Geo-Science and Politics

The purpose of the trek to Moshi was to attend the meeting launching the United Nation’s International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) in Africa. Since I’m sure you haven’t heard of it, IYPE is essentially United Nation’s sponsored campaign to raise awareness of Earth Sciences around the world. A few of the Tanzanian scientists I’ve met were involved in planning the African kickoff event and they invited me to participate. The meeting was held at a nice lodge resort at the base of Mt. Meru, Tanzania’s second highest peak (see above picture). About 200 government officials, scientists, and students from all over Africa attended. The Opening (and mostly scientifically accurate) addresses were given by Tanzania’s current and former presidents along with statements from assorted UN officials. This was followed up by a polished performance of a song about saving the world by a group of Tanzanian school children. It was all very impressive….and made me feel like I had somehow passed into an alternative dimension because it in no way resembled the Tanzania that I know.

I’ll spare you the details of the meeting and just cut to the cocktail hour(s). Brandt came down from the more modest lodge up the road where we were staying for a fraction of the price. We sipped on wine and watched the entertainment- a band of bongo drum players followed by a pretty amazing acrobat act. Eventually, I started chatting to the guy next to me. He turned out to a parliamentary staffer who was accompanying a member of the parliament of Zambia, who arrived and joined us about 5 minutes later. Brandt and I had a fascinating geo-political conversation with them for over an hour which ended with them changing their accommodation to stay at the place we were staying and plans to have dinner the following night. When they left, we grazed our dinner from the various appetizer trays, mingled some more and had some interesting chats about (the lack of quality) education in Tanzania, (the lack of) women in science in Africa and everyone’s favorite- American politics. Many Tanzanians are suspicious about Bush’s 4 day visit here back in February (does he want to build a military base here? is there oil somewhere?). Suprisingly, they are perhaps even more skeptical of Barak Obama. You’d think as Africans they’d be excited about the possibility of a black, half-African man as president of the U.S. Nope. And why? We don’t really get many straight answers on that one but it seems to be just the simple fact that Barak’s father is Kenyan. Talk about missing the forest through the trees.

After the all-star parade of the first day of the meeting, the second day was…interesting, but not because any cutting edge science was being presented. Let’s just say, we were back to the good old Tanzania that I knew. Everybody wanted to make a speech, sound smart, and show off how much they know (which was very little) by rambling on in front of the microphone. The result was one million words spoken and zero chance of these words resulting in anything.

Following the gab-fest, dinner with Mr. Member of the Zambian Parliament and his very smart sidekick was great. Beyond the fact that Zambia is south of Tanzania, I didn’t know much about Zambia. It was fascinating to hear about the State of Africa from an actual African politician, especially considering many of the problems in Africa stem from or are exacerbated by the unabashed corruption that has plagued the governments on this continent. Just as we were getting into it, Debbie, the petite Zimbabwean owner of the lodge rolled up and joined the conversation. She almost immediately went after him for Zambia (and every other country) for doing nothing about Mugabe. You’ve (hopefully) heard something about the scam elections, the violence and the inflation. We’ve met a few Zimbabweans here and the tales we’ve heard are so unbelievable that we should write a post just about that at some point. For now, I’ll just say this- in the 1990s Zimbabwe had a population of 12 million people and produced enough food to feed 16 million. Today, Zimbabwe has a population of 8 million people and they only produce enough food to feed 4 million. The rest of Africa sits idly by as what was once one of the most prosperous nations in sub-Saharan Africa descends into violence and chaos. The Bush Administration, with all its rhetoric about defending and spreading democracy through the world also sees fit to do nothing. I, for one, find that suspicious.

It was funny watching this little women destroy this Member of Parliament on a variety of issues. It is sad that those who should run the country, those that could make a difference, are not the ones in office. Following this interesting discussion, the MP and his sidekick invited Brandt and I to Zambia and then headed off to bed. Something like this would never happen in the States, we don’t have the money to spend two hours over dinner talking politics to a Senator or Representative. Though, I don’t think a lot of Africans would have the same opportunity as we had.

Overall, the experience was a good one. I saw the president and ex-president of TZ talk, had dinner with a MP from Zambia, and had a good laugh at some of the posturing during the talks of the second day. Beats an average weekend at home.