Welcome to Tanzania, or rather, the United Republic of Tanzania (or Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania in Swahili.)
The name ‟Tanzania” was created from the names of the two states that unified to create the country: Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The name ‟Tanganyika” comes from the Swahili words tanga (‟sail”) and nyika (‟uninhabited plain,” ‟wilderness”), creating the phrase ‟sail in the wilderness.” The name of Zanzibar comes from “zenji”, the name for local people and the Arabic word barr, which means coast or shore. Tanzania is situated in East Africa, within the Great Lakes area. It borders Uganda, Kenya, the Comoros Islands and the Indian Ocean, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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(Images courtesy of Pixabay)
Tanzania is the 13th-largest country in Africa and the 31st-largest in the world; more than 100 different languages are spoken in the country, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. The official language is Swahili. Listen along to the beautiful national anthem, ‟Mungu ibariki Afrika” (English: ‟God Bless Africa”), the Swahili version of the hymn written by Enoch Santonga, ‟Nkosi Sekeli Africa.”
Dar es Salaam is the capital and is situated in the southern part of the country. The international airport is the Julius Nyerere International Airport, with destinations in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
The colors of Tanzania
One can’t just travel through a country without taking a moment to appreciate the colors that are so strongly depicted in the fabric and beadwork found there.
I found references to three types of fabric available in Tanzania – the Shúkà, which is a large piece of cloth wrapped around the body; the Khanga, a fabric with written messages which is passed down from generation to generation; and the Kitenge, which can be found in large geographical areas of Africa and is not a purely Tanzanian fabric.
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(Images courtesy of Juliet Cutler and Pixabay)
The Maasai beadwork includes different colours which all have a special meaning: red stands for bravery; white represents peace and unity; blue, the sky and energy; green, the colour of the trees and grass and representing land and production; black represents the people and their struggle; yellow symbolizes sun and fertility and orange warmth and friendship.
We must include a brief reference on the gemstone tanzanite, which is found only in Tanzania, in a small mining area near the Mererani Hills. The original name of the gemstone was ‟blue-violet zoisite”; Tiffany & Co. renamed the stone ‟tanzanite” in reference to its country of origin.
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(Images courtesy of Juliet Cutler and Pixabay)
The economy of Tanzania
Tanzania’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was worth 63.18 billion US dollars in 2019, (data from the World Bank and projections from Trading Economics); the country is regarded as a lower-middle-income economy; the GDP represents 0.05 percent of the world economy.
Contributors to the GDP are agriculture, minerals (gold, diamonds and tanzanite), various industries, clove production (the principal foreign exchange earner of Zanzibar) and tourism. Tourism is a significant contributor to the GDP, but is perhaps not fully utilized. An article published in early 2019 indicated that Tanzania earned US$ 2.44 billion from tourism. It is regarded as an important contributor to the alleviation of poverty.
The current exchange rates are:
1 USD ($) = TZS 2.318,46; 1 GBP = TZS 3.091,54; 1 euro = TZS 2.759,98
A rural area not mapped!
Can you imagine going on holiday or travelling in an unknown area, and not being able to find your way because there are no maps, no GPS point to enter into your navigation device?
This is the reality of large areas of rural Tanzania, which is now being addressed by an organization called Crowd2Map Tanzania; they have been mapping Tanzania using OpenStreetMap since October 2015. More than 14,000 remote mappers from all over the world have been trained to map from satellite images; more than 3,000 Tanzanians add their local knowledge to these maps, mostly using the free smartphone app Maps.Me.
(Images courtesy of Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania)
There is a group of women, the Digital Champions, who play a very important role in the changing the attitudes toward female genital mutilation (FGM). One woman in each of 87 villages learned how to report cases of FGM using their smartphones. They were all selected for their leadership and commitment to protecting girls in their villages. And although they were using phones for the first time, navigating remote locations with poor connectivity, they have continued to educate locals and advocate against gender-based violence.
Environment
We cannot travel in Tanzania without being mindful of the impact of environmental changes in the country. In the article Dealing with Scarce Resources, the WWF addresses a few of the very important aspects impacting the sustainable development in Tanzania: overgrazing and unsustainable range management, pollution and illegal and unsustainable wildlife exploitation.
The impact on Mount Kilimanjaro, an iconic landmark in the country, is described in Forty Years of Climate and Land-Cover Change and its Effects on Tourism Resources in Kilimanjaro National Park.
In 2017, Meghana Srivatsa, a volunteer supporting the Tanzania Development Trust, wrote a blog entitled Drought Brings Hunger to Tanzania, in 2017.
What is Tanzania known for?
Tanzania is a geographically very diverse country with mountains, dense forests and Mount Kilimanjaro in the northeast. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, and Lake Tanganyika, the continent’s deepest lake, known for its unique species of fish. To the south lies Lake Malawi.the Kalambo Falls (second highest uninterrupted waterfall in Africa) in the south. And in between all of that, vast protected areas are set aside for conservation. The country has 16 national parks as well as many other conservation areas, including the Gombe Stream National Park, the area where Jane Goodall is studying chimpanzee behavior.
Tanzania is very famous for its wildlife; there are more than four million wild animals in Tanzania, representing 430 different species and subspecies. A survey in 2019 found that there are between 14,000 and 15,000 lions in the country today. It is estimated that there are 1.5 million blue wildebeest in the Serengeti, which features in many articles and blogs describing the great migration.
Thank you to Yolanda Harry for sharing her experiences of the country in a blog The Great Migration.
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(Images courtesy of Juliet Cutler, John and Jenny Fewtrell).
Our final destination!
We have arrived at Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania(HGWT) and the Safe House in Mugumu where we will meet Rhobi Samwelly, the founder and director of HGWT. Meghana Srivatsa wrote this very interesting blog in 2014 when she met Rhobi for the first time. The blog provides a fascinating insight into the early years of Rhobi’s work to save girls from FGM.
On behalf of Rhobi, the staff of the Safe Houses and the girls, thank you for travelling with us through Tanzania and supporting Safe Alternatives to FGM Elimination (S.A.F.E.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Tanzania
https://crowd2map.org/index.php/about-us/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/b/blue-wildebeest/
https://fromtheedge.typepad.com/july2004/2017/02/the-great-migration.html?fbclid=IwAR2hpWbU47x0RnSbYwElx9Vfk-BSb9DlevZ5nnxIUfKbOLT0PAoEbrNOQMI
https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/maths/2020/11/02/female-genital-mutilation-understanding-connections-and-practices-getting-to-know-the-digital-champions/
https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_offices/tanzania/environmental_problems__in_tanzania/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21568316.2019.1569121#
http://hiaragirlpower.blogspot.com/2017/02/drought-brings-hunger-to-tanzania.html