Teacher | Writer | Traveler
Travel Notes from Tanzania
Masai Children
A Giraffe in Arusha National Park, with Kilimanjaro faintly in the background.
Phyllis with Hadza tribe members, making an arrow.
The Hadza are the last remaining hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, Africa.
Mbgoya, powerful and skilled hunter, and a leader among the hunters of the Hadza tribe, East Tanzania, Africa.
Grass thatched house with outdoor living area in the thornbush area of Hadza territory in the rift valley of east Tanzania.
Hadza: Extended family of 15 in their home, a small reservation in east Africa.
Hadza women digging for tubers.
Mbgoya: Hadza hunter equipped to go hunting with home-made bow and arrows.
Giraffe in the Serengeti highland conservation area in east Tanzania.
The HADZAS of Tanzania. The last remaining hunter gatherers in Africa, and possibly in the world.
Two weeks In the heart of Africa, sometimes thought of as the cradle of humanity, spending time with some of the descendants of our earliest ancestors: the HADZA hunter gatherers. I cannot begin to tell you how amazing they are, living so simply with just the basics of food and shelter, obtained only from the land. Despite the effort to feed and house themselves, their collective caring for each other is noteworthy and heartwarming. No one goes hungry or is abandoned and the sick are nursed with the herbs of the earth. They enjoy more leisure than we do, laugh a lot, even gamble for fun and love to tell stories.
I, and five others in my safari group, along with our guide spent two special days learning from them how to gather roots for meals, roasting them over a fire made by rubbing two sticks together, making arrows and learning archery from the men. A handsome, beautiful, healthy and strong people, they welcomed us into their small family circle and told us their stories. Their main struggle is with their own government who wish to sell their small remaining land in the Rift Valley for tourist hunting lodges, forcing them off their own land and to make them live in the townships. This would be a tragedy. Their lifestyle, so far removed from our technological world, can yet teach us about our own origins and ultimately about our own humanity.
I feel privileged to have met them.
Thank you to Dorobo Safari Tours, Arusha, Tanzania and especially to our guide Thad Peterson for making this trip possible.
Travel is so stimulating and rewarding, no?
Two weeks In the heart of Africa, sometimes thought of as the cradle of humanity, spending time with some of the descendants of our earliest ancestors: the HADZA hunter gatherers. I cannot begin to tell you how amazing they are, living so simply with just the basics of food and shelter, obtained only from the land. Despite the effort to feed and house themselves, their collective caring for each other is noteworthy and heartwarming. No one goes hungry or is abandoned and the sick are nursed with the herbs of the earth. They enjoy more leisure than we do, laugh a lot, even gamble for fun and love to tell stories.
I, and five others in my safari group, along with our guide spent two special days learning from them how to gather roots for meals, roasting them over a fire made by rubbing two sticks together, making arrows and learning archery from the men. A handsome, beautiful, healthy and strong people, they welcomed us into their small family circle and told us their stories. Their main struggle is with their own government who wish to sell their small remaining land in the Rift Valley for tourist hunting lodges, forcing them off their own land and to make them live in the townships. This would be a tragedy. Their lifestyle, so far removed from our technological world, can yet teach us about our own origins and ultimately about our own humanity.
I feel privileged to have met them.
Thank you to Dorobo Safari Tours, Arusha, Tanzania and especially to our guide Thad Peterson for making this trip possible.
Travel is so stimulating and rewarding, no?