We spent last week at Mazumbai Forest Reserve in the West Usambara Mountains. It was easily one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been…the pictures don’t do it justice. Mazumbai is a tropical rainforest near the northwest coast of Tanzania and is one of the 25 “biodiversity hotspots” of the world. As much as I have a soft spot for Ngezi Forest Reserve on Pemba, Zanzibar where I did my ISP last semester (which is another of those 25 bidiversity hotspots) it can’t even compare to the sheer size of the rainforest in the Usambara Mountains. Mazumbai is everything you think of when you think tropical fainforest – 50 meter tall trees that are hundreds and hundreds of years old, monkeys swinging from vine to vine, lots of icky bugs and spiders, poisonous snakes (luckily we didn’t see any), five canopy levels, and waterfalls.

On the first day at Mazumbai we were encouraged to spend the entire morning alone in the forest. We took off our watches, took nothing with us and just explored. We climbed trees, ran naked, swam in creeks, stood under waterfalls, sat and observed birds and butterflies fly by, climbed rocks and just had a grand old adventure in the forest. It was nice to be so free for half a day. This program doesn’t allow for too much free time so it was nice to have a few hours to feel free to do exactly what I wanted. The entire 6+ months I’ve been here, I’ve been letting go of some of my bad Western habits: always thinking about the time, always in a hurry, feeling like I need to always be busy, always thinking that every activity must have an end goal…etc. I don’t think I was ever as up-tight as that list makes it sound…but compared to Tanzanians I was. But that one morning in the forest really brought it all together. I let go of all of my responsibilities and felt completely comfortable wandering around a forest alone without trails, a watch, phone, map or water.

The rest of the week was spent studying the forest in the mornings, hiking in the afternoons, and participating in “Baba Jack’s Boot Camp” in the evenings. One of my least favorite things about the time I’ve spent in Tanzania is how hard it is (especially for women) to exercise. But this week made up for the exercise we’ve missed out on for the past few weeks. As if hiking up and down the Usambara mountains every day wasn’t enough to make our weak muscles burn…Baba Jack’s boot camp kicked our asses every day. Baba Jack (our academic director) spent years studying martial arts so every evening we did cardio, strength training and learned a little bit of martial arts. It felt so good to get some exercise!

This is the view from one of our hikes…and some fellow students at the top of the mountain.

A few studious students taking a break from field study work in the forest.

Unfortunately I got pretty sick during the week. I had a 102 degree fever and some other uncomfortable symptoms that I will spare you. My symptoms matched symptoms for malaria exactly, so I was rushed down the mountain on the rough dirt road to the nearest clinic. Luckily it wasn’t malaria, but the doctor had no other recommendation for what it could be, so I just headed right back up the mountain and waited it out. Sure enough, after a few days it went away on its own and now I’m good as new!

This is the view driving toward the clinic.

One afternoon, we visited a nearby secondary school that SIT has been donating building supplies to. We were surprised when there were NO kids there (except for a few overzealous SIT students…see below). But it was especially surprising since women have 8 kids, on average, in this area of Tanzania…so there are always kids EVERYWHERE. It turns out the district sports tournament was that day in a different nearby village. So a few of us got a ride to that village so we could watch the soccer tournament. And then began one of the most overwhelming hours of my life. I gotta say I’ve gotten pretty used to being a spectacle here in Tanzania…my skin color automatically makes me one. But never to such an extent. As soon as we drove up to the soccer field, every single child that was at the field sprinted toward our car and surrounded it. And it wasn’t just a couple of kids…I think every child within walking distance of the field was there (at least 700-800 kids)…plus a fair amount of adults. We were literally too scared to get out of the car for a few minutes. But eventually we took a few deep breaths and got out…and we were still surrounded by all of them. We couldn’t even take a single step toward the field because of the crowd around us. Soon a few adults picked up sticks and chased some of the kids away so we had a small path to get to the field. I’m really not a fan of the corporal punishment that is prevalent here, but I will say it was effective in this circumstance. Eventually we made it to the sideline and once the game started our novelty wore off and we got to enjoy the game, which ended in an exciting 0-0 tie.

If you look closely in this picture you can see one of my fellow mzungu students off to the right. (this was only a very small portion of the crowd).

An interesting tidbit I learned this week: The people of the Usambara region believe that white people are vampires…so we were prohibited from leaving our campsite area after dark and we weren’t supposed to mention anything about blood around local people. They think this belief stems from the colonial era when white doctors would take the blood of the local people (without telling them why) to test is for various diseases. It’s interesting how prevalent the belief in magic is in Tanzania. Every region has its own unique beliefs, but everywhere I’ve been I’ve heard stories about the supernatural...whether it be curses, ghosts, vampires, healing powers, etc. After some of the first-hand stories I’ve heard, maybe there is some truth to magic afterall…
We got to stay in this “Swiss Chalet” that looks very out of place in these African mountains. (Well actually we camped outside on the lawn, but we got to relax and eat our meals inside the chalet.)

We visited this “dinosaur” tree on one of our hikes. It’s over 50 meters tall and has giganticccc buttress roots (above-ground roots that help stabilize the tree).