More Good News About My "Africans and Americans" Book

I wrote Africans and Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences to facilitate my work of advising American students going to study in Africa. I was painfully aware that there was no book I could rely on for the kind of orientation I wanted for these students. I therefore decided to write my own book.

I am grateful that other people like this book. Lately, Elizabeth M. Cannon and Carmen Heider, professors at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, have written about their experience of using this book. In a recently published article, they discuss their experience of leading a study abroad program in Tanzania, including the challenges of motivating students and providing them socio-cultural orientation. They led the program several times, learning from each experience in order to improve the program. Here is what they did during the third year:

We also thought carefully about how to design our on-site class sessions to reflect our commitment to active, student-centered learning, and provide general guidance to our students. We decided to focus these classes on Mbele’s Africans and Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences, one of our readings from 2008, because this Tanzanian author challenges stereotypes through the presentation of his cultural experiences. Before we left the United States, we divided students into four groups and assigned each a section of this text on which they would lead one of four on-site class sessions. On-site discussions focused on comparisons between Mbele’s views of Tanzanian life and students’ interactions with the people they met and the places they visited. Frustration was replaced with excited conversations. These classes shifted from tense obligations where learning was stifled to an exciting component of the trip where insights flourished (p. 68).

I am happy and grateful that the book is such a helpful resource for others.

Iringa Lutheran Centre

Last year, I stayed at the Iringa Lutheran Centre with students on the LCCT program. The Center is hidden away in a corner of Iringa, off the road from the Regional Library to Kihesa. A quiet, well kept establishment, the Centre has guest rooms and a restaurant.

Here I am with Tom Nielsen, the director of the Center. He and I had first met in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, where we both conducted a retreat for Lutherans. In his apartment across the street, I saw a copy of my Africans and Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences among his books. It is a small world.

Thanks to Don Fultz, a pastor who tirelessly promotes relations between Tanzanian and American Lutherans, my students and I traveled from Dar es Salaam to Iringa with guests from the Roseville Lutheran Church. They were going to Iringa on the Bega kwa Bega program. I discovered, as soon as we met, that these people knew about me. Dave and Karen Dudley, their trip leaders,  had urged them to read my Africans and Americans book. For much of the journey from Dar es Salaam to Iringa, I answered their questions about the nuances of African culture.

Our two groups stayed at the Iringa Lutheran Centre for several days, even though each had its own daytime schedule. We met during breakfast and dinner. One evening, I did a book signing, which I wrote about here.

Tom and his staff made our stay at the Centre a pleasant experience.

At Namanga, With Colorado College Students

In 2007, I visited Namanga, on the border between Tanzania and Kenya. I was there with students and Professor Bill Davis from Colorado College, on a Hemingway course. Visiting Namanga made sense. Hemingway and his party passed through here on December 20, 1933, on their way into what is today Tanzania.

Students got to meet the local people. Here is a student with women on the Kenyan side of the border.

Here is another student with women on the Kenyan side of the border.

On the Tanzanian side of the border, the students got to meet the local children as well.

I found being here unforgettable, knowing that Hemingway went down this very road, into the distance, beyond the mountain, towards Arusha.

Entertainment at Longido, Tanzania

Longido is a very small Tanzanian town on the road from Arusha to Nairobi. Small as it is, Longido is well known for tourism. If you wonder what else there is to do here, there are several simple pubs and restaurants where you can hang out, brushing shoulders with the local Maasai. You can be creative in other ways. During a 2008 visit here with students on a Hemingway course, we got a local guitarist to play for us.

We stayed here two days, studying the travels and writings of Hemingway. Longido is specially important as a center of Maasai culture, which Hemingway admired. We were hosted by the Longido Cultural Tourism program.

After dinner prepared by the local women, we sat around for the musical entertainment. 

The guitarist was versatile, featuring East African as well as American songs, both old and contemporary. It was quite a treat.

The Market at Soni, Tanzania

I took this photo at the market at Soni, near Lushoto, in northeastern Tanzania. The African market is fascinating, as I have written elsewhere, inspired, I must say, by Mikhail Bakhtin:

In many ways, African culture resembles the African market. Crowded and noisy, the African market displays the vitality and exhuberance of African life. The language of the African market placeis vibrant and full of humour, as haggling develops into spirited joking. A bond develops between buyer, seller and spectators, which is precious in ways the exchanging of goods for money is not. Like many other contexts and situations in Africa, the market is a place for building relationships (Africans and Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences, page 95).

The National Black Books Festival

For several years, I have known about the National Black Books Festival an annual event that takes place in Houston, Texas. I have also thought about attending it. As a writer, with several books published, I have participated in the Twin Cities Book Festival, as I have reported a number of times, such as here and here. Wishing to extend my reach, I will get to the National Black Books Festival.

American Students Reflect on Studying in Tanzania

Last year, I wrote blog posts on a trip I took to Tanzania with students on the LCCT program. Read, for example, this post.

I was in Tanzania with these students for three weeks and then I left them at the University of Dar es Salaam, where they studied for one semester. That is how the program works.

Upon their return to the USA, the students get the opportunity to talk about their experiences in Tanzania to a gathering of LCCT program advisors. We met today at St. Olaf College, for this purpose.

We heard these students talk about the orientation I led, their studies of Swahili and other subjects at the University of Dar es Salaam, dorm life and life in general in Tanzania.

While enrolled at the University of Dar es Salaam, these students get the opportunity to volunteer as teachers at Mlimani Primary School, which is on the campus.

In August last year, during my visit to Mlimani Primary School to prepare for the students' teaching there, the teachers told me that the school appreciates the work of the American students. They pointed out, for example, how the American students help the Mlimani pupils to improve their English.

We as advisors of the LCCT program are used to hearing these students extolling the value of their study abroad experience as life-changing.











We are also proud of the fact that we offer them orientation before they start their studies at the University of Dar es Salaam. They read about Tanzania's history and its political, economic, social and cultural realities. We make sure that they gain some understanding of the thoughts and influence of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. We seek, in these ways, to ensure that the students gain the most from their stay in Tanzania and their experience of culture shock is not too disruptive.