photos uploaded

I have uploaded selected photos from my Tanzania trip on picasaweb. Now you can view them at http://picasaweb.google.co.in/sandeep.hell/DodomaTanzania#

Gogo Tribe and Corner Stone

Today was a special day for all of us. We visited Innocent's village and his house. Innocent is coordinating our visit at UDOM.
When we got out of the car, we were greeted by a group of Gogo dancers. Tanzania has many tribes (more than 100) and Gogo is the prime tribe around dodoma region. A group of women dressed in traditional dresses were playing drums with their hands, blowing whistle, dancing to the tunes of bells tied to their feet and singing folk songs. The whole town turned out to welcome us. It was quite a scene. We stand still near our cars, surrounded by children who were curious at everything we had. Cameras were their favorites.
So, the dances went on for some time. This ceremony was followed by a short lecture (in English and Swahili or Gogoii ?) by the pastor of local church. Then he called each one of us and asked us to introduce. And we go again.. our trademark introduction like I am Sandip and I am from India. Every sentence we said was translated by pastor in swahili and local group cheered to show their recognition. Beth, Dan and Sean were greeted with short songs like mama .. , kaka .. and baba... In swahili mama means mother, kaka mean brother and baba is father.
Then Innocent came in and said that his village would like to do something to make our visit memorable. He had planned tree plantation from each one of us. So, we planted 10 trees (1 per person) around his proposed house. It was quite a fun and honor. But best is not over yet. He took us to another corner where we were supposed to lay corner stone of his new house. Huh .. it had never happened to me before. We saw a memorial plate with our names and country names. It was unbelievable to see our names on a golden plate.

The dances continued for some time. We talked to some people. There were so many children and they were so eager to get pictured. We kept clicking. A few games of hi 5. Some cheers. A lot of swahili practice. We were all over. A great experience in all. Million thanks to Innocent for arranging this.

Trek to Bihawana Village

This is our last weekend in Tanzania. We were going over many plans. From chartered flight to Arusha and Zanzibar to trekking the unknown territories nearby Dodoma. Finally we decided to go to a place called Bihawana near Dodoma. We got two vehicles for 8 people. Our master negotiator made a great deal this time. From 70 USD per person to 80000 TSH for 8 of us. It was like he brought down costs by 1/8th of total costs.
So, our adventure begins with printing maps through google, explaining our plan to Chip (he was our driver cum guide).
Half way through the trip, one of our vehicles stopped. We noticed that smoke was coming out of bonnet and the driving wheel area. The vehicle stopped in the middle of nowhere. We decided to take two trips carrying four people each, but the driver managed to get the other car started. And we did not need to do that.
We trekked through a few villages. The traditional Tanzania houses, as described by Chip are made of mud and roof made of fodder like material covered with mud again. They are barely 6 feet tall. We could see some chicken, goats, and dogs around those huts. The best part of trek was our conversation with villagers. They seemed happy to help us find our way to the foothills. We passed through maze fields, grape fields and then saw some groundnut and barley crops. Finally we found the way out of fields.

One shepherd helped us find our way. We were greeted by a bunch of monkeys, baboons may be. Our journey was becoming more interesting.
We started climbing the hill. We were 7 of us. Interestingly, 7 people from 7 different countries. And chip kept us calling us by our country names like Ms. Canada, Mr. Germany, How are you Mr. India, Where is Australia, Come on Mr. Japan. And Mr. Obama (Mr. US). Chip was Mr. Tanzania. He led the way through woods. It was a tough trek. He was fast and kept his pace through bushes and slippery trail. We witnessed different types of weeds, couple of pits where they make charcoal. Interestingly, the village people cut trees on mountain, dump them in a ditch and then burn them in absence of oxygen. This results in Charcoal which they sell for TSH 5000 a bag.
We were greeted by a drizzle of rain, a small panic moment but it didn’t last long. After pushing through the thick bushes on top of the hill, we finally found the giant rock we were eyeing for some long. Mission accomplished. We sat there for some time. View was great, and the sense of fulfillment was even better.
On our way back we witnessed some ditches with filthy looking water. Our Tanzanian friend said some village people use it for drinking water. That was hard to believe. But clean drinking water is a major problem in this country.

So, we were back to our vehicles. Chip invited us to his house for Nyoma Choma, but we had some other plans for night. We were invited to one of our Indian – Tanzanian – Canadian host for dinner. Yes all 10 of us.

Blog to follow daily

A different perspective to our daily activities in Dodoma and University can be found at Beth's blog. She's got some interesting stories. You may follow them at ..
http://bethgoestoafrica.blogspot.com/

Bongo Flava and Traditional Dance

It has become our schedule now. We check at the reception, talk to some people and check out whats happening in Dodoma today. And someone told us that Kilimani club will have Live Music program today.

We were back from a soccer match, and were in no mood to go out again. So, we decide to stay at hotel and to our surprise we see that a group was playing some music in our hotel itself. There was a group that started playing drums and only drums. They had 3 or 4 different types of drums. And if I get it right, they were playing "Bongo Flava" music. Then there you go. A group of dancers, well I do not know if dancers is what you call them .. appear in their special tribal looking costumes. A group of 4 men, 3 women dancing to the tunes of ‘Bongo Flava’ set the stage. The set up was to depict a short story in dance form. The group was organized in 3 couple and 1 master kind of formation where 3 couple dance in some formation and 1 master dictate some terms.

They started the second dance with their face painted with while strips, carrying spears and beaded strings and dancing all around. The story telling went on depict some heroics. A part of dance involved fire dance. Women were carrying fire pots on their heads and men dancing around them.

The best part was towards the end when they started showing those fire tricks. They were playing with fire they way we play with colors in Holi. I must say it was pretty impressive but.. but .. to beat them all, our fireeater from Japan dares to rub those fire sticks on his hands. Well, the performers found a match. The next challenge came when they brought those small fireballs (made of cloths soaked in oil) and they were picking each fireball full of flame and extinguishing the fire by putting them in mouth. And here we go. Roku picks one fire ball and puts it in his mouth without a single sign of hesitation. We were all stunned. And he smiles and says, if they can do it, so can I. Japan Zindabad.

The Curiosity

On your mark, get set, GO. And I begin writing my first blog now. So what better topic than to write about curiosity, expectations and the butterflies. Let me start with my travel itinerary.

Unless Emirates pilots go on strike or Bangalore traffice jams prevent me from boarding the flight, I should reach Dubai by early morning on Friday. And what do I expect to see in Dubai ? Arab King or Shaikhs of Dubai or Dawood and Chhota Shakeel .. May be. But Rodrigo gives this news now that Kate from CDC will travel from Dubai to Dar Es Salaam in same flight with us. So I should get to meet Kate atleast. And for those of you who do not know Kate, she is our NGO Partner and she is from US.

I am supposed to take next flight to Dar Es Salaam in afternoon and I should land in Tanzania by 3:20 pm. And this is my Jambo to the Country of Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar .. or to say .. land of ‘Hakunaa Mataataa’.!!!

We will stay at Hotel Mediterranio for 2 nights before we leave to Dodoma on Sunday morning. So this is where I should meet the legendary team ‘Dodoma Kikoa 1’. And the stalwarts are, from East to West - Roku from Japan, Sean from Australia, Sindu and Sandip from India, Lucia from Slovakia, Wolfgang from Germany, Beth, Dan and Liz from US and Denise from Canada.

So how do I picture them. Roku should be a silent person. Japanese are known for their genius. And I just love the way they speak English.

Sean said he likes to run. And he promised me that we will play cricket when we meet in Tanzania. Let us see if he brings the spins of Shane Warne or the charisma of Ricky Ponting.

Sindu is from India, and she is a likes to talk and talk and talk. I have met her twice in Bangalore.

Sandip is Sandip. And that’s me.

Lucia is from Slovakia. And I have not met anyone from Slovakia before. And let me say this. You look beautiful. In your picture atleast.

Wolfgang is from Germany and he is interested in politics. He is sort of a tech genius. He is the one who set up google docs, added a few interesting gadgets to our ning sites. He said he plays guitar. So let us look forward to listen some german songs during our camp fire nights.

Beth will be my colleague for assignment at UDOM. And let me tell you beth, I loved your spirit to volunteer, inspite of the fact that your team lost the basketball game.

Dan is from Kansas City. And I believe Kansas City is the best city is United States. Why? Because that’s the only city I visited in US.

Liz is from Colarado. I know they have a lot of ski resorts there. Liz can say hello in 16 languages. I am going to ask her to say Hello in ‘Hindi’.

Denise is Canadian. For an Indian, Canada is country where you find more Punjabis, than anyone else. I will ask her if she has heard any of the famous ‘Sardar Jokes’.

And I guess a short get together at Dar Es Salaam should be interesting. Let us see how many of my projections go right.