Another tribe we went to see was the Datoga tribe. The tribe we met were black smiths. They were super friendly and of course, there was singing and dancing. We had all of the women in our group take pictures with the women of the community we visited. There was a little boy there who was so curious of me. He held my hand for quite a while and did so in the women’s photo. He was fascinated by my gold medallion I wear with Joe’s badge number and really liked my watch. It is a plain field watch that I often wear if I know I am going on a fire call. It is an analog watch that has a second hand that he found mesmerizing to follow going round and round. The photo of their living area has a number spray painted on the outside. It is not an address. It was from when they took the last census a year or so ago, for the count of the people in that community. I told you it got complicated. The Datoga are semi nomadic and are polygamists. They are one of the oldest tribes in Tanzania, along with the Masai and the Hadzabe tribes. The Datoga men who are blacksmiths (there are other Datoga tribes that herd cows and goats) will get any kind of scrap metal to melt down and make into their jewelry to sell. In my photos, they had a garden hose spigot that they hammered down, melted, and poured into a mold to make a stick of metal. They have to stoke the fire by hand, using bellows made from animal skins. There is a picture of Rich trying to do this.
Tanzania is one of the biggest producers of red onions. They are planted by hand, watered by hand, and picked by hand. It is an arduous task. I have a few photos of the onion fields. There were a lot of Kenyan trucks who came in and bought truckloads of red onions, took them back to Kenya, labelled them as Kenyan onions and export them. So if you are in the grocery store and see red onions with a sticker from Kenya, know it is most likely Tanzania. Our guide mentioned several times that Tanzania has yet to figure out how to market itself to the world. I loved my time in Tanzania but people tend to know so little about it. Their president is a woman and is also Muslim. I found that fascinating! We were late getting to the airport in Arusha because she was in town and we couldn’t get out onto the streets to leave for the airport. The last few photos are from the sun setting over our spot in Lake Eyasi.
Messina Musings 