Week with the Hadza in Tanzania!

Sorry it has been awhile... I just got back late Friday night from a week in Tanzania. It was amazing!! We left at 6am on Friday and drove all day towards a town called Arusha in Tanzania. We crossed the border around lunch time and our driver, Njao, simply told us to take our passports and get off the bus and cross the border. He said he would see us on the other side. We went through immigration and customs - walking from building to building - very different from the US / Canadian border. Every time we came out of a building we were surrounded by hawkers (people trying to sell things / beg for $) and as soon as they see Americans they run to you. After walking across the border as a group we found the bus and Njao and continued on our trip. We stopped for lunch on the side of the road - completely in the middle of nowhere - it looked like the desert. We arrived in Arusha around 2 pm at the Dorobo Safaris base and as soon as we got off the bus we were told to get into the Safari trucks with our bags. Our group had 2 big trucks, German trucks from WW2, and we waved goodbye to Njao and took off with our new guides. The Dorobo Safaris is run by the Peterson Brothers (3 of them). They were born in Tanzania after their parents came from the US in the 1950s as missionaries. They all started the tour company about 20 years ago because they needed to find a job in order to stay in Tanzania. Even though they were born in the country, they still have US passports and can not get a Tanzania passport unless they give up their US ones - and they don't want to do that because then it would be very hard to travel outside the country. The brothers went to college in the US, but loved Tanzania, and now they work together doing many different kinds of Safaris all over the country. Thad, one of the brothers, was our main guide and told us all about the business and their many adventures in Tanzania as we drove from Arusha towards the Yaeda Valley. We stayed the first night in a gorgeous campsite at the base of the mountains that we would cross the next day. Our camp was at the bottom of a waterfall where we saw baboons playing on the rocks at dusk and in the morning. We set up our tents under a huge tree - Thad said you couldn't get closer to the "Cradle of Human Life". Every meal was delicious and the Dorobo team with us was so good to us. The first night we had rice, veggies, a great sauce, salad, and mango crumble. We sat around the fire for awhile after dinner and Thad told us about the rest of our week. We would spend the next day climbing the mountain range in the trucks and then go down into the valley where we would find the Hadza people in their many camps around the area.

Some information on the Hadza: The Hadza or Hadzabe, are an ethnic group in central Tanzania. They live around Lake Eyasi in the central Rift Valley. They now number under 1000. 300-400 of them live in the area we visited. They live as hunter-gatherers and have lived like that for tens of thousands of years. They are the last functioning hunter-gatherers in Africa. They are not closely related to any other people and their language, with many click sounds, does not resemble any other African language.

We reached our 2nd campsite late Saturday afternoon. The ride was amazing though - we crossed the valley and saw beautiful views the entire ride. We also saw many small isolated villages along the road ways. Trucks seldom travel on the roads we were on, so people ran from their homes and fields to wave to us in the trucks. We reached the campsite, nothing special, just an open space in the middle of nowhere where the Dorobo team and our group got to work to make it a site. We set up tents, a big food tent, traveling bathrooms (basically a hole in the ground covered by a little square tent for privacy), and also made fires to cook food on and sit around. Some Hadza were already there to greet us and had set up their own small camp. Dorobo tours have many guidelines that they follow to be respectful of the tribes when they travel. One of them is to not stay too close to the Hadza camp and also to give them space we only visit their camps for a short period of time during the day. Dorobo, before trips, sits down with the Hadza and picks a few representatives from the tribe to stay with us and teach us during our stay. The few Hadza who stayed with us were quiet at first and kept to themselves in their camp, but eventually warmed to us and taught us a lot - even though we couldn't communicate with words, they would act out things to us or have Thad or someone else translate for us. We did so much all week - I can't begin to explain - but I will point out some highlights - we stayed in our first Hadza camp for 2 nights and then traveled for another day to a further site for another 2 nights before traveling 10 hours back to Arusha in the trucks.
Some things we did:
* We went hunting in groups of 5 with 2 Hadza men, we didn't catch anything, but one of our guys, Salami, came back a few times with bloody arrows - he explained by acting it out that he almost got a bird and a wart hog but the arrows only grazed them. Our group came back after 6 hours to camp with Baobab fruit and some other berries, but another group got a few small animals that they cooked over the fire and we ate. I think one was a sort of giant rat - delicious!
* We visited one of the Hadza camps at our first site and they showed us how to make porridge with the fruit from the big Baobab trees and also how to make millet from simple berries found while gathering. At the site I played with one of the little babies and had her walk to me - so cute! The men showed us how to make fire with sticks and they gave us porcupine quills to use in our hair.
* We saw many Baobab trees - the Hadza use them for many things. They eat the fruits that grow on them and they are supposedly very rich in nutrients and very good for you. They also get honey from the trees in the natural bee hives they find. They climb the trees using wooden pegs that they hammer into the trunk. They can get water from the top of the tree - it collects in the basin at the top and they can use the tree as a look-out to look across the valley. They taught us how to climb - it was a little scary. I didn't go to the top because of my ankle, but watching everyone go was fun.
* The Hadza men taught us how to make arrows and then helped with the finishing touches. They put the arrows in the fire to make them easy to bend with their teeth - they need them to be very straight to be able to shoot game. We each made our own arrows and later got to practice shooting - I wasn't very good, but it was fun to watch the young Hadza men hit the targets they set up.
* At our 2nd camp there was an amazing small mountain of rocks you could climb to look out over the valley. We went up there as a group a few times to have lectures and watch the sunrise and sunset. Looking out over the valley one night we saw a huge fire in the distance - Thad explained that the valley has been taken over (somewhat) by another tribe, the Tatoga, because the Hadza never stay in one place - so a lot of their land seems unoccupied - the Hadza don't mind at the moment, but they are trying to make it clear to the Tatoga that the land is still theirs. The Tatoga were burning the dry land to make it better for farming. If you are more interested - look up more information on the Hadza - the Tanzania government is trying to make them become civilized and many investors want to take over the valley for economic gain - the Hadza are trying to fight to keep their land, but it is hard when they are not fairly represented in government. Dorobo is trying to fight for them and helps the Hadza voice their opinions and concerns to the outside world. Dorobo is the only tour company allowed in the valley at this time because they are respected by the Hadza and practice responsible tourism - many other tour groups do not.
* One of the last nights we saw a young goat tied up near the site and we were told it would be killed for dinner. We all watched the goat get slaughtered - the hardest part was hearing it scream as it's neck was sliced open and blood gushed out. The Hadza men were quick with their work and minutes after the goat was killed, we were all handed a cup of the fresh blood to drink - I still can't believe I did it. The Hadza do not eat goat that often, it is expensive, so when they do, the whole goat is consumed, nothing is wasted. After drinking the blood, most of the group left, but myself and 3 other girls stayed to watch the rest of the dissection. We were offered small pieces of the liver to eat - fresh from the body. I tried to swallow it but ended up spitting it up - too bad. I think it was too hard because I was standing there trying to eat the piece while I looked at the rest of the body. Definitely an experience...
* The last night at the Hadza camp, after sitting around the fire for a long time listening to tradition music and dance - Jane, Amelia, and I (tent-mates) decided to take our sleeping bags up to the rock to sleep. We had to walk a bit to get up there - but we assumed we would be safe. People had talked about it that day, and we thought it was a good idea. The stars were amazing and it was nice and cool up there. We had been lying on the rock for awhile and then 2 people from our group ran up and were yelling at us to get off. They said the Hadza men around the fire heard we were up there and said to get off immediately because leopards were known to hang out on that rock at night. Thanks to the Hadza men for saving us that night - we had no idea!
* The week was amazing and I have many pictures, here are a few for now - it takes forever to load them here.