Cultural Tourism

You see a lot of references to Cultural Tourism here in Arusha. Though I wasn't exactly sure what it was, I was told it was great (and cheap), which prompted me to head to the Tanzanian Tourist Board (TTB) office to try to get more information. I soon found myself in front of a small wall full of one page flyers, each from a different village around Arusha. Cultural tourism was the chance to go to one of these villages for the day, interact with local people, and see how they live. The flyers were very similar, generally beginning with bullet point lists of what you could expect (visit a Masaai Boma, tours of banana and coffee plantations, glimpse of local daily life...one even promised the chance to 'meet a man with 9 wives and 64 children'!). I, somewhat randomly, picked Kioga, a small village located on the foothills of Mount Meru, the giant mountain that towers over Arusha.

My tour guide for the day was Faraja, who does both Cultural Tourism tours for the TTB, and in the high season, is a safari guide. It just so happens that he was from Kioga, which made the day a little more authentic - not only did he know practically everyone in the village, but I got to meet his wife, and his three year old daughter, Charlotte.

The residents of Kioga are Masaai, although Faraja explained that they aren't as traditional as some Masaai - very few wore the traditional masaai robes, or had the streched-out ear lobes. The locals are all farmers, growing onions, cauliflower, potatoes, bananas, and cabbages. It is spread out over 5 square kilometers of hills, and is stunningly beautiful. The villagers also had a local bee hive for honey - African killer bees. The hive was a hollowed-out log suspended from a tall tree, and Faraja explained that in order to get honey out periodically, they would start a fire underneath, on which they would throw a certain type of mushroom. The smoke from this fire puts the bees to sleep, and allows them to lower the hive and extract the honey.

Most of the village doesn't have power. It is available, Faraja explained, but too expensive for most people. Even Faraja doesn't have power in his home. However, the few houses that do tend to share - at one point we dropped off his cell phone at a friend's house, and picked it up again later, fully charged.

The local children were great. The general response to seeing me was curiosity - which tended to be shown either by: (a) frantically running away to find a safe place to hide and watch me, or (b) getting incredibly (Christmas-morning) excited and running towards me, stopping a few feet away, looking up, and staring. None of them spoke English, but for some reason all of the children in the village knew the phrase "good morning." Throughout the day I was continually met with loud shouts of "good morning", both as a greeting, as a goodbye, and just because. The kids were adorable.

The Masaai boma that I was allowed to tour (it was an actual home and not just something they showed cultural tourists like me) belonged to a local man with six wives (was I disappointed it was only 6, and not 9?...surprisingly not). One of the wives, along with 10 or so children, were there when I arrived, the wife preparing vegetables for a later meal. The family had 3 huts, one of which was just for the husband, and the other two are shared by the wives and children. They were incredibly friendly, and the kids were super excited to see me - even fighting amongst each other to determine who got to hold my hands and walk around with me (I have never been so popular!). The boma was tiny, and stunk strongly of smoke. They have fires in them at night, but to keep the rain out there is no chimney, so the whole thing is smokey and charred. Faraja also explained that at night they bring their cows into the house to keep them warm (into a little fenced off section of the boma). It was small, and there wasn't anything in it besides the dirt floor, a chicken, and a couple of stools, and it is difficult to imagine so many people (or anyone, for that matter) living in there.

At lunch, between my guided explorations of Kioga, I was treated to a homemade local lunch of rice and a beef-carrot stew. It was actually quite good, but very authentic, and certainly different from the type of food you get at restaurants here (at least the restaurants that ex-pats tend to go to). Faraja also spoke a little bit about Cultural Tourism and how it brought much-needed money into the community. Kioga, he explained, was using the money from the Cultural Tourism program to build a medical clinic. It was a great day.