Yaoli: A Stroll Around the Shamba

July 1, 2009

During the brief window straddling day and night, Gilbert took us on a tour of his farm. We have stayed at his house for more than a week now, but have never ventured into his fields. Meandering through the banana trees, coffee bushes, and rows of beans and maize, you can make many insightful observations revealing broader facets of Tanzanian life. Keenly perceptive and engaging, Gilbert has the uncanny ability of understanding how society and people function, even in environments vastly different from his own. During the trip, I witnessed his natural talent for tour-guiding and story telling.

Never sparing a moment to rest, he had just spent the afternoon planning an addition to the chicken coop. On top of wild chickens, his shamba also boasts three goats (which he breeds to sell the young), seven pigs, and a bull (for harvesting manure to fertilize the crops). We strolled past the animal pens to survey the land. He points out the branches laden with still-green coffee fruit. Once red, the fruits are harvested and crushed to yield crude coffee beans. The beans are dried outside in the shade, then sold to commercial companies capable of roasting and refining. Farmers here in Tanzania sell their beans at less than $1.50 for a kilogram. In contrast, even the cheapest instant coffee will run you more than 7x that. “So we are very stupid, selling it so cheaply.” This is the plight of commodity exporters worldwide: poor countries such as Tanzania sell cash crops or natural resources at bargain prices to companies which turn the raw material to expensive end products.

Walking further, we passed by dark rich upturned soil fertile for planting. Rain here in Mwika Uuwo is thankfully frequent and the land is abundant in vegetation. Labor is all manual. Farmers carve out the steep hills of the Kilimanjaro region by hand; powering large-scale equipment is impossible. Logs from fallen trees are sawed by the power of man, not electricity. Tanzanians take their children’s education seriously – their country has one of the highest literary rates in Africa. However, the large labor demand also meant that a child’s primary priority is not education but doing their share of the chores. Firewood for cooking must be gathered, grass to feed the cows must be cut (very difficult, as the blades are short) and water must be lugged in buckets from pipes far away.

Wearing flats unfit for the precipitous dirt trail, I struggled to stay on my feet. Gilbert paused to show us the flat, long leaves of a plant on the side of the road. “This plant has special meaning to my ancestors, the Chaga people. It is used in ancient times to mark one’s territories.” We learned that you can also tie the leaves in knots to signify “no trespassing”. A gesture of peace, one can tear a piece of leaf and give it to someone in order to resolve a conflict. It is now prized as a robust and handsome houseplant, too. The national boundaries here were not drawn by Africans, but arbitrarily by European powers during the “scramble for Africa”. Thus, signs of Tanzania’s multi-tribal, multi-language culture can be found everywhere.

In many of the neighboring shambas, we could see children kicking around a makeshift soccer ball or old women sitting and chatting outside on the porch. But one plot of land did not possess the rich foliage typical of the others. Instead, the ground was a carpet of yellowing and desiccated patches. “Many young people nowadays go to the city, where they think life is better. They leave and there is no one to take care of the land.”

As the sky deepens from azure to a rich navy, we stepped down the trodden path slowly towards home. The view was breathtakingly beautiful, staggered mountain peaks peeking from a hazy grayish mist. The hills were blanketed by lush emerald canopies, not the glittering lights of civilization. The only sign of mankind was the twin cellular communication towers flickering softly in the distance.