Tanzania Helping Tribes

INTENTIONS:

At ‘Helping Tribes’ our intentions are simple – Africans helping Africans.  This is not to say that we do not appreciate the vast amount of aid Africa receives from all over the globe but, as Africans, we can not only help but impart a sense of pride as well. 

Among the Hadzabe people of central Tanzania there is currently a trend for tour companies to bring their clients to ‘experience’ the culture of the Hadzabe –hunting baboons with bow and arrow and smoking around an open fire.  While this is an amazingly educational experience for the tourists, we believe they take a little piece of the Hadzabe away from the tribe with every visit.  It is not possible for someone to maintain their ancient culture when ‘intrusion’ is common place.  A man will not behave the same way with an ‘outsider’ as he behaves with his ‘brother’.  Bearing this in mind, ‘Helping Tribes’ proposes to assist the Hadzabe to maintain what it is that is so interesting for those who are watching from the sidelines – and deliver it to them African to African.

‘Helping Tribes’ intends to assist the children of the Hadzabe people enter the Tanzanian educational system with the predicted outcome being that ‘education is the key to the retention of age old customs’.  We believe that if we can introduce education to the children, away from the eye of tour operators, the children of the Hadzabe will learn to appreciate their culture and work together to preserve it for future generations of Hadzabe children.

The Hadzabe people are not pastoralists or traders or farmers; they are truly hunter-gatherers.  With the land that stocks their prey being encroached upon by development, the people will need to find another source to survive.  Through education, this transition will be possible.

‘Helping Tribes’ aims to integrate the children into the educational system with the view that the Tanzanian Government continues the momentum.  That is, ‘Helping tribes’ will fund the transition and the set up costs to enter Primary level education and in turn we propose that the Tanzanian Government will continue to support the children right through their Primary education until Standard 7.

Join together with us and donate now so that ‘Helping Tribes’ can support their intentions because there is no one that feels the pain of Africa than Africans themselves!

HADZABE HISTORY:

In the hot, dry area around Lake Eyasi, live the Hadzabe (also known as Tindinga) people who have been ‘in-residence’ for around 10,000 years.  Anthropologically, albeit distantly, related to the San Bushmen of the Kalahari, the Hadzabe possess a thrilling ‘click’ language and the precise hunting skills of the bow and arrow along with their food gathering traditions.  A consistent stream of budding newly graduated anthropologists report that they are approximately 1500 true Hadzabe families living traditionally – nomadic and happily feasting upon baboons and other small game while toting a marijuana cigarette.  The term ‘family’ is used loosely and encompasses a free-living society, where there is space you are welcome to sit and eat or lie down and sleep. 

After night-long discussions amongst the men of the Hadzabe, a pre-dawn departure for hunting often follows with game meat on the menu.  The women remain in the ‘camp’ preparing freshly collected ‘berries’ and tending to the children – who are more often than not, efficient hunters and gatherers by a tenderly young age, leaving only the very young at home with the women.  The absence of fresh water is common-place and a selection fresh fruits and vegetables rare but against a modern nutritionists recommendations – they are surviving.

In these southern arid areas of the Great Rift Valley outskirts there are also other tribes that live near the Hadzabe but do not possess a similar culture – the Iraqw (Mbulu) are cattle-loving pastoralists like the Maasai that are also in the area with various other Bantu groups.  There are no known serious conflicts said to have occurred in recorded written history between the tribes, only perhaps amongst themselves.

These days with the introduction of ‘cultural experiences’ to the itineraries of tour operators by demand of clients, the Hadzabe people ‘need’ to utilize Swahili to communicate with the guides of the tour companies. Unfortunately, it seems they are speaking Swahili well which alarms ‘Helping Tribes’ based on four factors.

1. Will Swahili become common-place as a means of communication for the Hadzabe, thus losing their own glorious tongue?

2. Are there crucial cultural keys that are lost in the translation from Kihadzabe to Swahili and then often to English?  Not all languages possess words for certain things or ideas and therefore substitutes or synonyms are used and are often not ‘exactly’ what is meant.

3.  With the introduction of another language into a society, the original language commonly loses its strength in terms of accent, tone, volume, etc – is this possible for Kihadzabe

4.  Will the children of the Hadzabe today not be able to communicate with the children of the Hadzabe tomorrow?

At ‘Helping Tribes’, we will strive to entrench education in the children of the Hadzabe as a means to retain this ancient and endangered culture – so it doesn’t fade, so ‘extinction’ is not an outcome.

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