Field Work
Recently we have had many opportunities to go out into the community areas and do more field work. The really great aspect of this program is that I will learn something in the classroom one day and then get to directly apply it the next day. I definitely walk away with so much more value from each experience like this.
Poop Day
This first field experience was kind of gross, as we basically had to walk around for a couple hours and look at poop or “feces” if you want to sound scientific. I forgot to mention that while we were in Lake Manyara our professor stopped repeatedly to get out of the car and pick up “fresh” piles of animal dung. The first time we stopped he took the car’s wastebasket and filled it to the top with elephant dung and made the people sitting in the back of the car sit with it behind them for the rest of the day. We also stopped for wildebeest and one other pile of crap that I don’t remember what it was. We were a little annoyed that our car continued to fill with literal shit, for lack of a better word, throughout the day and it smelled fresh too, which was pretty nasty. Then in lecture on Thursday we spent the time passing around animal dung learning how to identify all of them for our field exercise. Yes, a pile of elephant dung that was bigger than all of our heads was passed around the whole classroom. Some of what we learned was actually pretty interesting. For example, hyena feces are often very white because their jaws are so powerful that they eat the bones of their prey. Also, DNA can easily be extracted from elephant dung and used to help authorities crack down on the poaching trade. In Tanzania, most of the illegal ivory gets shipped out of Dar es Salaam and many times it can be confiscated. They can compare the DNA in the ivory tusks to dung samples collected in various elephant populations. Since elephants in one group are very closely related, they can actually trace the tusk to the elephant group it came from. Who know that poop could actually help fight one of the biggest conservation fights in the world?
Anyways, after this up close and personal lecture on animal feces we went back to Mto wa mbu to this wide open field that backed up to the lake. This stretch of land is where most of the pastoralists raise their livestock. However, since it backs up to the lake and the national park is there, there is quite a mix of wildlife in this field as well. We were sent out to make a series of 2 m x 2m plots where we had to record the different feces found in the plot. We found quite a mix of cattle, goat, sheep, Thompson’s Gazelle, and the occasional zebra or wildebeest. This just goes to show that in many areas of Tanzania the people live in very close quarters with wildlife, which is where many human-wildlife conflicts originate. While we were completing the exercise we were surrounded within meters by herds of both Thompson’s gazelles and cattle, with some wildebeest not too far in the distance, which was a really cool feeling. The lake was nearby and a couple hundred flamingoes were gathered there. Overall, this ended up being a pretty cool field experience.
Community Hardships
Our second field exercise was for my Environmental Policy class. In lecture we have been looking into the importance of having rural communities be in charge of managing their own resources. In Tanzania, about 75% of people are living in rural communities and dependent on natural resources to warm their homes, grow crops, raise livestock, and in general, survive. Each community has their own unique combination of natural resources, adversities and hardships, and cultural values. As a result, it makes sense that each community is taught to be proactive in managing their natural resources as it directly affects the future development of that community.
One of the methods being encouraged in Tanzania is a Participatory Rural Appraisal (or PRA). Basically a trained team is sent to or invited by a rural community and they work with the community by collecting a series of extensive data on all aspects of the community identifying problems and potential opportunities. They report the data, involve the people, and train them how to be proactive in managing/improving their community once the PRA team is gone.
As part of our exercise we had to complete one of the aspects of data collection that a PRA team does called a transect walk and an optional assessment ranking. The transect walk involves walking along a straight path for a certain distance (we did 2 km) and recording all landscape, cultivation, and human settlement features. We are also supposed to identify problems we see in the surrounding area and potential opportunities that the community could expand upon. For example, we noticed when we walked that there was no nearby access to water to all the fields around us. We identified this as a problem and a future opportunity. An options assessment ranking involves interviewing local community members on a topic using specific criteria and using the feedback as a way to rank the preferences of the people on that topic. For example, we had to interview local farmers and families to determine why they preferred to grow certain crops based on water availability/requirements, market price, shelf life, home consumption, and physical labor requirements. To do this exercise we had an interpreter sent with us, who happens to also play soccer with us.
Overall this was the most eye opening experience I have had since being here. It is one thing to talk about the problems faced by people and another to go into the community, witness them first hand, and hear directly from struggling people what they are dealing with to survive. Around here, people mostly grow maize and beans to feed their families for the year and cultivate pigeon peas for profit. One woman we talked to said she has to walk 2 km to get water for their fields 3 times a day and they have to pay for it. Most people grow their crops exclusively during the wet season because that is the best way to guarantee a water source for their fields. At another home they told us that elephants come and eat their crops every year so the risk outweighs the benefit of growing them. The same family also struggled to pay for fertilizer and pesticide to grow vegetables to feed themselves. Unfortunately, most people use DDT as a pesticide and it costs 50,000 shillings, or about $25 for one liter. This is quite an expense when the average income is only $1,654 a year and 28% of the population makes less than $1.25 a day. At the last home we went into, the woman we spoke too also shared their struggle to profit off their pigeon peas because of the elephants eating them. This is a major human-wildlife conflict that people around here are struggling with and don’t have access to resources to better protect their crops. I believe I have talked about my professors’ project to find fencing methods to mitigate this problem. Also, on occasion these people receive dud seeds so they have almost no crop yield, and sometimes the major companies that buy the pigeon peas don’t give the people a fair price.
It was made abundantly clear to us that life here is not easy and every long day’s effort is enough to hopefully get by. I would also like to point out that even though these people struggle here, they are the happiest most friendly people I have ever met in my life and it is inspiring to see their unwavering positive attitudes. The friendly and positive atmosphere is something I will miss most about Tanzania, where back in the states people have so much more but tend to not fully appreciate what they have.
During our exercise we walked past a local bar where a group of very drunk men were gathered outside in the middle of the day. One thing that I found very interesting is that there is no social drinking culture in Tanzania. When people are in bars it is usually because they are alcoholics. Alcoholism, like in America, destroys local families making it much harder for them to get by. Upon seeing us, the drunken men approached us and asked us all to marry them (men randomly proposing to women is not uncommon here). One of the men proceeded to follow us around to the homes for the rest of the time we conducted interviews, sitting next to us and talking to us in slurred Swahili/English while we tried to talk to people. It was a very uncomfortable experience, but another eye opening one.
Another surprising encounter during this exercise was by pure chance walking into the home of the Karatu district representative, who to my surprise is a woman. She grew crops and managed livestock at her homestead like everyone else. You could tell how proud she is of her position when she volunteered to show us pictures of her with prominent ministers of Tanzania. It was really great to talk to her about the kind of work she does as a district representative. Overall, this was a very rewarding and humbling experience that I am grateful I was a part of.
Grass Day
Today was my least favorite exercise we have done so far. We went out into another large grazing area, like the one where we did the feces exercise. This land was scattered with herds of livestock being managed by many young Maasai kids. Today, we collected data on the most thrilling plants in all of plant kingdom: grass. Yupp, we spent all afternoon walking around and identifying grass species in these small 1 m x 1 m plots. It was probably the least fun thing I have done in wildlife management so far. I can appreciate the fact that its really important to know the quality of your grasslands and other habitats in an area where grazing dominants the diet of most livestock and wildlife species in East Africa. However, it doesn’t mean it is fun by any means. We also had to walk through quite a few herds of cattle that looked less than pleased that we were disturbing their personal space. At one point I had one big cow standing behind me staring me down, giving me the crazy eye. I really hope I don’t have to count any more grass species this semester, even though I probably should really know how to, considering the field I want to go into. Hopefully the next field exercise is a tad more exciting. I am still really grateful for the chance to learn mostly outside the classroom in as beautiful a place as Tanzania.
