How Goats Made the World a better place

You may be thinking? Did Claire die? Or perhaps did she assasinate the president of Tanzania and become in charge of the entire country and is now too busy for little things like writing blogs? No on both accounts–I’ve been busy and tired spending 7 hours at church on sunday will do that to but despite the president not being there I think they raised a lot of money!

Friday there was no school so I like any good Washingtonian went on a religious pilgrimage to a coffee farm. I actually had an earlier morning than expected and got up to drink coffee and not eat–why you ask because I was dying of heart burn–which the obvious cure is to drink nothing but coffee and eat nothing but fruit. No worries though even though I was up all night in agony I survived and I am feeling better now. (Perhaps it was the coffee pilgrimage who can say?) 

I got to the bus without any worries but while waiting for my guide from the Tengeru Cultural Heritage Center I kid you not I got surrounded by several motorcycle men at the same time. “Ah but I speak better English than this idiot so perhaps you will not have a fiance for me.” The other ladies who were waiting there seemed amused which I’m glad I could do for them but getting boxed in by motorcyclists who are trying to hit on you in English and Kiswahili at the same time you feel really special or annoyed. There is only so many times you can say no. (Speaking of which I was wondering what would happen if I’d said yes and I love you to everyone of those guys? Could I be getting money off of them?) Well probably but something tells me I’m not sure I would have wanted to pay them back and the hospital bill would be very large at the end of the day I assume. 

My guide Ebenezer showed up and I didn’t have to figure out who he was, because (a) he was in tourist guide get up and (b) I was the only white person and so it makes it pretty obvious. What can I say I stand out in a crowd. Ebenezer was very nice. He’s a huge birder so we talked about that and I now follow his instagram which is all photos of birds. I think he was also pretty philisophical because the most recent book he’d read was “Who will cry when you die?” 

I learned about the secondary school school system at least the one he went to. They were only aloud to speak English which is why his English was impecable. If he or any student was caught speaking Swahili he had to wear a sign saying “I am a Swahili speaker,” until he found someone else speaking Swahili than he could give the sign away. At the end of the day everyone who’d gotten the sign had to do some heinous chore like watering all the plants at the school by hand. He was making light of this but it sounds low grade a little bit strict although probably very very effective. I don’t think I would have survived secondary school in Tanzania. 

The center was about a kilometer up the road actually into another village, which I can’t remember the native name but it’s nicknamed “Village of Bananas.” It was up on the base of Mt. Merut, in the jungle, and surrounded by bananas. The villages claim to fame in my eyes. It housed Polish refugees during World War II and you wonder why there is a tree nicknamed “the sausage tree.” 

The center was tucked back away and absolutely gorgeous. I was the only tourist there and so I was met by the tour guide Hilary and then Mama Gladness-who only ever referred to me as “my daughter,” which is very comforting in a way I don’t know how to describe. We sat on the porch and had their traditional welcome tea that they give to everyone and is a lemongrass ginger tea that they make there. They also had homegrown peanuts. So we sat there and talked and learned about each other. Mostly they asked questions about me but I learned some stuff about cultural tourism and the Merut tribe. 

Cultural tourism has become bigger in Tanzania because the traditional safari and climbing the mountain (which yes I’ve finally seen and I’m very sad I couldn’t see it before) wasn’t benefiting or involving the local community and so the effort is to share the culture in a way that benefits the community and helps them be more involved in the larger world. 

Now for the Merut tribe. This tribe is much less well known than the Massai because they assimilated into Western Culture more but they are kind of the peaceful agricultural counterparts to the Maasai. 

They originated in the Levant and then came down the Nile. They have always been an agricultural people and originally stayed on the base of Kilomanjaro. At some point they broke apart and some came to the base of Merut to continue their agriculture. That’s the short and sweet version of how the people came to be. They are much more growers and crafstman and are not a nomadic people. 

After we’d finished this in the early morning sunshine–am I selling this yet? It was pretty awesome! Anyways we went and looked at the dairy cows. They feed their cows a lot and use the milk-standard. What I think is even cooler is they take the manure and run into through a chamber with aneorobic bacteria. A gas is created that is then used to power their kitchens. Then the manure is processed as fertilizer for the plants. (Pretty sweet right-maybe just for me.) 

Then we walked up to the coffee farm through a forest of banana trees. I learned about the different types of bananas, one for eating, one for barbecue, one for porridge, one for beer and kind of how to tell them apart. I also learned about how bananas grow. The flower as parts of it die off becomes the banana. Then once the flower stops doing this you cut it off otherwise you are going to have small bananas. 

I also learned about papaya trees, pineapples, all the cool stuff. We went through the forest and another village where the tour guides quizzed me on what vegetables I knew. I passed on all of them except for a white eggplant thing. (I think Ebenezer is a tour guide in training because when he messed up Hilary stepped up.) We went down a hill and by a river. They offered to let me swim at 10 AM but I think they were joking. They were making fun of the motorcyclists who were still trying to drive on the road. “They carry the woman and if they do a bad job the woman will jump off and say no, no, no, no. So they can’t slip even once.” I personally would not have gotten on a motorcycle. 

Finally, we got to the holy grail-the coffee farms. So how did they discover coffee? Well legend has it…

Once upon a time on the base of a far away mountain there lived a farmer and his goats. These goats were the most well behaved goats. They got up on time they went to bed on time. Some say they even marched to and from the field in two orderly rows. All of his neighboring farmer friends were jealous. “Your goats always listen and not a day goes by when I’m leaving my 99 to go find one.” 

One day the farmer deciding to do something nice for his goats took them to graze elsewhere from the green grassy valley that they spent their days in. “Instead of this valley I will go to the next one over which is the valley of the red berries.” 

So he took the goats marching in their lines to the next valley over. This valley was filled with bushes that had red berries. The goats ate these berries all day long and the farmer thought,  “This is good that I came to a new place. Not only are there no other goats to eat my goats food but they seem even happier here.” 

At the end of the day he marched the goats back and put them in. All night he tossed and he turned as he heard the goats moving and shaking and making a mess in the barn. “What has gotten into my goats?” he thought. “Perhaps it is because I broke their routine fair enough they will get used to it.”

Just in case he asked the other farmer the next morning if they were having trouble with their goats. They laughed and laughed, “Ah you always have had the best behaved goats and now you have goats just like the rest of us.” 

The farmer walked off his head held high. No matter his goats would improve again and then who would be laughing. He took the goats again to the valley of the red berries and again they ate and ate and ate all day the berries. And once again his goats didn’t sleep all night. Not wanting for it to continue after two sleepless nights he took his less than orderly goats back to the regular field. “It must be those red berries they must be ruining my goats!” 

Instead of eating however the goats simply stared at him all day. Embarrassed the farmer took his goats home not meeting the eyes of the other farmers who at least had the grace to not laugh, to loudly. 

That night the goats slept but they hadn’t eaten. “I suppose I would rather my goats eat and are fat than if they sleep and so I will take them back to the red berry valley.” 

This the farmer did and while the goats ate the red berries he took a few and tried one. “Oh this is very sweet! It will be perfect for a juice!” He collected several and at the end of the day took his once again happy goats back to the farm. After putting the goats away to go back to their partying he set a fire to boil water and make a juice. While he was preparing a handful of berries one dropped in the fire. It immediately let off a delicious aroma. “Ah this is for roasting not for juice!” He made a cup and shared it with his fellow farmers and whenever they were overly smug about their goats he would sneak a cup or too into their pens. And that is how coffee came to be. 

Coffee produces a crop once a year but over four months. The berries ripen at their own pace-first green then yellow and then red so you have to keep coming back to reharvest. There are only a few diseases that coffee plants are suceptible too and the heritage program has a natural plant pesticide they use to treat it. The berries are hand picked and then fermented. 

In the coffee plantation itself the bushes are always planted with banana trees as the coffee is for the fathers to take to market and the bananas are for the mothers. During the rainy season they don’t have to worry about watering, obviously, and they have an irrigation system set up. 

Then we walked back down the mountain to the center. We walked through the village and there is a communal corn grinding station which is pretty cool. Back at the center we first ground up the already fermented coffee in order to deshell it. Then they put it in a shallow basket and shook and blew to get rid of the shell fragments. They let me try but I was truly awful at this. Then we roasted the coffee over a fire in a circular clay pot stirring constantly. I’d told them I liked strong coffee so we went for a dark roast. 

I got to learn a lot more about birds from Ebenezer here and it was really cool. I am very glad he didn’t try hitting on me. Then once the coffee was roasted we ground it again–in a mortar and pestel. There’s a traditional song they sing while grinding the coffee which was really beautiful and they say helps make the work go by easier. Then the coffee is sifted and then ground again. The stuff that is originally sifted out as a finer powder is from the outside of the bean and is a lighter color. During the second grinding I had to sing. The only work songs I know are spirituals which worked alright even if I have the wrong voice for it. 

Then we made cup of coffee over the fire and sat down with Mama Gladness-remember her?-to drink it. Mama Gladness is incharge of the program and its pretty cool! 10/10 would recommend. They asked me more about the states and when I explained the cold Mama just said that she would die if she went there. At the end they presented me with some coffee, a certificate promising to plant a tree for me, and a bill of $25 for a 3 and half hour private tour. 

I asked Ebenezer to walk me back to the bus station as I’m bothered less when I’m not alone and I think I would be friends with him if I lived here. This center also hosts volunteers (hospital and schools mostly so if you are interested I would definitely look because everyone was friendly wonderful and I learned a lot.) It was also in a really peaceful location. It’s less on the plains then Kikatiti and Leganga which I appreciate, there are less chickens which I don’t appreciate as much. 

I bought a watermelon on my way back and the kids ate it in about 2 seconds flat-I didn’t even get to offer it to the new volunteer Jennifer who is very lovely and from Boston. She has been on a year of traveling and is just starting her Africa adventure. She is a real teacher (SPED) and brought a whole bunch of the stuff for the kids at the foundation which should be awesome. She was pretty konked out on Saturday though so I’m not even sure she realized there was watermelon. 

My afternoon was spent procrastinating/writing my personal statement which I now have a working draft of which brings me much joy (although next time I go to edit it I might just throw the computer over the garden wall.) Nothing too crazy happened at choir practice-the choir director wasn’t there which brought me all the joy and the sopranos were on there never ending quest to get me to losen up and dance by bumping into me, smiling at me, and at times physically moving my arms. They think it’s the best thing ever that I wrote the lyrics down on my own and now decided my book was the ultimate book to use even though I’m sure there are a million mispelled words. This did mean that I wouldn’t have my book when I needed it because some other choir lady had taken possession of it. (I think I’m a little bit like their pet-which is good I love it.) Friday was the first day the woman put their arms around me like I was part of the group and I nearly started crying because I’m sentimental like that. 

That evening I played the matching game from hell with the kids while Jennifer slept–she was the smart one. There are about 50 cards that they just scramble on a table and then play matching with. This already is difficult, even better the kids have memorized little marks on the back of the cards and so you can’t even compete when the kids already know where the match is. I think I just went to bed in the middle of the fourth round. I have a lot more to write about these next few days but this post is already at length so I will do my best to catch up but call this one good. 

Song of the Post: Hakuna Matata 

Quote of the Post: “Are you cheating” to Giovanni. His response the stare of guilt