the mountainside. I felt privileged to be able to share the sights with the Luguru people, even just for a day.
What I was wondering as we climbed was what it must be like to live all your life on the mountains and then have to come down to the populous flatland of the Morogoro town center. Since I grew up in a very rural town myself I know what it’s like to live far away from town, but I wasn’t this isolated and I did grow up with luxuries like electricity, internet, cable television, etc. Also it only took a thirty-minute drive to reach a semi-dense city. Even with that experience, I find it hard to believe what the transition between the mountains and the towns and city centers of Tanzania and beyond must be like for the Luguru. I’m sure that with the number of people in the Uluguru mountains only surging, it means that most of the Luguru people must prefer remaining at home in the mountains. I really don’t blame them.
What’s really ridiculous is how many Luguru people make such an effort to maintain what we would consider normal lives of going to school and working. Our guides told us that kids who live hours up the mountains must descend and scale the mountains every day for hours just to make it to and from schools in the town center of Morogoro where they study. Perhaps some of my students at the Morogoro Secondary School are among those children. What’s more, many of the Luguru adults who live on the mountains have jobs in the Morogoro town and must spend hours traveling between work and home. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have to spend three h ours walking alongside steep mountains just to get to and from home and school.
Furthermore, our guides told us that 90% of the Luguru people are Muslim. On our way up the mountain about two hours into our hike we passed by one of the two mosques on that side of the mountain where the Luguru come from all over to worship. The sound of the Call to Prayer must echo across the entire landscape. I bet it sounds beautiful.
We also saw a couple of animals on the mountainside. My friend and I who were leading the trek up front saw and heard some rustling in the bushes about 5 feet away from our path. Spooked, we stood back, cautious and anxious to see what was causing all the noise. It turns out that a goat was behind the bushes munching on some grass. Thank God it was a goat. Just before that I’d asked about whether or not the guides had ever seen snakes along their hikes, so I was fearful that the creature had been a snake before I could see it was a goat. One of the guides, Imma, confirmed that he had seen a huge snake digesting a dog once (an entire dog!!) off a hiking trail somewhere in Tanzania, but far enough away from Morogoro where we wouldn’t have to worry about seeing it for ourselves. He also said that since the rainy season was starting there weren’t too many snakes around so we shouldn’t have to worry. There are many more of them out on the hillsides during the dry season. So…you can imagine how relieved I was when I saw a goat rather than a snake! Although I don’t have much of a fear of snakes back home in the U.S., my phobia of them has intensified greatly since I’ve lived in Tanzania for nine months because if you get bitten by a poisonous snake here then that’s pretty much the end of your life right there. Since there’s really no concept here of emergency medical care (e.g. being able to call 911 or having an ambulance rush you to the nearest hospital), I know that I’ll be done for if a venomous snake bites me. Hence, my increasing fear is rather legitimate.
Not only did we see goats on the hike, but we also saw cows grazing the hillside and cats and dogs roaming around outside people’s houses. At one point I heard a weird sound resembling a cow mooing, but I couldn’t see a cow so I originally wondered why someone ahead of me in our hiking group was making such a weird sound, haha. It wasn’t until I saw that there was a cow way up on the hillside that I realized it had been an actual cow mooing instead of someone in our group crying out in agony.
The hike proceeded fairly smoothly all the way up to the top of Choma. We took frequent water breaks because it was a really hot day even in the mountains. By the time we reached the peak of Choma we could hear the rumbling of water gushing from waterfalls. We climbed down a super steep and narrow pathway to rest at the base of one of the waterfalls. It was absolutely breathtaking! We shed our shoes and crawled like true primates, using our hands and feet to grip slimy rocks and catch our balance as we crouched down to make it across several larger rocks into the big pool of water at the base of the waterfall. The mist caused from the power of the waterfall sprayed our bodies as we stood knee-deep in the small pool. Standing there I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. There was absolutely no one else around. The only sound you could hear was the crashing and booming of the water as it dumped itself into the hole at the bottom. All I could do was smile and appreciate the fact that I was there. To make the experience even sweeter, a local Luguru man climbed down to meet us and offered to sell us passion fruit, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries. Like true tourists, we were happy to help out a local Luguru man, so we gleefully all chipped in and bought an assortment of the natural treats. Since it had been months since I’ve tasted those kind of berries, I was especially excited to taste them.
After basking at the base of the waterfall for half an hour we put on our shoes and readied ourselves to climb back up the steep hill to the main path we’d been walking on. By that point it had started drizzling a little bit so the compact dirt path to the waterfall was pretty slick. As if like a leapfrog effect, as each person made his or her ascent up the path the person behind him/her became his/her spotter until we all made it safely back to the main path.
By that point it was already 1:00pm and our stomachs were grumbling and readying themselves for the local Tanzanian food that awaited us in a Luguru house just ten minutes away. Once we reached the house we all relaxed in cushioned chairs and chatted about our satisfaction with the hike so far. Meanwhile, a Luguru woman who had prepared the food for us was busy bringing out the various finished dishes to the table in the sitting room. As each dish took its place on the table the aromas of the food danced around the room and swirled around in our noses.
Finally it was time to eat! We gorged our taste buds on rice, ugali (boiled corn flour that becomes a stiff porridge when cooked, which is especially useful for soaking up the soupy flavors of other foods), boiled cassava leaves resembling a mushy multi-colored green mess resembling cooked spinach (it was extremely delicious…and my favorite!), and fish stew with a smooth coconut broth. It was all delicious and satisfying. As soon as we replenished our food energy we all instantly went into mini food comas. The conversation died down a little as we all relaxed and really soaked it in that we were on top of a huge mountain in Tanzania. It was such a great realization.
During lunch a few local craftsmen and craftswomen came with their artwork (bracelets, necklaces, paintings, and small sculptures) and set out a small display of them outside the house where we ate. Inside the house the woman who cooked the food for us advertised the local handmade pottery made with clay taken from the mountain. She was selling small clay bowls for only 1,000 Tanzanian shillings ($1 = 1500 TZ Shillings). As a lover of pottery she sucked me right in and I bought one of the bowls. I’m happy to report it even made it down the mountain with me unshattered and even unchipped. To be able to bring home such a unique and special product of the Luguru people and the Uluguru Mountains as a physical token of my hike up the mountain is a really amazing thing for me. While it might just be a bowl, it represents the mountains that have been a part of my life every day since I’ve been living in Morogoro.
As we snapped out of our food comas we settled on who would continue to Morningside and who would leave the mountain through a repeat of the Choma route. I decided to stick it out and make it to Morningside along with four other people from the group. Two of the guides accompanied us while the other guide went with the four others who were heading home.
It only took an hour for us to get to the Morningside site after lunch, but it was probably my most favorite part of the whole day hike. By the time we were trekking to Morningside we were already on the top of the mountain so we could literally see all of Morogoro below us on our way. Every time we could get a clear glimpse of the land below we stopped to take photos to just take it all in. Arguably more breathtaking was all the land that surrounded us at that height on the mountain. Huge forests of trees from the rainforest beyond spanned the countryside. I felt like I was living inside an imagined landscape created by a famous artist’s brushstrokes. It was almost too pretty to believe it was all real.
While we were at Morningside we explored the old building the Germans had built at the site in 1911. The whole building smelled like rotting mildew and didn’t look very well kept. Graffiti that had been chipped into the walls identified previous visitors. It plastered every inch of the walls. Going from room to room, the whole building felt like a really dark and eerie maze. Every room inside had two doors, each of which led to another neighboring room. It would have easy to get lost in there had it not been for one of our guides who was leading us around. In one of the rooms there was even an ancient looking bathtub along with an old stove for cooking. There were a few disheveled-looking bed frames in some of the bedrooms with musty thin foam mattresses where hikers are welcome to use when they reached the site. It was only a couple thousand shillings to stay overnight since the offerings were meager. Still, the building provides a safe place to stay as it has a nice roof overhead for when it rains and a small fireplace to warm yourself up in front of after hiking for a long way. Although it was obvious that the place’s heyday had since passed long ago, it was still intriguing to explore such an important building to the history of colonialism in Tanzania. Even though I wouldn’t be tempted to recommend an overnight stay there (it really did feel like a spooky haunted old mansion), its sense of history was very interesting and definitely worth a visit.
After our short visit at Morningside we continued down the mountain. It started sprinkling as we started to walk again, but luckily we avoided any downpours. Since most of the sky was bright blue with only a few clouds and it was sunny as all get out, I was really hoping to see a rainbow, but it never materialized. The landscape changed dramatically as we scaled off the mountain. The paths we had used earlier on during our hike that had been so narrow and rough morphed into smoother paths wide enough for cars and motorcycles to pass on them.
We passed by a few thriving communities on our way down the mountain, one of which I was told has a reputation for taking advantage of naïve travelers and trying to steal their things if they aren’t with a guide. I was definitely happy to have two guides with the five of us hiking at that point – since all of us who chose to continue on to Morningside are White and hence look clearly foreign, we would’ve been likely victims of thievery had we been alone. Fortunately we didn’t run into any problems and the people at the first sight even seemed really friendly. With the sheer number of them, though, I could see how it would have been easy to overtake a lone traveler and steal his or her things.
We finally exited the foot of the mountain around 6:00pm, just in time for dusk to set in. By that point the bottoms of all our feet were pretty sore from stomping down the steep parts of the mountain on our way down. We followed our guides back to the tourist office, thanked them for their kindness and superb guidance and then took off back home. After getting out of our hiking gear and washing off the mud that covered our bodies, we freshened up and met the whole hiking group in town at the New Green Indian-cuisine restaurant and shared a meal together in celebration of our hike earlier on in the day. Surrounded by good food, good company, and buzzing with excitement from summiting the Uluguru Mountains, I really couldn’t have been happier. Reflecting on it now, it feels good to have explored the mountains that have been making shadows in my backyard since I moved to Morogoro in September.
We were scheduled for two hikes that day: Choma and then Morningside. We would hike the Choma tour first, a four-hour hike on its own, then break for lunch on top of the mountain. After lunch those of us who wanted to continue would then proceed to the second hike to Morningside, another four-hour hike, and those of us who were tired of climbing would descend the mountain.
We took off from the tourist office by 9:00am after we’d bought several liters of water for the hike. We began the tour by walking down a long paved road away from town to the foot of the Uluguru Mountains. As we passed along the road we saw a small group of men and women in a choir from Dar-es-Salaam who were filming a music video together. All of the men were in black dress pants and lime green button up shirts. The eight of them were in a row dancing synched choreography together. They looked like they were having a hell of a time. The women who were also intending to appear in the music video stood around behind the camera chatting and watching the men as they waited for their turn to go on film. As the group of us walked past we decided to pay a short visit to the dancers to greet and observe them. They were so enthusiastic to have our company that they got the two guys in our group to dance off camera with one of the directors along to the music the men were dancing to. It was such a hoot watching the guys try to keep up with the dancing. African choreography, no matter for men or women, usually involves a lot of fast hip and waist movement, which the guys, coming from Belgium and Holland, were not used to. Even so, they tried their best and we all enjoyed the experience a lot. After ten minutes we said our goodbyes and continued our attempt to scale the Uluguru Mountains.
Half an hour later we finally veered off the paved road to a dirt road at the base of the mountains. Since I walk at least an hour every day going to and from school and I often run in the evenings I’m in pretty good shape so I didn’t have trouble going up the mountain. I was often leading the group. I’m so used to walking fast that it just seemed natural. I even ran up the mountain at one point with another girl in the group. It was pretty fun.
About an hour into the hike we reached a rest area that has a small restaurant and places for climbers to sleep. As soon as we approached it I saw that there was a swing set. I immediately rushed down the labyrinth that led to it and hopped onto a swing. I pumped my legs so I was soaring high above the ground in no time. It felt incredibly liberating to be floating above the ground. Each time I reached as high as the swing would take me I could see all of Morogoro below me. All of the buildings in the town looked like the tiny white flecks inside a snow globe, scattered around and moving beneath my eyes as I swung above them. After a short rest on the swing we were on our way again.
Along our hike our three guides were having a friendly competition amongst each other naming as many plants as they could by their scientific names. To my surprise, they were able to name off the scientific names for pretty much everything we saw. Throughout our journey we spotted a ton of edible plant life ranging from banana, mango, passion fruit, and avocado trees to pineapple, carrot, corn, and cabbage plants emerging from the earth. Although some of the plants were wild, most of them had been cultivated by the Luguru people who live in the mountains.
It’s reported that more than 3.5 million Luguru people live in the Uluguru mountains …hence how the mountains got their name. All throughout our hike we saw whole societies of people living on the mountains. They all seemed like thriving and very self-sufficient communities. Being at least a four-hour hike from the main town of Morogoro requires nothing less of the Luguru people. There’s no electricity, but there’s a plentiful supply of really clean running water – some of which flows from waterfalls. The guides told us that the Luguru people come to town usually just once a week to get rice and other things that they cannot provide for themselves on the mountains. Since cars and motorbikes can only make it partially up the mountain, the Luguru people have to carry everything they get from town up to their home places by hand. In fact, we passed by dozens of women with all sorts of heavy loads balanced on top of their heads as we walked. Many of the women walk so much through the mountains that the heels of their sandals are completely worn through. As you might assume based on all the daily work it takes to get around the steep mountains and get between town and home, the Luguru people are some of the healthiest and longest living people in all of Tanzania.
Although it seems like really hard work living on the mountainside (and it is), the hard work pays off… One of the greatest rewards for living on the mountain is having access to plentiful sources of crystal clear and disease free water flowing from the tops of waterfalls. Another perk is being able to gaze at some of the nicest views I’ve ever seen in my life. Many people’s back yards look like the real versions of some of the most coveted and majestic post card images the world has ever seen. I’m not exaggerating. It was absolutely gorgeous from the mountainside. I felt privileged to be able to share the sights with the Luguru people, even just for a day.
What I was wondering as we climbed was what it must be like to live all your life on the mountains and then have to come down to the populous flatland of the Morogoro town center. Since I grew up in a very rural town myself I know what it’s like to live far away from town, but I wasn’t this isolated and I did grow up with luxuries like electricity, internet, cable television, etc. Also it only took a thirty-minute drive to reach a semi-dense city. Even with that experience, I find it hard to believe what the transition between the mountains and the towns and city centers of Tanzania and beyond must be like for the Luguru. I’m sure that with the number of people in the Uluguru mountains only surging, it means that most of the Luguru people must prefer remaining at home in the mountains. I really don’t blame them.
What’s really ridiculous is how many Luguru people make such an effort to maintain what we would consider normal lives of going to school and working. Our guides told us that kids who live hours up the mountains must descend and scale the mountains every day for hours just to make it to and from schools in the town center of Morogoro where they study. Perhaps some of my students at the Morogoro Secondary School are among those children. What’s more, many of the Luguru adults who live on the mountains have jobs in the Morogoro town and must spend hours traveling between work and home. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have to spend three h ours walking alongside steep mountains just to get to and from home and school.
Furthermore, our guides told us that 90% of the Luguru people are Muslim. On our way up the mountain about two hours into our hike we passed by one of the two mosques on that side of the mountain where the Luguru come from all over to worship. The sound of the Call to Prayer must echo across the entire landscape. I bet it sounds beautiful.
We also saw a couple of animals on the mountainside. My friend and I who were leading the trek up front saw and heard some rustling in the bushes about 5 feet away from our path. Spooked, we stood back, cautious and anxious to see what was causing all the noise. It turns out that a goat was behind the bushes munching on some grass. Thank God it was a goat. Just before that I’d asked about whether or not the guides had ever seen snakes along their hikes, so I was fearful that the creature had been a snake before I could see it was a goat. One of the guides, Imma, confirmed that he had seen a huge snake digesting a dog once (an entire dog!!) off a hiking trail somewhere in Tanzania, but far enough away from Morogoro where we wouldn’t have to worry about seeing it for ourselves. He also said that since the rainy season was starting there weren’t too many snakes around so we shouldn’t have to worry. There are many more of them out on the hillsides during the dry season. So…you can imagine how relieved I was when I saw a goat rather than a snake! Although I don’t have much of a fear of snakes back home in the U.S., my phobia of them has intensified greatly since I’ve lived in Tanzania for nine months because if you get bitten by a poisonous snake here then that’s pretty much the end of your life right there. Since there’s really no concept here of emergency medical care (e.g. being able to call 911 or having an ambulance rush you to the nearest hospital), I know that I’ll be done for if a venomous snake bites me. Hence, my increasing fear is rather legitimate.
Not only did we see goats on the hike, but we also saw cows grazing the hillside and cats and dogs roaming around outside people’s houses. At one point I heard a weird sound resembling a cow mooing, but I couldn’t see a cow so I originally wondered why someone ahead of me in our hiking group was making such a weird sound, haha. It wasn’t until I saw that there was a cow way up on the hillside that I realized it had been an actual cow mooing instead of someone in our group crying out in agony.
The hike proceeded fairly smoothly all the way up to the top of Choma. We took frequent water breaks because it was a really hot day even in the mountains. By the time we reached the peak of Choma we could hear the rumbling of water gushing from waterfalls. We climbed down a super steep and narrow pathway to rest at the base of one of the waterfalls. It was absolutely breathtaking! We shed our shoes and crawled like true primates, using our hands and feet to grip slimy rocks and catch our balance as we crouched down to make it across several larger rocks into the big pool of water at the base of the waterfall. The mist caused from the power of the waterfall sprayed our bodies as we stood knee-deep in the small pool. Standing there I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. There was absolutely no one else around. The only sound you could hear was the crashing and booming of the water as it dumped itself into the hole at the bottom. All I could do was smile and appreciate the fact that I was there. To make the experience even sweeter, a local Luguru man climbed down to meet us and offered to sell us passion fruit, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries. Like true tourists, we were happy to help out a local Luguru man, so we gleefully all chipped in and bought an assortment of the natural treats. Since it had been months since I’ve tasted those kind of berries, I was especially excited to taste them.
After basking at the base of the waterfall for half an hour we put on our shoes and readied ourselves to climb back up the steep hill to the main path we’d been walking on. By that point it had started drizzling a little bit so the compact dirt path to the waterfall was pretty slick. As if like a leapfrog effect, as each person made his or her ascent up the path the person behind him/her became his/her spotter until we all made it safely back to the main path.
By that point it was already 1:00pm and our stomachs were grumbling and readying themselves for the local Tanzanian food that awaited us in a Luguru house just ten minutes away. Once we reached the house we all relaxed in cushioned chairs and chatted about our satisfaction with the hike so far. Meanwhile, a Luguru woman who had prepared the food for us was busy bringing out the various finished dishes to the table in the sitting room. As each dish took its place on the table the aromas of the food danced around the room and swirled around in our noses.
Finally it was time to eat! We gorged our taste buds on rice, ugali (boiled corn flour that becomes a stiff porridge when cooked, which is especially useful for soaking up the soupy flavors of other foods), boiled cassava leaves resembling a mushy multi-colored green mess resembling cooked spinach (it was extremely delicious…and my favorite!), and fish stew with a smooth coconut broth. It was all delicious and satisfying. As soon as we replenished our food energy we all instantly went into mini food comas. The conversation died down a little as we all relaxed and really soaked it in that we were on top of a huge mountain in Tanzania. It was such a great realization.
During lunch a few local craftsmen and craftswomen came with their artwork (bracelets, necklaces, paintings, and small sculptures) and set out a small display of them outside the house where we ate. Inside the house the woman who cooked the food for us advertised the local handmade pottery made with clay taken from the mountain. She was selling small clay bowls for only 1,000 Tanzanian shillings ($1 = 1500 TZ Shillings). As a lover of pottery she sucked me right in and I bought one of the bowls. I’m happy to report it even made it down the mountain with me unshattered and even unchipped. To be able to bring home such a unique and special product of the Luguru people and the Uluguru Mountains as a physical token of my hike up the mountain is a really amazing thing for me. While it might just be a bowl, it represents the mountains that have been a part of my life every day since I’ve been living in Morogoro.
As we snapped out of our food comas we settled on who would continue to Morningside and who would leave the mountain through a repeat of the Choma route. I decided to stick it out and make it to Morningside along with four other people from the group. Two of the guides accompanied us while the other guide went with the four others who were heading home.
It only took an hour for us to get to the Morningside site after lunch, but it was probably my most favorite part of the whole day hike. By the time we were trekking to Morningside we were already on the top of the mountain so we could literally see all of Morogoro below us on our way. Every time we could get a clear glimpse of the land below we stopped to take photos to just take it all in. Arguably more breathtaking was all the land that surrounded us at that height on the mountain. Huge forests of trees from the rainforest beyond spanned the countryside. I felt like I was living inside an imagined landscape created by a famous artist’s brushstrokes. It was almost too pretty to believe it was all real.
While we were at Morningside we explored the old building the Germans had built at the site in 1911. The whole building smelled like rotting mildew and didn’t look very well kept. Graffiti that had been chipped into the walls identified previous visitors. It plastered every inch of the walls. Going from room to room, the whole building felt like a really dark and eerie maze. Every room inside had two doors, each of which led to another neighboring room. It would have easy to get lost in there had it not been for one of our guides who was leading us around. In one of the rooms there was even an ancient looking bathtub along with an old stove for cooking. There were a few disheveled-looking bed frames in some of the bedrooms with musty thin foam mattresses where hikers are welcome to use when they reached the site. It was only a couple thousand shillings to stay overnight since the offerings were meager. Still, the building provides a safe place to stay as it has a nice roof overhead for when it rains and a small fireplace to warm yourself up in front of after hiking for a long way. Although it was obvious that the place’s heyday had since passed long ago, it was still intriguing to explore such an important building to the history of colonialism in Tanzania. Even though I wouldn’t be tempted to recommend an overnight stay there (it really did feel like a spooky haunted old mansion), its sense of history was very interesting and definitely worth a visit.
After our short visit at Morningside we continued down the mountain. It started sprinkling as we started to walk again, but luckily we avoided any downpours. Since most of the sky was bright blue with only a few clouds and it was sunny as all get out, I was really hoping to see a rainbow, but it never materialized. The landscape changed dramatically as we scaled off the mountain. The paths we had used earlier on during our hike that had been so narrow and rough morphed into smoother paths wide enough for cars and motorcycles to pass on them.
We passed by a few thriving communities on our way down the mountain, one of which I was told has a reputation for taking advantage of naïve travelers and trying to steal their things if they aren’t with a guide. I was definitely happy to have two guides with the five of us hiking at that point – since all of us who chose to continue on to Morningside are White and hence look clearly foreign, we would’ve been likely victims of thievery had we been alone. Fortunately we didn’t run into any problems and the people at the first sight even seemed really friendly. With the sheer number of them, though, I could see how it would have been easy to overtake a lone traveler and steal his or her things.
We finally exited the foot of the mountain around 6:00pm, just in time for dusk to set in. By that point the bottoms of all our feet were pretty sore from stomping down the steep parts of the mountain on our way down. We followed our guides back to the tourist office, thanked them for their kindness and superb guidance and then took off back home. After getting out of our hiking gear and washing off the mud that covered our bodies, we freshened up and met the whole hiking group in town at the New Green Indian-cuisine restaurant and shared a meal together in celebration of our hike earlier on in the day. Surrounded by good food, good company, and buzzing with excitement from summiting the Uluguru Mountains, I really couldn’t have been happier. Reflecting on it now, it feels good to have explored the mountains that have been making shadows in my backyard since I moved to Morogoro in September.
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