Slept in Karatu last night, had dinner w/Donatus and Loserian. It was nice, they drink Red Bull and gin - I couldn't do it. I went to the the market today with our chef to buy groceries for this evening's dinner at the campsite. Dinner was just like "Out of Africa", the table with the tablecloth, dinner settings, gas lamp and a couple mosquitos. The food was really delicious, some sort of stew. I would give it high marks anywhere I ate it.
After the market, we visited the Irako Cultural Center. It was basically a family's home and the dad made a traditional house like the Irako used to live before the government of Tanzania tore their houses down. It was part of Tanzania's socialist experiment. It was based on the "ugamaa" (familyhood) village, an agricultural collective. That didn't work and next came direct state control. 85% of the rural population was relocated into 7000 planned villages in an effort to modernise agriculture and have better access to social services.
The Iroka built their homes underground so that when the Maasai came to steal their cattle, they would hear them coming and could grab their spears, which they kept overhead near the door, and defend their cows (which they kept in their houses). So I had a spear throwing lesson as well as grinding millet lesson. The coolest part was that this man took his cow's dung and urine and had these vats underground and turned the waste into gas to power his home, lights and stove. It seems like there's a lot of shit in this world, why is their an energy crisis?
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