Time has finally sped up for me over here in Africa. This week is passing surprisingly quickly. It’s Wednesday night tonight which means hump day has come and gone with relative ease and I can see the weekend’s light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, time is moving at such a normal pace that I’m thinking I’ll have to be careful to make the best of the time I have. It will be too easy to slip into normal “university” mode of making it through the week just to rest on the weekends. - Especially because we have so many hours of class per day (an average of 7). It’s hard to balance the academic demands of this trip with my own interests in getting to know and see the country. This challenge is compounded by the evident money crunch ACM is experiencing, which is causing Bereket to scrimp our budget every way he can. He has cut Tsh 5000 off our weekly food stipend, is trying to get the majority of the students to stay at Endolen, a village outside of Tarangire that is cheaper, and has moved the Tarangire camp outside the park boundaries, a cheap alternative to a camp in the park. He also decided not to move us in with our host families until he absolutely has to because it’s cheaper for us to stay in the dorms (where we take care of our own expenses and live off the cheap and monotonous cafeteria food). I, like many others on the trip, am actually quite frustrated by the money issues. My parents and I have paid a lot of money for me to be in this program and I want to have the opportunities I was expecting. I’m tired of weekend trips, meals out, and other things being cancelled because it’s cheaper to just not go. That is NOT experiencing Africa! Ugh.
On a completely different note, I spent the evening working on my research project – trying to figure out a research question and begin the draft for my proposal. I have been looking into the issues surrounding rangeland management on the Serengeti and its effect on Maasai subsistence and culture. Possible research questions change with every word I read but roughly include:
- looking at Tanzanian perceptions of the Maasai and how their distinct ethnic identity fits in with the “melting pot” efforts of the rest of Tanzania;
- assessing how ecologically sustainable different uses of the rangeland (including farming, conservation areas and national parks, and herding) are and making a suggestion for future land management that would be most beneficial to the environment;
- assessing Maasai attitudes toward “development” and “modernization” then finding a viable, economic, social, political, and environmentally sustainable subsistence solution for the Maasai that reflects their cultural and economic goals;
- a study of Maasai stereotypes from the Tanzanian (government and civilian), international (tourist and NGO) and Maasai perspectives, assessing whether the culture exists for itself or for some ideal, and whether it would be smarter to move toward assimilating the Maasai into Swahili culture.
I have other scraps of thoughts and questions in my head as well, but those are the best-formulated questions I have thus far. I’m hoping to find a few books in the library tomorrow and continue my thoughts. Maybe Bereket will be of some help on the issue too. Unfortunately, my choice of research project is currently being swayed by my great desire to be at the Tarangire camp so that I have some hope of seeing wildlife. The problem is, all the research I’m passionate about doing – that fits my major – would work best at Endolen. Will I not have lions and elephants roaming my Serengeti dream-camp???
Side note: It’s looking like most of my research will involve extensive interviews. I hope my Swahili is up to it! I guess I’ll get lots of practice…
