A Tale of Three Field Trips

On Saturday twelve people crammed into an eight seat van and drove two hours to Rundagai village. The other half of the group had visited last week while I was at Banana Day and had come back raving about their experience at Rundagai, so I was super excited for this excursion. We met our guide, Ndoss, who told us about the concept of cultural tourism in detail. Essentially, a cultural tourism company is set up by locals that runs tours based on the local community. Some of the money they earn goes to support themselves and the company, but a significant portion of the earnings are put back into the community by supporting infrastructure as well as paying individuals who allow tourists to learn about their culture with them, like the village weaver women we met later on that day. We have talked a lot about how to be an ethical tourist a lot on Global so far, and I think that cultural tourism experiences are the best way to go. Not only do you learn about the culture of the place you are visiting in an authentic way, your money goes directly back into the community. Cultural tourism allows you to be more of a participant in local communities rather than just a spectator.

Johnny, Clara, Seda, Susanna, Isaac, Elizabeth, and Sam.

Ndoss started our tour of the village by taking us to meet the midwife, a woman named Susanna. He translated our questions for her, and she shared about her experiences delivering babies for the Rundagai community. Susanna was trained by her mother and is currently training three of her ten children to be midwives as well. Speaking of those ten children, she delivered them all herself with no outside assistance, even her set of twins! We were in absolute awe of the amount of strength and knowledge that she possess. She also shared that she often gets visions about when a woman will get pregnant as well as showing the sex of the baby. She is only informed by her visions and by the feeling from touching the mother’s stomach. As medical services have become increasingly accessible to rural communities like Rundagai, she has noticed a decrease in home births, but not by much. Her practice is to send pregnant women to the hospital at first to have an initial appointment and understand the process of a hospital birth so that they are able to make an informed choice about where to have their baby.

Throughout this entire exchange, there were at least three children standing behind my chair playing with my hair and touching my skin. A few young girls had run up to us earlier, grabbed our hands, and started walking with us. These same girls tried playing with almost everyone’s hair, but settled on mine because it wasn’t up in a ponytail and was straight enough to run their hands through. I was struck by the ease at which they interacted with strangers, as well as by the way they expressed their curiosity through touch. They ran their hands up and down my arms, played with my fingers, and stroked up and down my neck as their little hands were tangled in my hair. In my experience in the United States, “look but don’t touch” was always the motto when it came to interacting with something new. It seemed that the children in this village had never been discouraged from engaging with touch as a way to explore the world. I had a great time too, and left with some fun braids!

A street in Rundagai.

After saying goodbye to Susanna we met with the herbalist and the local weavers. Similar to Susanna, the herbalist spoke about receiving information through her dreams. She said that some nights she will have a dream where she walks through the forest to a specific tree or plant. The next day she will find the plant the dream showed her, harvest it, and later that day a patient will walk in who needs the medicine that comes from the plant in the dream. Meeting the weavers, however, was probably my favorite part of the day! They were three old women talking and laughing on the porch of a building as they wove complex designs into baskets and mats. Ndoss invited us to sit down with them, and they started some simple weaving patterns for us to learn! My teacher was a very joyful woman who loved to laugh, especially at my partner Noah who was not the most skilled at weaving. Eventually she handed me the sample Noah had been working on and started him on an easier design! My time in the Camp Namanu weavery making all those friendship bracelets really came in handy, because my teacher gave me a congratulatory hug when I had completed the length of the sample!

Yep, this is paradise!

After a delicious local lunch of chapati (flat bread), rice, beans and corn, beef stew, and fresh fruit, we ventured down the bumpy road to the nearby hot spring! Driving through the dry scraggly landscape on the way there made it seem like it was impossible there would be fresh water nearby, but sure enough we found ourselves in an absolute oasis. The water was the perfect temperature and so clear. There were little natural channels branching off from the main pool and connecting it to other areas where the trees opened up. At the main pool was a rope swing that we all tried, including our professor, Elizabeth! The spring also had little fish that would nibble on your feet if you hung out near the edge of the pools! There are spas where you can pay big bucks for a fish pedicure, but we got them for free! It was quite tickle-y, but I eventually got used to the sensation! The spring was a perfect end to a full day and we all fell straight asleep for the ride home.

1. L to R: MeiYi, Seda, Sam, Laura, Clara, Johnny, Brennan, Solveig, Isaac, Noah, me.2. Jumping off the rope swing! 3. The main pool. 4. L to R: Brennan, Johnny, Noah, Isaac, Laura, MeiYi, me. 5. The whole crew! L to R: Solveig, Elizabeth, Seda, Clara, Brennan, Johnny, Noah, Sam, Isaac, MeiYi, Laura, me.

In the workshop with a handmade puzzle for a pre-school classroom.

In addition to regular class this week we went on two site visits. We have been discussing equity in health care as well as care and opportunities for vulnerable groups in Tanzania. On Tuesday we visited the Faraja Center, a vocational school and second chance for young unwed mothers. The center was founded by one woman in her retirement: Mama Faraja. She trains about 30 students each year and the mothers live at the center with their children who attend Montessori preschool while they are in class. The students choose from tailoring and cooking as their main focus and all students learn hairdressing. The Faraja Center also has a training program for women interested in becoming pre-primary educators as well as a workshop where they can make all of their classroom materials to take with them when they finish their course.

After a tour of the center we were able to talk with some of the students about their experiences at Faraja, and all of them spoke about how they were so grateful to have this second chance. In Tanzania, girls who become pregnant while they are in school are expelled, and some schools even randomly administer pregnancy tests to female students. It is very challenging for young women to finish their education while caring for a new baby, and many are often left out of the education system altogether. Additionally, premarital sex is strongly looked down upon in Tanzanian society, so these young women face rejection from their communities. Before we left, the students performed a few songs for us and we attempted to follow up with a rendition of “Beautiful Savior,” (a classic St. Olaf choral tune) which was met with many giggles. We tried our best though!

Our second site visit was to Usa River Rehabilitation Center, where people with physical and mental disabilities can receive vocational training or a formal secondary education. The students in the vocational school can learn baking, carpentry, welding, and tailoring and sell their wares at the shop/cafe at the center. Usa River also trains special-ed teachers and has a medical clinic where children born with “club foot” can get treatment in addition to the students. The training programs can last up to three years, after which the students often go on to find employment or start their own businesses. Several of the teachers were former students at Usa River! It seemed like an incredibly affirming environment, which was very encouraging to see after learning in class about how the education system here often excludes people with disabilities due to lack of training and resources.

Both of these programs are so instrumental in making sure that people who are left out of traditional education still have the opportunity to gain skills to support themselves. Faraja and Usa River also emphasized the importance of self-reliance so that their students will be able to continue to succeed once their training is complete. These visits were a great note on which to to end our public health class here in Tanzania!

Before I end this post, I just wanted to make a note about the photos that I'm posting. I have posted very few photos from the site visits, schools, and villages we have seen, and you may have wondered why that is. My reasoning is that I don't want to post photos on this blog/social media of local people when I haven't always been able to ask their permission to put them on the internet. I have several candid photos that have been taken of me interacting with locals, but we didn't have the ability to ask for their consent at the time. I think there is a problem with white tourists posting photos with local people that they don't know the names of, just as "proof" that they visited a certain country, which is dehumanizing to the people in those photos. Of course, this is not the attitude that anyone on our trip has taken when taking photos of group members and locals, however I never want to perpetuate that tourist norm. The photos that I do have with locals I will be keeping for myself, and will not be posting unless I have explicit permission from that person.

Thanks for reading!

-GMH