A Conversation About Tanzania and Americans

This morning I drove from Northfield to Rochester, to meet with Pam Schwalbach and Charles Mpanda. Pam is American and Charles is Tanzanian. Both are passionate about working with Tanzanians and Americans to foster understanding between the two nations. They seek to accomplish these goals through travel and tourism and offering people of both nations the opportunity to know one another through living and working together.

Charles and Pam run a tour company, Tanganyika Ancient Routes, whose motto is "Travel,  Learn and Serve." They are also involved with Simple Hope, a non-profit that Pam and her friend Karen Puhl founded. Working in rural Tanzania, the mission of Simple Hope is to "to save and empower lives through faith, nutritious food, clean water, education, and other identified long term sustainable processes."

Our long conversation today dealt with all these issues. We spent much time brainstorming on cross-cultural orientation and developing tourism that is truly educational and liberating. We realized that we all are passionate about cultural orientation to enable people to interact and work together free from problems that are likely to arise due to cultural differences.

Charles and I first met in Arusha, on June 21, 2008, when I conducted a workshop on Culture and Globalization, which he attended. In the photos from the workshop, he is seen wearing a jacket and a cap. He has been in the USA for a few weeks, and he suggested that we should meet. We are all happy that worked out.

Workshop: Culture and Globalization, July 3

Venue: Arusha Community Church
Date: July 3, 2010: 9:00am-1:00pm
Presenter: Professor Joseph L. Mbele (St. Olaf College, USA)

Workshop Theme

The world is increasingly becoming a global village, with serious implications. What is globalization? What are the consequences of globalization? What is the global village? Will the global village be a pleasant place or a place of tension and suffering? What is our strategy for coping in the global village? Globalization brings both opportunities and challenges. What are these?

Within this broad framework, this workshop will focus on the cultural dimensions of globalization. In the global village, people of different cultures will have to interact, through living or working together. We will have to deal with people whose values, expectations, ways of thinking, acting and communicating are different from ours. Are we prepared for these challenges?

As we go abroad, to do business, to live, or just travel, we will encounter cultural differences. Even if we just stay in our own countries, we will deal with foreigners, whose cultures are different from ours. We need to understand these differences, in order to be effective in our dealings with foreign companies, business partners, volunteers, tourists, students, co-workers, and friends. How prepared are we when we embark on business ventures abroad? Without cultural literacy, can we conduct effective diplomacy?

As foreign companies, enterprises and organizations move into places like Africa, should they bring their values and ways of doing things to Africa, or should they adapt to the African ways? What are the pros and cons of either strategy? Some people talk about international standards. Are these international standards, or just European and American?

Such are the questions this workshop will address, building on Professor Mbele’s experience in conducting such workshops in the U.S.A. and Tanzania. His knowledge and experience will open new doors and new horizons. The workshop will be interactive, with participants freely asking questions and contributing their own perspectives. This strategy worked well in previous workshops, and this workshop should be even better.

Registration at the conference venue: Arusha Community Church
Fee: 20,000 shillings
Inquiries: info@africonexion.com
Phone: 0717 413 073

My Nebraska Readers

On June 9, 2010 I was in Amsterdam for several hours, on my way from Minneapolis to Dar es Salaam. As we were standing in the long, packed queue, proceeding to the boarding gate, a lady approached me confidently and asked me to sign a copy of my Africans and Americans book.

I did not know the lady, but she had the book in her hand. As she was handing me the pen and the book, I humbly asked for her name, and she told me to write Charlotte and Aimee. I asked where she was from and she said Nebraska, adding that she and several other people were on their way to Arusha, Tanzania, on a mission trip. Such mission trips are now very common among U.S. Lutherans and other Christians.

As Charlotte and I talked, we discovered that we have a mutual friend, Pastor Martin Russell, who is a seasoned leader of mission trips to Tanzania. I have never met him, but we are connected on Facebook. As we were getting connected on Facebook, Pastor Russell told me that he constantly recommends my book to mission trip participants. That is how Charlotte got to know about it.

During the flight, a young lady came to my seat and declared that she was Charlotte’s daughter and excitedly started praising my book, saying it “really nailed it.” Other people sitting nearby heard her. I was humbled. She asked if I would pose for a photo with her group later, and I gladly agreed.

When the plane landed at the Kilimanjaro International Airport in Arusha, I joined the group in the back of the plane and Charlotte took the photo shown here.













Such encounters with my readers have become quite common during flights between the USA and Tanzania. I am easy to recognize because of the photo on the back of my book, and I know that wherever I go, I cannot hide.

Cultural Tourism Model: Mto wa Mbu

The Mto wa Mbu Cultural Tourism Program is alive and well, as I noted in an earlier blog post. Now comes the news that the Program has been selected as a model for other such programs in Tanzania. I offer my congratulations, as a friend of the Program.

Here is the report, in the Arusha Times:

By Arusha Times Correspondent

A cultural tourism project at Mto wa Mbu in Arusha region has been picked to serve as a model for others initiated in various parts of the country.

The project has been attracting an increased number of visitors and revenues over the past seven year, generating some Sh63.6 million in 2007 when it hosted 4,094 tourists.

Mto wa Mbu, a fast growing township at the foot of the Great Rift Valley escarpment, is a gateway to the most famous tourist sites in northernTanzania.

The site is among 27 projects being implemented under the Cultural Tourism Programme (CTP) which aims to tap the potential of cultural relics in the country for tourism.

The programme was launched in 1997 with the support of a Netherlands organisation (SNV) which managed it until 2002 when it was taken over by the Government through the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB).

Mary Lwoga, the programme coordinator said the Mto wa Mbu cultural tourism enterprises would be propelled to become a leading site because of its prime location and cultural diversity of the area.

She told reporters that the area has been attracting more tourists whose number has more than tripled from 1,116 in 2002 to 4,094 in 2007.

She said the Government was keen to give a bigger push to cultural tourism because it has a big potential to boost the broader tourism industry, now the leading sector in foreign exchange earnings.

"Cultural tourism is much broader than historical sites and curio shops. In this case, visitors have to be exposed the typical lifestyles of the local communities; their traditional food, dressing, dances and so on and so forth" she said.

She added that Tanzania is endowed with the rich cultural heritage of more than 120 ethnic groups and that since its launching, the programme is already attracting about 30,000 foreign tourists a year to its 27 sites.

"CTP provides visitors with authentic cultural experiences that combine nature, scenery, folklore, ceremonies, dances, rituals, tales, art, handicrafts and hospitality and give a unique insight into their way of life," she pointed out.

Many of the projects which have taken off so far are in the northern tourist circuit extending from Lushoto in Tanga region, through Kilimanjaro and Arusha regions to Babati and Hanang in Manyara.

Outside the northern circuit similar cultural tourism projects are at Mbeya and Rungwe in the southern highlands and Pangani on the coast.

Mto wa Mbu was one of the early cultural heritage projects to be established under the programme, now based at the Natural History Museum premises in Arusha. ends

Revenue from the tourist visits is mainly used to empower women in the villages, promote education and protect the environment.

Studying Hemingway in Tanzania

Ernest Hemingway is one
of the most well known writers in the world. Not many people, however, know about his lifelong fascination with Africa. For years I knew about Hemingway, having read some of his works, but in the summer of 2002, I fell under Hemingway's spell. That summer, I helped lead a large group of American students, their parents, and teachers on safari in some of the game parks of northern Tanzania: Ngorongoro, Serengeti, and Tarangire. The safari was organized by Thomson Safaris, http://www.thomsonsafaris.com, and my role was to incorporate folklore into the experience.

As I prepared for this trip, I decided to take Hemingway's African stories with me. I could not have made a better choice, as I wrote in a Tanzanian newspaper afterwards:

I had with me the African writings of Ernest Hemingway, the famous American writer who had visited these areas many years ago. I had read some of Hemingway's writings and I knew what a skillful and insightful writer he was. But being in the Serengeti, and reading his stories about hunting there, and about the animals, made this trip even more exciting. Hemingway's descriptions of the landscape, the fauna and the flora ring so true that I could almost see the warthogs running across his pages ("The African," September 14, 2002, p. 8).














With such an experience, it was natural that I began thinking about creating a course on Hemingway in East Africa. Eventually, I created such a course, for Colorado College. In the summer of 2007, twelve students, with Professor Bill Davis, came to Tanzania for the three-week course. Other trips have followed. Hemingway traveled extensively in East Africa, in 1933-34 and in 1953-54. Hemingway was an avid traveler and we cannot, in only three weeks, go everywhere he went. Still, teaching this course has been most satisfying to me. It offers an opportunity to challenge popular misconceptions and stereotypes about Hemingway, on such topics as hunting, writing and the macho image. I have learned to respect Hemingway more and more, as a writer whose mastery of the craft of writing is both intriguing and enchanting, whose insights into human nature are sharp and original, and who genuinely respected and liked the peoples and cultures he encountered.














Students on a trek up to Longido Mountain, with a Maasai guide.














A student meeting local women at Namanga, on the border between Kenya and Tanzania. Hemingway passed here.














A student meeting local women at Namanga. Hemingway wrote some fascinating observations about the local customs, including the piercing of ears.














A class outside a hilltop hotel, above Lake Manyara, near Mto wa Mbu. Hemingway hunted in this area.














A view of the Ngorongoro Crater. Hemingway hunted here.














Students in the Ngorongoro crater.














In front of a baobab tree in the Tarangire National Park. Hemingway hunted in this area.














There are many lodges and hotels in and around the national parks. Above is Ndutu Safari Lodge, in the Serengeti. Hemingway hunted in the Serengeti.














Discussing Hemingway's writings, at the Bougainvillea Lodge in Karatu.













On the edge of Lake Manyara, three giraffes walk in single file, while countless pink flamingoes are busy in the Lake. In his Green Hills of Africa, Hemingway talks about this Lake and various features of the area, including its famous hot springs.














The Arusha airport. Hemingway flew from this airport to a hospital in Nairobi after he became ill with dysentry in the Serengeti.














Students meet local Maasai school children in Longido. Hemingway passed through Longido, on his way to Arusha.














A class on Hemingway's writings, at the Trinidad Lodge in Babati. Hemingway passed through Babati, on his way to Kondoa, Handeni, and Tanga.














Students celebrating the end of the course, in Arusha.














On the way to Kilimanjaro International Airport, after the end of the course, it seems perfect to take one more photo, against the background of Mount Kilimanjaro. What a way to end a course in which one of the readings is Hemingway's unforgettable classic "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."