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Tanzania 2009 Updates

September 14 | October 8 | October 9 | November 1

After finishing up our Kiswahili classes, we set off from the small town of Usa River towards the famous Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Park. Combined, the two reserves make up a gigantic habitat preserve that is home to wildlife of all sorts, as well as humans in some areas. After a two-hour drive ascending the wall of the Great Rift Valley, we arrived at the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, a stunning landscape that actually formed from the collapse of an ancient volcano. The Ngorongoro Crater hosts multitudes of wildlife species, including zebra, cape buffalo, gazelles, lions, cheetahs, elephants, and a birds of all kinds. Early the next morning, as the clouds swooped over the eastern rim of the crater, we descended over the steep embankment to spend the day on a game drive around the Crater floor, ascending the Crater wall in the evening to return to our hotel.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area also is home to Oldapai Gorge, made famous as the valley where Mary and Louis Leakey made numerous valuable discoveries in human anthropology and ancient history. We traveled to the museum the next day, learning about the 50 years of work by the Leakeys in this area, as well as how one of the greatest discoveries in human history was revealed through an elephant-dung throwing contest!

We continued on and entered the Serengeti National Park, one of the most well-known preservation areas in all of Africa. As we entered the Serengeti, we were greeted by a pair of cheetahs perched atop a small mound, a rare sight and a stunning entry into the park. Over the next three days, we took multiple game drives, visited the Serengeti Research Center, and saw ancient rock paintings from past Maasai residents of the area. We were lucky enough to catch glimpses of lion cubs as well as young cape buffalo, only days old but walking behind their mothers intently. We added a new component to the itinerary this year, exiting the park through the Western Gate, closest to Lake Victoria, via a several-hour drive, which allowed us to see drastic changes in the landscape as well as some migrant wildebeest.

After exiting the park, we spent several days at a lodge on the shores of Lake Victoria, studying the area’s prolific shorebird species and unique habitat. While at the lake, we completed a day-long study of the habits of shorebirds, building our skills in wildlife behavior while also identifying many species of birds. We were also able to continue our discussions on several topics of public health and discuss some of the important history of the Lake Victoria region.

After several days camping along the lake, we headed south along the edge of the lake to the bustling town of Mwanza, the main port of Lake Victoria within Tanzania. There, we continued our discussions of public health, visiting the Tanzanian National Institute of Medical Research. In addition, we started the urban development class by taking observations of the city and reading about human settlement patterns and urban development. At Mwanza, we made a transition in our studies, as now we will be continuing to concentrate on public health topics while also studying urban and rural development.

Our second student contribution to the updates comes from Simon Levine, who relays his perspective of one particular event while on safari:

We’d been watching the procession of elephants, mostly cows and calves, for about twenty minutes when the big bull lumbered drearily out of the bush. Erik spotted him about a hundred yards away, pushing forward with a cloudy gaze that probed searing lancets in every direction. His temporal glands, in front of his leathery ears, seeped an unabated ooze of clear viscous fluid, giving the first of several signs that this bull was different. “Looks like he’s in Musth.” Erik whispered, squinting sternly through his binoculars as he stood beside me, peering out the Rover’s roof.

“Yes,” Samwel agreed in a raspy, disconcertingly high-pitched Maasai accent. He was the head driver, an unflinchingly serious barrel of a man with a mean looking scar running seven inches down his right forearm. Musth is a condition in male elephants that can be described as sexual aggression, and it is intense enough to spur some bulls to commit such senseless acts of violence as the fatal stabbings of Rhinos and the deforestation of vast areas. My heart beat quicker as the bull rumbled dustily over the road in front of us, his scimitar-tusks swaying like flagpoles beneath his high-domed mossy forehead.

Elephants are the most dangerous land mammals. They kill comparatively fewer people than hippos or Cape buffalo, but they are capable of staggering destruction. A bull can weigh as much as ten tons and its skin can stop low caliber rifle rounds. The most devastating weapon is the skull, as big as a compact coupe, which can crush an SUV if really motivated. But unless an animal is startled, or it is defending a calf it probably won’t attack you: but Musth can be a different story.

After crossing the road, the bull settled next to a desiccated scrub and began tearing off large, pointy, brambles with his trunk and then stuffing them into his gaping maw. He was perhaps twenty-five feet from our rover and had positioned himself between the vehicle and the calf. The eating was sincere, but he was quite deliberately eating between the SUVs and the rest of the elephant procession. We waited in breathless, uneventful concentration as the elephant browsed and yet never removed his drunken, fiery gaze from our car.

Eventually we had to leave and Erik whispered a quiet “Twende” to Samwel, who softly twisted the ignition, as if the deliberateness of his motion might muffle the starting of the car. No sooner had the engine howled to life than the Elephant whipped about to face us, taking several threatening steps towards the car. My heart burrowed against the inside of my sternum and with deft rapidity. Samwel killed the engine. The bull hovered closer to us, stamping with his feet and flapping with his ears. We all remained lifelessly still, planted in fear and more than a little bit of awe. For a moment, the bull’s eyes seemed to lock with mine, and in those smoky pits burned a primeval anger more ancient than humanity itself. 

There were several dry-mouthed minutes as we waited for the Elephant to move away, but eventually Carlos’ car, just behind ours, rumbled to life and pushed past. We were compelled to follow suit. The bull never charged us, but we all were left with the unshakeable feeling that he very nearly did. In that moment I came closer to the true nature of Africa. Like the Bull, Africa is a place of disarming girth and beauty; yet, that beauty is irrevocably intertwined with a dangerous unpredictability that hearkens back to primordial chaos. At times one feels almost on vacation in this vivid, alien, country and then other times you can’t help but recoil in fright at simplistic brutality of life in this oldest of human landscapes. Sometimes it takes an angry, dangerous animal to remind you that both of these realities are inseparably African.

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