I’ll start today’s blog with last evening’s activity, which was our obligatory visit with Daniel Tewa. Before we could leave for Daniel’s, though, there was the matter of our transportation. One of my favorite words in KiSwahili is “shida,” which means “trouble” or “problem.” I think the reason I like it so much is that it sounds very similar to one of our very frequently used curse words that carries much the same connotation to imply that things are going well. To put it succinctly, we have been having car shida since our arrival in Tanzania a week ago when neither of my cars was ready for prime time due to unforeseen, though quite predictable, issues that each was having and delayed their availability for our use. Myrtle, my short Land Rover, arrived on Monday morning and still had an issue with the fuel adjustment causing it to blow white exhaust smoke (bad for a diesel), though was thankfully running perfectly fine.
The stretch Land Rover, otherwise known as Turtle (hence, Turtle and Myrtle), had undergone a major overhaul in the last months and was going to take several more days to be in ready shape for us. This was going to be an immediate problem for us as we were seven, and with the seating in Myrtle, that would require that two individuals would have to sit in the inward facing bench seats in the back of the Land Rover which are not the most comfortable by any means. What made matters worse, though, was that I hadn’t tried to open Myrtle’s back door until Thursday when we were all getting ready to go to Daniel’s, only to discover that the door latch was stuck, meaning that those sitting in the back would have to climb over the middle bench seat to get in, not a simple task for even the most limber. Latches get stuck frequently here and it’s usually just a matter of pouring some water on it and it will loosen, but no such luck with a simple fix tonight.
Meanwhile, the missing Turtle would continue to complicate matters over the coming days as she was quite necessary not only for our upcoming recreation plans but was also an integral part of our outreach program, as was Myrtle, and that would be starting the first of the week. So, once we were all loaded into Myrtle, including the two brave souls who volunteered to ride in these thoroughly uncomfortable and jostling seats in which your head sits only inches from the roof and one good bump could easily buy you a visit to our neurology clinic. Clinic ran very long, and we weren’t able to get out before 5 pm which is usually preferable as it’s best to arrive to Daniel’s in the daylight. Regardless, we still made it there with enough daylight to visit his underground Iraqw tembe, or house, that he had constructed in the early 1990s as an example of the type of home in which he had spent the first twenty years of his life.
For many years before this country’s independence in 1961, the Iraqw and Maasai tribes had been at odds over the ownership of cattle. The Maasai believed that all cattle were God’s gift to them and, therefore, they were not stealing cattle when they took them from the Iraqw, but they were rather being returned to their rightful owners. As such, the Iraqw built their homes essentially underground, allowing them to take their livestock into their house each night to protect them from theft by the Maasai. The homes were built with a dome of dirt and sod supported by crossmembers and upright poles of hardwood. Their homes were roomy enough for a corral on the inside for their livestock and each morning they would then be taken out for the daytime to graze in nearby fields. The homes were large enough for whatever the size of their family and could be anywhere from 5×5 rows for a young family to a much larger 10×10 and more for a larger family with older children.
As the country grew and tried to establish itself, it had numerous hurdles to overcome, and one of those was to figure out a mechanism to establish an infrastructure that could serve the population, but having 128 separate tribes in the country, each with their own villages, it was clear to the government that having everyone live together in combined villages with combined services would make things tremendously more manageable. So, in 1974, the government declared that the Iraqw tembe, and other traditional tribal buildings, illegal and that everyone should live slowly move into villages together, where the government could build roads, and power lines, and similar necessary services with much less effort and expense. Interestingly, the Iraqw and Maasai remained at war until a treaty was finally signed in 1986, and they were officially at peace.
The Iraqw tembe that Daniel built, and now widely attracts both scholars and tourists from near and, is magnificent and it has clearly withstood the test of time and is a testament to its design and construction – so much so that the only damage it has sustained since it’s construction more than thirty years ago occurred when a pair of elephants, a mother and child, decided to walk across its dome and, in the process of doing so, caused one of the horizontal supports to crack and ended up with a leak until it was prepared. The depressions from the elephants feet are still visible in dome.
Given our later than hoped for arrival, Daniel suggested that we tour his house first, so we still have some daylight, and then enjoy coffee and cake afterwards. I had first met Daniel in 2009 when I had first come to Tanzania with my children and had elected to spend three days in Karatu volunteering at the Ayalabe School. As one of the village elders, Daniel accompanied us each day and invited us back to his home where he and his wife, Elizabeth, entertained us with dancing and coffee, and Daniel shared his underground house with us for the first time. When I returned to Karatu the following year to volunteer at FAME, I contacted Daniel in the hope that I could reconnect. Amazingly, he remembered not only our visit with him one year prior, but he also remembered my children’s names, asking me immediately how both my Daniel and Anna were doing.
When I returned to see him during my first visit to volunteer at FAME in October 2010, I came to his home and quickly discovered that in Tanzania, it is considered rude not to provide a visitor with a meal before they leave, and so I stayed to have dinner with Daniel and his family. We had a simple meal in his living room, eating with our hands, and he later told me that I was the first white person to ever return to his home after cultural visit, let alone honor him with my presence for a meal. Since that time, I have visited Daniel with my groups each and every time we’ve been at FAME, including two visits now that I have two groups each trip. Up until the pandemic, we had also had dinner with Daniel and his family, though after the beginning of the pandemic, and with each of my groups now being much larger, we have only come for coffee and lesson in Iraqw culture. We had another wonderful visit with Daniel this evening, and everyone went home with a much better understanding of the Iraqw culture and the history of this very young country.
The following morning, Friday, there was a “near miss M&M” conference that had to do with diabetic ketoacidosis and a young patient who had come into the ED recently and was very sick with DKA, a condition that is very serious, and can be lethal if not treated properly. In the end, the patient had done well, though had it not been for a few “lucky” catches, it could have gone much differently, and the purpose of the exercise was really to take advantage of the situation by creating pathways and algorithms that going forward would prevent any possible near misses in the future. Everyone participated and though the importance in teamwork was something that everyone at FAME has known since the very beginning, it was further reinforced so patients such as these will continue to be provided the very best medical care possible.
Our plans at the end of the day were to visit Teddy, the tailor that has made lovely clothing and other things for my residents for several years now, but we would need to visit the fabric store in town prior to going to her shop. Thankfully, we were able to finish the day at a decent time, and even better, I had asked the drivers at FAME to work on Myrtle’s back door. They were successful with some good old WD-40 and, with that, we now had much easier entry to the back seats, though they were still incredibly bouncy. We visited the fabric shop and Teddy’s and were home in time for dinner.
I still did not have Turtle, my stretch Land Rover and safari vehicle, which was now becoming an issue as we needed the car for our Sunday visit to Ngorongoro Crater, and without it we would have to come up with some alternative plan. I kept my fingers crossed that Turtle would somehow appear in time, but if she didn’t, at least we would still be able to go. Once you’ve booked your service with the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Administration, it’s often not very easy to get your money back and that did happen once many years ago when our vehicle broke down shortly after going through the gate. It took us hours to get the car towed back to town, and the NCAA was not at all concerned about giving us our money back for the day.
Tomorrow was to be a half day of clinic, and we had scheduled dinner at Gibb’s Farm for the group with plans to spend the afternoon around the pool there which is always a very special event. Gibb’s Farm has always been constant theme for us here at FAME – it is an incredible five-star eco-resort with farm to table cuisine and can’t be underestimated as an experience that is just always good for one’s soul. Not quite chicken soup, but close.