Africa Found!

You may not have realized it was lost, but it has been missing entirely from our lives in Dar. Bright and early Monday morning, we took an air pollution-laden, traffic jam packed taxi ride to the Tazara train station. For approximately $10 each, we bought first class tickets to Ifakara, Tanzania and we finally found the Africa we all know from National Geographic and PBS nature shows. We knew it was out there but it has made all the difference in our morale to see it with our own two eyes. Ifakara is a village about 250 miles southwest of Dar. It took us 9 hours to get here on an aging train that stopped at every village along the way. The landscape turned endlessly green immediately upon leaving Dar. The rolling hills and pastures of corn and banana trees were accompanied by small clusters of homes made of mud or locally kilned mud bricks and roofed by grass thatch or tin. The villages were uncannily spaced exactly 20 minutes apart. At each stop, the train was welcomed by a horde of local villagers selling hardboiled eggs, chicken legs, grilled ears of corn, fried bananas, peanuts, essentially whatever they had for food in the village. First class consisted of one or two cars at the very end of the train that had 6 compartments with bunks for sleeping four and a small table by the window. The crowd of vendors clustered at the front end of the train where the coach class cars were jammed full of people. Although few vendors made it down our way, we were “welcomed” by small groups of boys that would stand outside the window and shout for soap (they’d learned that people in first class were given small soap bars upon boarding the train), empty water bottles and money. I threw out one of our bars to a small, unhappy looking child at the first stop. Without saying thank you or having any reaction to the soap at all, he immediately began demanding money as he scowled up at me. It was really awkward and made me wish I had never given him the soap. It’s distressing that children have been trained to beg at the train when they should be in school. After the first stop, we slid into the cabin when they approached to try and avoid the situation as best we could.

On route, the train passed through the northern part of the Selous Game Reserve. My mantra leading up to the trip was that I just wanted was to see was one giraffe--just one single giraffe. As we entered the game reserve, the endless green shifted from crops to natural vegetation- grassland dotted with shrubs and trees. The first wildlife came in the form of what we think were impala and other species of ungulates. Our adrenaline kicked in and we starred fixated out the window wondering what more we’d see. Just as Brandt said he wanted to check the map to see where we were but didn’t want to take the chance that he’d miss something, the wildlife was upon us…a couple of giraffes standing awkwardly by a stand of tall trees a few hundred yards off, a herd of zebra stampeding away from the train, followed by a herd of wildebeest. It all came so quickly it was hard to take it in and then we came upon a single giraffe that seemed to have just noticed there was a huge loud train going by. He was really close and he was trying to run away but it looked like he was having to run in an arc rather than directly away to keep from wiping out due to the weight of his head which was being left behind by his legs. I have never seen anything like it ever. It seemed to move in slow motion, both awkward and graceful at the same time. Our eyes remained fixed out the window for the rest of the trip through the reserve. We spotted several more giraffe, these incredibly large vultures, some warthogs off in the distance, and a back end view of a yellow baboon (which I thought was a lion at first from the color) quite close to the tracks. The train-by view of all these animals was so awesome, I can only imagine what it will be like when we go on safari and get to take our time to really watch it all. At the train stop for the reserve, what we assume were rangers, dressed in green fatigues and armed with huge rifles, boarded the train. As they were picking up their packs, some one from the compartment next to us dropped two foil tin containers and some plastic utensils out the window into the vegetation bordering (apparently the need to litter goes unimpeded everywhere and at all times). One of the rangers that was helping load luggage spotted it and marched over yelling at the guy, picked up the trash and demanded that the man take it back into the train. Tanzanians are notoriously non-confrontational, so I think culturally this was a big deal. I was so happy to see a Tanzanian taking on the littering that I cheered him on, saying “very good” to him in my pathetic Swahili. He smiled broadly up at me and welcomed me back to the reserve. Cynically, Brandt said he expected to see the tin come back out the window shortly after we pulled away but as far as we know it never did. One small step in the enormous battle to save Tanzania from burying itself in a continuous layer of garbage. After the game reserve, the landscape shifted back to agriculture. In the flat expanse of the Kilombero valley nestled between the Uluguru and Udzungwa mountains (see photo), it was rice paddy interrupted occasionally by sugar cane and corn as we approached our destination. Ifakara is the main village in the valley is famous for its rice and its massive mosquito density (Brandt read that they had once counted 6,000 mosquitos inside a single room house). This latter feature has made it a hot spot for malaria research. We’re hoping the outcome of this visit will be an opportunity for Brandt to work for the Ifakara Health Research and Development Center and the end of days in Dar. Fingers crossed everyone.