Almost-Daily Diary http://www.chainreactionblogs.com/diary/2015/10/30/a-different-tourist-experience/ Export date: Fri Jul 19 15:22:18 2024 / +0000 GMT |
A different tourist experience![]() It was the village visit that stood out from everything else. We'd been to Tanzania previously, and seen all the Masai villages close to the highway, each one looking just like the last except for perhaps a different ratio of tour busses to vans parked in front. We hadn't stopped at one in Tanzania, because they all looked just a little bit staged. I assumed the same would be true today; I couldn't have been more wrong. Our tour guide drove down a lengthy deserted dust track into this "village" which is really a collection of homesteads, each one belonging to a particular family. No running water, no electricity, and even money is something of an inconvenience for them since they have no means to accumulate it (they don't use banks but rather barter/trade for just about everything, and money requires that you go into town). ![]() So seriously not what you'd expect on an African tour! My biggest takeaway was the importance of NGOs, something I've always had a somewhat cynical eye towards in the past. And bicycles... darned few of them because they're just too expensive, so people walk everywhere. Having a bicycle is seen as something of a status symbol. A bit more on this village. Until recently, water was brought in from a well 5 kilometers away. An NGO built a new well much closer, and while you'd think a village might normally finance and build its own well, that's not how things work when you have no means or culture to accumulate anything beyond what you need for the next season. NGOs also provided concrete and plans for outhouses, which most now have. No plans for electricity or running water. Cell phones? Yes, the younger members have them, and they're charged off solar panels. ![]() Getting late; another big day tomorrow. |
Post date: 2015-10-30 14:59:40 Post date GMT: 2015-10-30 21:59:40 Post modified date: 2015-10-30 15:01:54 Post modified date GMT: 2015-10-30 22:01:54 |
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