Shovel Ready

Mid-February, we’re in the middle of the dry spell in between the short and the long rains (“Matali”). But the sun has reached its celestial meridian in the Southern Hemisphere and the surf’s way up with the full moon, so we know the rain isn’t far off.

Despite the dry conditions, the garden and the trees we’ve planted seem to be doing pretty well, though I am having a hard time getting anything but papaya seedlings to grow.

I planted every kind of seed I had but all I got was papaya.

At the market, the mangoes are starting to fade, as are the pineapples, although oranges are apparently on their way and you can always get bananas. Tomatoes are suddenly three to four thousand shillings a kilo, so we’ve cut back on those (Pole, Merritt). And even with the heavy surf, we’ve had some incredible fish lately – tuna, grouper, and a 16-pound snapper out at Ruvula that was up there on the list of the best fish I’ve had in country. We were camping out at Ruvula with several friends from town – a few ex pat couples and two other Peace Corps volunteers from Mtwara, and we grilled the fish over hot charcoal coals.



The fisherman from whom we bought the fish that morning had been out in deep water the night before, in a small boat with an outboard, and was now selling a bicycle basket’s worth of barracuda, rainbow runners, snapper, and giant trevally. I had never had rainbow runner before, which is like a big mackerel and probably would have been great, but there was no passing over the one big snapper – it would feed us all and at 30,000 shillings (about $15), seemed like the only kind of deal you get on a isolated beach in East Africa.

Actually, the other fish were going to the construction crew that is at the marine park’s head office down the beach from where we were camping. With funds from the United Nations Development Program, we’re adding several staff houses and a boat shed. They really didn’t think about housing when they originally built the office, but its impractical to expect the new office to get used if you have to drive all the way from Mtwara each day. It makes getting our research and monitoring difficult, and with six months left in my service, I am starting to get nervous about all the work I have left.

Merritt, meanwhile, just completed fundraising for her pharmacy school project, so she’s not heading anywhere until that’s done. Thank you so much to all our friends and family who contributed to the project. As you saw in the grant documents, it’s a really good cause – the first such school in Tanzania’s Deep South. Just imagine if your concept of a pharmacy was a small store in someone’s home with a couple of gauze wrap bandages and malaria medication. Likewise, imagine if you went to a hospital for emergency care and there was no pharmacist to properly administer medication.

In general, the undeveloped state of Mtwara is acutely apparent, in large part because of all the work that is currently going on to fix it. I am talking about “shovel ready” projects. The COTC campus, where the pharmacy school will be built, is just about to open an new assistant medical officer (“AMO”) school, in a beautiful brand new set of classrooms built by the Global Fund. And the town’s roads are all under construction starting with the main round-about (“keep-o-lefti”). And British Gas is basically building a new road on one side of town, so that they can get heavy equipment to the port (which they’re also renovating) without driving right through the downtown core.

Speaking of British Gas, their drilling has started at a site just offshore of Mnazi Channel, the first of four exploratory wells the company plans to drill this year. They’re looking for gas in water between 1,000 and 1,500 meters deep. I’ve actually been speaking with some of their officials because the Park is going to enter into an agreement where they’ll provide us with spill response training and equipment. It makes sense, given the logistics of it, as our boats and staff are in position to respond, should something ever happen. And when you include community members (e.g., honorary rangers, research volunteers), there’s a sense of local control – or at least the ability to respond.

Statoil's drilling rig near Dar.

We probably should have such a system in place anyway, given the drilling that’s already going on within the park, in Mnazi Bay. Wentworth Resources Ltd. actually just started work on its fifth well in the concession area, an onshore exploratory well, targeting “Miocene and Oligocene sandstones.” Camping at Ruvula we could see both Wentworth and BG’s drilling rigs, on either side of us, their lit platforms extending into the night sky – stationary, unlike the dhows.

It’s pretty crazy because even Tanzanian officials are acknowledging that the offshore natural gas fields are going to convert Tanzanian from an agricultural-based economy to one centered around the natural gas industry. Tanzania is expected to eventually see its proven reserves of natural gas rise nearly tenfold, from the estimated seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas to 60 trillion cubic feet. The industry is saying that with energy markets in the Middle East and Asia, Tanzania and Mozambique may one day “rival Qatar and Australia as the world’s biggest suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG).” Well, we’ll see. I guess they start with the roads. But while we’re at it, can we try to do something about the municipal water?…

Merry Krismasi!

Want a kitten for Christmas?

Wow, where did November go? That month just kind of disappeared on us, and now we’re suddenly halfway through December. Needless to say August and the end of our service seem likely to come before we know it. So apologies first and foremost to anyone who may still be following this blog and have wondered, what can they be doing that they are too busy to write at least a quick update every once in a while?

So what has happened in all the time since we last wrote? Well, we’ve been a little busy with house guests. One third-year volunteer stayed with us for almost a month while she looked for a house in Mtwara (she’s now living around the corner from us in the Magomeni neighborhood). And then another volunteer, who just arrived in country, stayed with us for a week while “shadowing” Merritt (she’ll be working in a similar position in Morogoro). I don’t like to think we’re running a half-way house for volunteers, but there’s always somebody passing through town and wants to stay at our house. Maybe our cooking is too good.

As perhaps you saw Merritt memorialize on Facebook, we also had a number of volunteers in town for Thanksgiving. The killing and butchering of our turkey was a first for me, but really wasn’t too bad all things considered. We had Thanksgiving dinner looking out onto the Indian Ocean, at a guest house on the beach in Shangani where several of the volunteers were staying. Not quite like Thanksgiving in the States, but not a bad alternative either.

At work we’ve also been very busy. Merritt’s been working on a grant proposal for the construction of a new pharmacy school here in Mtwara (which would be the first in Tanzania’s Deep South). And a couple of weeks ago, she organized the regional stakeholders meeting for all the local health institutions and NGOs. It’s pretty impressive – she’s really made herself invaluable and her supervisors are all wondering what they are going to do when she leaves (and of course asking her to stay on).

For me, I’ve been busy helping to revamp the Park’s research and monitoring program, and have spent many days conducting plot surveys in mangroves or out wondering around the beach looking for turtle nests with our new honorary rangers. November also brought the U.S. Ambassador to visit the Park, where he formally informed our Warden-in-Charge, Redfred Ngowo, that he had been selected for the State Department’s International Visitors Leadership Program. Redfred will be traveling to America next year to participate in a month-long program on parks, biodiversity and ecotourism management. Having had a role in preparing the paperwork for the Redfred’s nomination, and I am really excited for him and think it will be a great opportunity. I believe it will really expand his perspective and further develop his leadership skills.

Mangrove plot surveys – a messy job.

Sea turtle monitoring work near southern Msimbati Peninsula

The Ambassador’s visit to the Park also included a short boat ride, in order to give him a chance to see some of the reefs within Mnazi Bay, as well as the natural gas project that’s in the operation at the tip of Ruvula Peninsula. As part of his trip to the Deep South, the Ambassador met with several of the companies that are interested in developing the region’s offshore natural gas deposits, and so he had heard about three wells that are already in production in Mnazi Bay, serving as the primary source of electricity for the Mtwara and Lindi regions. The recent news was that a new pipeline is going to be built that will bring natural gas from Mnazi Bay to the power plants outside of Dar, where it can be fed into the national power grid, in an attempt to alleviate the chronic power shortages that are plaguing the rest of the country. Meanwhile the British Gas Group has just shipped in a drilling vessel from Syria and expects to start drilling any day now (as I write this, the helicopter is cruising back into town, no doubt bringing men from the rig). And the other news last week was that a well recently drilled on-land also struck oil. So it really seems like we’re on the verge of an energy boom here in Mtwara, even though a great number of people still wonder whether it will finally happen for this small little port town, Tanzania’s backwater.

At times, I can’t help but wonder if these companies really know what they’re getting themselves into. Take for example, the recent riot in town, which apparently ended with the arrest of fifty people and the accidental death of a bystander (a child) and the shooting of one participant. Apparently the whole thing started when a group of self-proclaimed witch doctors confronted a local politician and accused him of witchcraft (I guess of the “dark” variety).

As I understand, at this time of year, when people have money from the cashew harvest, witch doctors will go around to people’s homes and tell the families that their house is inhabited by evil spirits and offer to clean the house of them – for only 2,000 shillings (about $1.25). So undoubtedly, the witch doctors thought that by accusing this well-known man of witchcraft, they could expect to extract a fair sum from him. However, fearing for his life, the man called the Mtwara police, the commissioner of which had also recently had a run-in with some of the local “doctors.”

When the police arrived and the crowd refused to disperse, the police used tear gas on the mob (which was the explosions that I heard from home, not home-made cashew-oil bombs as one Tanzanian told me). Apparently one officer then fired live bullets several times in the air, naturally resulting in a panic amongst the half-blind, coughing crowd. As people ran, a child was somehow struck and killed by vehicle. Enraged by the child’s death, part of the mod then turned on a traffic police officer, who was for some reason standing alone. In self defense, the officer fired upon and killed one of the men coming at him.

The appropriate expression in Kiswahili is “mchizi sana” – completely crazy. Tanzanians, for their part, dismiss the incident and simply note that witchcraft is “part of their culture.” Even the heads of the government, they say, believe in witchcraft. Perhaps this is an alarming story, but we’re no longer surprised by these kinds of events, not here in Tanzania at least.

I also registered the literal impact of the cashew crop last weekend, on my first scuba dive since arriving here. Apparently because people have some extra money right now (and we’re near the spring low tide) there’s also more of a market for dynamite, for fishing purposes. On our first dive, out near the mouth of Mtwara Bay, the underwater silence was suddenly shattered by what I would describe as the sound of a cabinet full of china being pulled over. I knew in an instant what I had heard. The next one wasn’t so close, but it was still pretty loud. The third explosion, however, sounded like a 12-gauge shotgun being fired right next to my head. It was one of those moments where your heart skips a beat and you wonder if your really still alive. In total we heard six blasts during our two dives – this in a small bay in which boats will be bringing drilling equipment and material in and out of for at least the next two years. Seems like perhaps a security concern for the energy companies.

In spite of the dynamite blasts, the diving was nevertheless incredible, and am looking forward to doing some more diving in the Park, as part of my work next year. I don’t know how long they’ll be around, but for the time being at least, the reefs here are worth seeing.

A couple recent photos taken while snorkeling in Mnazi Bay

Anyway, that’s some of the news from here. My brother, Adam, is coming back to visit for Christmas and we’ll be going on a safari over New Years (to Lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater). No doubt we’ll have pictures and stories to share from that trip, so tune back in after the New Years.

Last but not least, let me say that we really miss you all, our friends and family back in the States, especially at this time of year. But we’re excited that this new year will bring us back home to you all once again. So happy holidays from Tanzania, and looking forward to 2012!

Science Scoop from Mombasa

This week I am Mombasa, Kenya, attending the 7th Symposium of the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA). I’ve come with two of my counterparts – Davis Orio and Yo Soma – to present on the Marine Park’s current research and monitoring efforts (here's a link to a copy of the poster we presented). Davis is the Park’s new R&M warden and Yo is a volunteer for the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA, Japan’s version of Peace Corps), who is also working for the Park. It’s been an interesting symposium so far, and has elicited a couple of thoughts that I thought I’d share, particularly since it’s been so long since we’ve updated the blog.

First, outside the context of the symposium, perhaps you’ve heard about the current security concerns here in Kenya. When we flew in on Saturday, we were greeted by the news that the U.S. State Department had issued a warning of “imminent” attacks in Kenya. After several high-profile kidnappings of foreigners by suspected members of the al Shabab terrorist group of Somalia, the Kenya government sent troops into southern Somalia last week to root out the group, which has been connected to the recent insecurity in the region, including the problem with piracy. Apparently, the State Department expected retaliatory attacks due to Kenya’s incursion, and warned against visiting public spaces frequented by foreigners. And sure enough there have already been two attacks in Nairobi involving grenades being detonated in public places.

The symposium is taking place at the well-known and certainly upscale Sarova Whitesands Hotel, north of Mombasa, so it’s hard not to feel somewhat like a target as part of this group of five-hundred plus scientists and marine managers, many of whom come from Europe, Australia, and the States. But the security is tight, not only here at the Whitesands but just about everywhere in Mombasa. You can’t enter a bank, restaurant, or supermarket without first passing through a security check-point. Even most stores seem to keep there doors locked at all times and you must be buzzed in after knocking at the door.

Sarova Whitesands Hotel, Mombasa

I’ll also note that it was only a month ago that I predicted that there would be an American military presence in Somalia within the next few years, and sure enough, reports are that U.S. drones have been striking al Shabab control centers in southern Somalia, as part of Kenya’s operation. Faster than I expected, but I expect it won’t be the last we hear of American involvement in the area.

Anyway, outside of the security concerns, the symposium has offered a glimpse into some of the more compelling research currently underway in the region. One of the more interesting presentations was by a well-known scientist, David Obura, on his research about a potential “coral triangle” at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel between northern Madagascar, northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania. As Mr. Obura is discovering the rich coral diversity in this region is likely a product of number of biogeographical conditions, including paleo-geology and paleo-oceanography.

In short, while the evolutionary history of coral species is very convoluted, this area was likely served as a refuge for coral diversity when the Tethys Sea started closing 150-100 million years ago, with the breakup of the Gondwana super-continent and Africa and India’s northward migration. Unlike the rest of the Indian Ocean, the seafloor of the Mozambique Channel is remarkably old, which may reflect an area of relative stability, allowing for the preservation of older coral taxa that were disappearing elsewhere with the closing of the Tethys Sea. And during the last several hundred thousand years, the channel’s steep sides may have diminished the coastal influences of glacial cycles, again, creating comparative stability compared to other coastal areas in the region.

More recently, it’s widely thought that the coral biodiversity in the region is enriched by the South Equatorial Current, which bring coral larvae from reefs in the eastern Indian Ocean (e.g., Australia and Indonesia), before the current runs headfirst into the African coastline around the Mozambique-Tanzania border and splits into the East African current (running northward) and Mozambique Current (flowing south through the Mozambique Channel).

But Mr. Obura suspects it’s even more complicated than this. The Mozambique Channel
is well known for its incredible currents, some of the fastest in the world, which recent oceanography has shown are partly the result of large eddies that form around the Comoros islands (between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique) and move southward through the channel. These eddies can be as large as 300 km across, with a swirl velocity as fast as a meter a second. Mr. Obura suspects that these eddies are creating a return flow that allows for the accumulation of genetic and larval material.
Anyway, all this suggests that Mnazi Bay-Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park (MBREMP), where I am fortunate enough to be working, is at the center of a “hotspot” of marine biodiversity in the western Indian Ocean. Personally, I love this kind of research that brings it all together – geology, oceanography, genetics, ecology – and more importantly, makes it relevant to resource management – i.e., the need for management schemes to protect coral reefs in the region, like MBREMP. Mr. Obura’s work is ongoing, but it’ll be interesting to see how far he can take his theory about this “coral triangle.”

A glimpse of MBREMP's coral diversity.

Another hot topic at this symposium is the ongoing issue of dynamite fishing in Tanzania. I have long wanted to discuss the issue here on the blog, as I expect it’s hard for us Westerners to believe that the problem still exists. But the practice has become rampant in Tanzania in recent years, including in MBREMP. For example, earlier this year, after a number of individual arrests, MBREMP conducted two large joint operations with the Tanzanian Army that resulted in the surrender of 70 fishermen, from eight villages in the Park, who admitted to having engaged in dynamite fishing. These fishermen were required to take a legal oath to refrain from the practice, with the threat of imprisonment if they break their promise. (Although existing law already includes the possibility of jail time, most violators go unpunished.)

Dynamite fishing in Tanzania

Reef damage in Mnazi Bay caused by dynamite fishing.

But my impression of the problem differs somewhat from what some of the scientists in the region seem to think. I see the problem as fundamentally an issue of poverty and the lack of economic opportunities for Tanzania youth. But some observers see the availability of commercial grade dynamite and incidents like government boats being torched and fisheries officers being physically threatened (blinded by acid in one case) as a sign that the problem represents a form of organized crime and corruption that runs to the highest levels of government.

While I admit, if military detonators are showing up in local fishing villages and fishermen are being tipped off about covert enforcement efforts, some degree of corruption must exist. But when fishermen can make homemade explosives – by filling plastic water bottles with sand, petrol, and fertilizer – and when most of the people engaging in the practice are poor, uneducated youths who can’t afford other types of legal fishing gear, I can’t help but conclude that the overarching problem is economic, not political. Even with the commercial grade dynamite, it would be ignorant to think that a black market for this kind of thing doesn’t exist in a large port city like Dar es Salaam. And in terms of the “organization” behind the crime, when dealers are being arrested on public buses, with the explosives in a box under their seats (as was the case late last year on a bus from Dar to Mtwara), it’s hard to see the perpetrators as “professional” criminals. Anyway, that’s my two cents, for what it’s worth.

So that’s a sample of the discussion here at the WIOMSA symposium in Mombasa. I’ll be back in Mtwara on Monday, where Merritt reports that Moto and Tiger (Kali’s kittens) are now running around the house, constantly fighting each other, and getting into everything. It’s been a productive week here, but I am looking forward to heading back to the Deep South.

Tiger and Moto wiped-out after a long day of play.

Mzito Kabisa

Well, Merritt won both bets – a week and a half and two kittens. Kali is doing well, resting and proving that those mother instincts are strong. Last night, after coming back from a safi dinner at Msemo with a group of volunteers who are in town, we opened the door to find no Kali there to greet us, and immediately I knew, she had given birth. Sure enough, in the basket we’d prepared for her in the office, there was Kali with two little kittens squirming and wiggling away at their mama’s belly.


When we left earlier that afternoon, Kali had seemed a little unsettled, but as she had yet to start nesting or lactating, we were starting to wonder whether it would happen before Merritt left for Dar next Sunday. But I guess with us gone and the house quiet, the time was right. And our concerns about potential complications were unfounded – the kittens look healthy and Kali is doing very well, eating a little, sleeping a little, and purring like a jet engine.


In the past couple of weeks, it’s been somewhat painful to watch Kali, as she’s grown uncomfortably pregnant. The expression here in Tanzania is mzito kabisa, which literally means a person who is “completely heavy.” When not sleeping on the guest bed, Kali would lounge around the house, propped up against a door frame or a wall, in order to relieve the pressure on her ever-expanding stomach. One time, after she fell asleep on a table, Merritt and I watched her kittens squirm around, pressing with their paws out on her belly – it was like a scene out of Alien.



The color of the kittens is somewhat of a surprise – we think it’s actually a mixed parentage, the little tramp. There were really three Tom cats that came over the wall and into our courtyard at one point or another – one of which we scared off. But the other two were uniquely different – one a big, strong, dish-faced calico and the other a long, lanky, traffic-cone orange tabby. Kali seemed to be pretty interested in both cats, and now each of her kittens strikingly resemble one of the two.


As for names, we are still undecided. We may leave it to the kitten’s future owners to name them. Our plan is to give the two kittens away to some of the new Peace Corps volunteers in the region, and we intend this to be Kali’s only litter. Anyway, that's the exiting news here.

Mt. Kilimanjaro!

We returned from our amazing trip safely. Moss and I travelled to Moshi to meet Adam (Moss’s brother) and then to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro! After the 6 day climb we went to Zanzibar for a week of rest and relaxation.

This was a much needed vacation, and it was so much fun to have Adam in town. He was our first family member to come visit from the states. Moss and I had a blast showing him around and giving him a glimpse of what our life is like in TZ. However, he did see the rather safi side in that throughout the trip we stayed in relatively nice hotels with hot running water and electricity. Next time Adam will have to come down to Mtwara to get a better look at life as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Adam arrived in Moshi the day prior to our climb at one in the morning. We spent the day walking around Moshi, enjoying the new city, and getting prepared for our adventure. We went to the tour office to rent the gear we did not have, but thanks to our parents, who sent a ton of warm clothes and hiking gear, we did not need to rent much. Moss and I rented hiking poles. I also needed hiking boots and Moss needed a small backpack. That evening we had a few drinks on the rooftop of our hotel, while looking out at the magnificently massive mountain in the distance.

The following day we got picked up by the tour company and met the rest of the hikers in our group. We initially thought it would only be us three hiking the mountain together, but we were pleasantly surprised that two young med students from the UK, Amy and Ranjit, joined our group. They both had great attitudes and were fun people to get to know.

A glimpse of our hiking experience:

Day 1: Machame Gate to Machame Camp (6,232 ft - 9,840 ft) ~8 miles

We arrive at Macheme gate and fill out paperwork and wait for our first day of hiking to begin. We wait for our luggage to be weighed and all the porters to be sorted out. It turns out we have ten porters, one guide, one assistant guide, one cook, and even a waiter... talk about safi hiking. We only have to carry one small pack with the items that we want for the day i.e. water, clif bars, extra warm clothes, and toilet paper. We hike for five hours on a well developed trail through a tropical rainforest. Once we arrive at camp our tents are already set up and shortly after we are served tea/coffee/hot chocolate and snacks, while the cooks continue preparing our gourmet feast of us delicious soup, potatoes, and salmon for dinner. (This is first time I have had salmon in a year!)

Day 2: On to Shira Camp (9,840 ft – 12,792 ft) ~6miles


It is surprisingly warm on day two, and most of us hike in shorts. We hike on narrow rocky ridges, which is a sharp contrast compared to the first day in the rainforest. We reach Shira camp in the afternoon, rest, have tea, and then have the choice to continue on for about an hour to visit the Shira camp ranger station in order to acclimatize a little. On the way to the station, we check out the Shira Cave, which was used by porters for sleeping and cooking back in the day. On the way to the station there is a clear view of Mount Meru and the western peaks of Kilimanjaro.

Day 3: On to Barranco Camp (12,792 ft – 12,956 ft) Highest Point was 15,120 ft ~7.5miles


It is a cold, foggy day in the clouds, but it’s amazing to see the clouds above and below you as you hike. On day three the landscape is what Adam calls ‘moonscape.’ There is no vegetation, just rocks and dust. We hike up to the Lava tower, have lunch, and attempt to get used to the altitude.

We then proceed to descend about 3,000 ft to our campsite. I have to admit, today was the first day I really struggle. It was unbearably cold up at the lava tower and I did not have enough clothes on, I thought my fingers might fall off, and then the climb down to camp was harder than I expected. Going down the mountain certainly proves to be harder than going up. Despite the cold and the light rain, I try to enjoy the views and look forward to reaching camp and drinking really hot, hot coco.

Day 4: On to Barrafu Camp (12,956 ft – 15,088 ft) ~6 miles

Green News: Mtwara Moringa Project

Just arrived in Morogoro, where Merritt is here for a week of training and I am tagging along for company (and to avoid the bus trip, when I have to be in Dar next week). The road from Mtwara was as bad as we’d heard and we were glad to make it out of the Deep South without trouble. It’s great to be back in Morogoro, one of our favorite cities in Tanzania. Traveling also has a way of reminding yourself that you’re actually living in a foreign country – after months at homesite.

Perhaps the most distinct memory of the trip was seeing all the roadside buildings in villages along the way that have been marked for “bemoa” (demolition). The Tanzanian government recently realized that it has allowed a considerable amount of un-permitted construction – everything from walls to restaurants to gas stations – in government property adjacent to the state-built roads. All around the country, officials have marked with spray paint the buildings that must now be demolished. In Mtwara, this new policy means that the big stone wall outside the Lutheran seminary must be removed and one bank’s ATM must be relocated, so it’s not a big deal. But along 450 km between Mtwara and Dar, this means that much of the “commercial development” (a term I use loosely), must be torn down. It’s hard to imagine that the government will follow through on a policy that is likely to be so costly, particularly to less-developed communities.

Anyway, in other news, there was a good article last week in the New York Times (link), raising some very interesting points about the current state of agriculture and global food supplies. The basic gist of the article is that erratic weather (e.g., floods, drought, heat spells) has been cutting into agricultural yields, raising new doubts about long-term global food security, all the while the international community seems to have lost focus on agricultural research and development. The food riots that broke out in developing countries around the world in 2007 and 2008 were likely only the tip of the iceberg.

As on Jonathan Foley, a professor from the University of Minnesota summed up the issue, “We’ve doubled the world’s food production several times before in history, and now we have to do it one more time. The last doubling is the hardest. It is possible, but it’s not going to be easy.”

Meanwhile, Tanzania has committed itself to “Kilimo Kwanza” (Farming First), a national program intended to “Modernise and commercialise agriculture for peasant, small, medium and large scale producers” (link).

A major component of Peace Corps’ environment program in Tanzania is helping improve sustainable agricultural at the local level, particularly for people living with and at-risk of contracting HIV and AIDS.

My current contribution to this effort is a moringa tree program I am planning for villages in Mnazi Bay-Ruvumu Estuary Marine Park.

Moringa oleifera is a fast-growing, drought-resistant, highly-nutritious tree. The species is believed to native to sub-Himalayan tracts of northern India but now can be found worldwide in the tropics and sub-tropics. With leaves rich in protein, vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, and essential minerals such as iron, this tree is like growing your own multi-vitamin.

I hope that if introduced to some of the villages in the park, moringa could provide a readily available source of nutrients to park residents, who rely on vegetables to be trucked in for much of the year, given the lack of reliable rainfall. To test the feasibility of this idea I have been attempting to grow moringa seedlings in our own backyard, where the soil, to begin with, was about as bad as one can imagine. While the seeds have proven hard to get started, once growing the tree has certainly lived up to the hype.


A moringa seedling trying to grow in an early attempt of a bustani. Notice the poor soil quality.

The first round of a dozen or so seeds I planted back in November produced only two seedlings, one of which was planted in our backyard and one of which we gave to our Mama next door. To see how quickly these trees grow, here’s a little time series of how these two trees turned out:


Clockwise from top-left: (1) the moringa planted in our backyard in mid-February, only a couple of feet tall about a month after transplanting; (2) the same tree in mid-March; (3) by early April, the tree was as tall as our wall; (4) Mama’s tree next door, in early June, which was planted at the same time.

I had to substitute a picture of Mama’s moringa tree for the final photo in the above montage because we came home last week to find the tree in our backyard had succumbed to the Kusi (southeastern monsoon) winds, which have been especially strong as of late. A stiff afternoon wind gust snapped the tree in two. Apparently, while fast growing, moringa can’t be described as a hardwood.


Kali, having emerged from her palm lean-to, inspects the damage.

It was a sad scene – the main stem snapped in half, well below the lowest branch. But as it turns out, once started, moringa can withstand this. A little online research (thanks with the help of a certain Colorado “master gardener”) revealed that moringa can actually be cut back often, as low as a meter from the ground once or twice a year. This is actually recommended, as it keeps the branches from growing out of reach and encourages a thick, hardy main stem.

As for the other half of the tree, I cut off the fresh growth and hung the branches in our storage room to dry (once dried, the leaves can be made into a fine powder that can be added to soups, stews, even oatmeal). I also trimmed off the larger branches so that I could attempt to grow clones of the tree from cuttings.



Moringa leaves drying in our storage room (top) and planted moringa cuttings (below).

The jury is still out on whether the tree (and its cuttings) will live, but if it does, it won’t be a huge surprise. After what happened to the moringa Merritt planted, these trees seem to be fairly hard to kill.

To mark Merritt’s birthday, in early March we planted the sole surviving moringa seedling from our second planting out in front of our house, where the tree seemed to love the sunny, sandy conditions. But in May, just as the tree seemed poised to take off, construction crews arrived to build our front wall and promptly buried the tree under several dump truck loads of sand. After we dug out the remaining stump, we came home one afternoon to find the remains of the poor tree crushed under a cinder block that was being used to help hold up our front gate. I was sure that even if the tree had surviving being buried the first time, it wouldn’t survive this second crushing.

But to our amazement, a week after construction had finished out front, our Mama next door greeted Merritt one morning with the news that the “mti inaota” (“the tree, it is growing”), and sure enough the little sucker somehow survived. We’re letting the tree regain a little bit of its former self before relocating it to a safer local.

When we get back to Mtwara in two weeks, we’ll find out if the moringa in our backyard (and all its clones) have survived. I am hopeful, and encouraged that the tree is right for introduction into villages in the park. I’ll let you all know how it goes.


Anyway, that’s the green news here; hope everyone’s gardens back in the State’s are coming to life.


African honey bees, visiting the flowers in our front garden.

Baseball in Tanzania

Really Building Something…

To build a wall in Tanzania, you don’t just go out and buy the bricks, you make them first.



Merritt and I have found that everything takes longer in Tanzania, from the personal greetings to the simple chores around the house. (For example, need to do a load of laundry? Better clear your schedule, cause it’s gonna take a few hours.) But then you realize it’s not just because your a “mzungu,” for Tanzanians too, even the simple projects can become a Herculean efforts of insanity. Take the new wall around the front of our house as a prime example…



Now, first, I need to make clear that this monstrosity is not of our doing. When we had to renew the rental agreement for our house (which the organization Merritt is working for, I-TECH, is paying the rent on), there was a provision about building a wall in the front. This provision was apparently worked out between I-TECH and our landlord, and stupidly, we didn’t cross it off or insist on its removal then and there. The same provision was in the first contract, and though we were happy with the back wall they built us, we were pleased that nothing had ever come of the front wall that was supposed to be included.

Anyway, so when we recently heard that there was again interest in building the wall, we spoke with Mr. Nzigilwa, from COTC, who knew the landlord and had originally found us the house prior to our arrival. We told him we certainly didn’t need a front wall, that if one was built our house would stick out like a sore thumb in the neighborhood (only attracting more attention to us), and that we were had already started planting trees in front, to create a living fence that would serve much the same purpose.

But in Tanzania, if it’s in the contract, it’s in the contract, and whether we wanted it our not, it was getting built. The only good news, we learned from Mr. Nzigilwa, was that it was only going to be a “ukuta nusu” (half wall), “with pillars on which you can put plants,” as he described it.

So last Tuesday, Merritt returned home in the mid-morning to quickly get something she had forgotten, and found the fundi there with the mama ya nyumbani (house mama, the owner’s wife), laying out their plans for the work. And before they had even finalized the plan or Merritt had a chance to return to work, the first dump truck (of at least a half dozen) arrived, backed up onto our lawn, and proceeded to dump its entire load of sand directly onto all the tree seedlings we had planted (and spent the last couple months watering and tending to). By that afternoon when I returned from work, our front yard had morphed into a brickyard, with a crew of dozen men (actually two were children), including the neighborhood “mlevi” (drunkard) pounding out there hand-made cinderblocks. (The expression “s#%t show” comes to mind…)



To make the bricks, they basically form a big pile of sand, shovel on some dried cement, pour on the water (carried by the children), mix it together, and then shovel it into a single wooden form, and pound it down with the back of a glass, liter Coke bottle. Why it should require a dozen men to make one brick at a time is beyond me, but I honestly didn’t try to figure it out, as I wanted nothing to do with this operation, particularly after they killed all our trees.

My only input into the project was on the first morning, when, after the drunkard arrived just after six, still lit-up from the night before and started stumbling along the top of the piles of sand, shouting, “I love you…!” to nobody in particular, I had to insist that he be relieved of his duties. He would eventually return though, until the work crew also grew tired of his antics and chased him off.

Anyway, now our house looks like … I don’t know, a castle/prison/construction zone, I guess. The front yard will be a hardpan of cement until next year’s rains, and the whole neighborhood mistakenly thinks that we have the money to somehow make this all happen (definitely not the case).

In other news, Kali does not appear to be pregnant, though her boyfriend has plans to try and change this. Our first attempted garden is finally growing (despite some dastardly little worms eating all our broccoli), and our second one (pictured below), covering the former choo (outhouse), is doing surprisingly quite well with squash, tomatoes, watermelon, and of course, for Merritt, salad greens.





Anyway, that’s all the news here. Hope everyone is staying high and dry with the flooding back in the States. Feel free to send a little rain our way, as we’re getting sick of hand watering the garden twice daily.…