And now, the final installment of our series on Tanzania, where Jan & Rob are joined by Sandy & Russell Dobney to discuss the sights and sounds, cultures and controversies of their African adventure through O.A.T. (Overseas Adventure Travel) with their excellent tour guide is Eki.
Today, we visit a public school, talk about the controversial practice of female genital mutilation, learn about the public’s attitude towards albinism, and enjoy the group’s final reflections on their once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Thanks for listening. Share with your friends. Find this and more at cheynemusic.com/podcast.
And now, the final installment of our series on Tanzania, where Jan & Rob are joined by Sandy & Russell Dobney to discuss the sights and sounds, cultures and controversies of their African adventure through O.A.T. (Overseas Adventure Travel) with their excellent tour guide is Eki.
Today, we visit a public school, talk about the controversial practice of female genital mutilation, learn about the public’s attitude towards albinism, and enjoy the group’s final reflections on their once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Thanks for listening. Share with your friends. Find this and more at cheynemusic.com/podcast.
MAKING OUR WAY - A McMahon/Cheyne Podcast
Jambo! Jambo! (Season 1; Episode 21) - 4/3/24
Today’s hosts:
Sandy Dobney
Russell Dobney
Jan McMahon
Rob McMahon
Deanna Cheyne
Jim Cheyne
JIM
Russ. Dogs or cats?
RUSS
Dogs.
JIM
Sandy?
SANDY
Dogs.
JIM
Dee?
DEE
Dogs.
JAN
Dogs.
ROB
Um, what was it? What were the choices?
JAN
Oh my gosh, this is the problem right here.
ROB
Dogs.
JIM
Dogs. Tea or coffee?
RUSS
Coffee.
SANDY
Neither.
DEE
Tea.
JAN
Coffee.
ROB
Coffee.
JIM
Coffee. Mountains or ocean?
RUSS
Ocean.
SANDY
Mountains.
DEE
Ocean.
JAN
Mountains.
ROB
Mountains.
JIM
Florida. [laughter] Morning or evening?
RUSS
Morning.
SANDY
Ooh.
JAN
[for Sandy] “Neither.”
SANDY
That’s a tough one.
JIM
Midday? Noon? Early afternoon?
SANDY
Yeah, noon to three is good. [laughter]
JIM
Mid-early afternoon?
DEE
Evening.
JAN
Morning.
ROB
Morning.
JIM
Morning because of Dee, but that’s not what I’m really at. Saturday night or Sunday morning?
RUSS
Sunday morning.
SANDY
Mmm, Sunday morning.
DEE
I’m going to say Saturday night; it tells me I have another day before school.
JAN
That’s right. When you’re still working, which you’re the only one here still working…
DEE
Yeah.
JAN
…that’s a different answer. I say Sunday morning.
ROB
Yeah, sure. Sunday morning.
JIM
Sunday morning.
JAN
[to Rob] Are you lying?
JIM
Print books or audio books?
RUSS
Print.
SANDY
Well, Kindle books.
JIM
Okay.
DEE
Print.
JAN
Traveling, then it would be Kindle. If it’s something actually important, it’s going to be print.
ROB
Print. [to Jan] Kindle’s print, too.
JAN
No, it’s not.
JIM
Print. Kindle counts as print.
JAN
Oh, okay. I’m sorry. I di…
JIM
You’re reading the text rather than getting it as just a different technology.
DEE
Because the option was audio.
JAN
I got it. You’re right.
JIM
All right. Boy, this is going so smoothly so far. [laughter] Half full or half empty?
JAN
Oh.
RUSS
Half full.
SANDY
Half full.
DEE
Depends on my mood.
JAN
Half full.
ROB
Half full.
JIM
Half full. Spring or fall - autumn?
RUSS
I like the Fall.
SANDY
Fall.
DEE
Fall.
JAN
Fall.
ROB
Fall.
JIM
The greatest disappointment about Florida is the Fall doesn’t exist. The Midwest Falls are unbeatable. Now, the winters, you know, right up until January 1st.
SANDY
No, the winter’s good, too.
JIM
Well, the winters are fine till January 1st. And then it’s a little bit weary. All right. Beatles or Stones?
JAN
Oh.
RUSS
What was it? [laughter]
SANDY
Beatles or Stone? You ever hear of either of those groups?
RUSS
Oh, I thought you were talking about bugs or rocks. [laughter]
JIM
That’s it. Yeah. I want… [laughter] See, just that he would interpret it that way, we now better know Russ.
RUSS
Yeah. I like the Beatles.
SANDY
Beatles.
DEE
Beatles.
JAN
Beatles.
ROB
Beatles.
JIM
Beatles.
[music]
JAN
I just knew that was going to be a problem.
JIM (voice-over):
We come to the final installment of our series on Tanzania, where Jan & Rob are joined by Sandy & Russell Dobney to discuss the sights and sounds, cultures and controversies of their African adventure. As a reminder, the travel company for this safari is O.A.T. - O-A-T - an acronym for Overseas Adventure Travel, and their excellent tour guide is Eki. Our 2 previous episodes explored the animals they encountered, and their experiences among the Maasai people.
Today, we visit a public school, talk about the controversial practice of female genital mutilation, learn about the public’s attitude towards albinism, and enjoy the group’s final reflections on their once-in-a-lifetime experience.
[music ends]
JIM
A year from now, Sandy, someone says to you, “Africa,” or you hear the word Tanzania, what’s the first thing that’s going to pop into your mind?
SANDY
Well, unfortunately, it’ll probably be Jan’s broken wrist, but…
[laughter]
JAN
That’s true.
SANDY
Yeah. It’s going to be the people, I think, and the kids definitely, the Maasai people, it’s going to be the people. They were all so good to us. They all speak a little bit of English. We can’t talk to them at all in their tongue. We can say “jambo.” That’s about it. They all want to talk to us. They all want to share their knowledge with us. Even in the school, the little girl I was sitting next to gets out her book, and she goes paging through it to show me her math problems, to show me a picture of a plant where they were learning about the stamen and the pistol and the petals and everything. And it’s written in their language, but the English is there, too, because that’s part of their learning. Everybody you met was so nice and so friendly and so helpful. [Russ has gotten up and is putting something in the microwave] It was just really a great experience that way.
[laughter]
ROB
Russell.
SANDY
[laughing] He just turned on the microwave.
JAN
Well, that would be on the tape, too.
SANDY
I’m sorry, Jim. Russ is an idiot.
JIM
No, that’s fine.
SANDY
I thought we were on our time out.
JAN
Sandy, Sandy…
JIM
Yeah, you’re going to be on a time out.
JAN
…Sandy, that happens every time I get to an important point. That’s what happens.
JIM
Russ, a year from now, if someone says, “Africa,” or specifically, “Tanzania,” because you’ve been to Africa before, when you hear the word Tanzania, what’s going to be the first thing that pops to your mind about the trip?
RUSS
I would say that I saw a lot of animals and I saw a lot of happy people.
JAN
Yeah. For all the animals that I went to see, I’m going to say the thing I’m going to think about the most would be the faces of the kids. Everywhere we went - first of all, the people are happy people. That’s the same experience that Rob and I had in Haiti when we went. And the same experience Russell had in Ghana. You have people that are among the poorest in the world and they are genuinely happy people. But where you kind of saw that the most were the children. And everywhere we drove, we would see kids in school uniforms of different kinds, and they would see us come by, recognize us as not of their land, and they would smile, run toward us, wave, say hi. Every place consistently it was like that.
JIM
There’s a theme going on here about the happiness of the people there.
ROB
Yeah. The kids - Sandy’s right. When we visited the school, the kids could not wait to show us the work that they’d been doing. I told the kids that I was a science teacher and they were just so thrilled. He pulls out his science folder and he starts flipping through, and the girl and the boy were talking about each thing and they had a diagram of an atom, and I said, “It’s an atom,” and they were, “Yeah, yes, atom.” And they really like to practice their English. And they’re just enthusiastic. There were a hundred kids in this room, approximately, I’m saying. The teacher walks in. She says something in Swahili. They answer back, and then it’s quiet. It’s like immediate. They are so respectful. Education is valuable to them.
JIM
Well, as a science teacher and as a children’s book author, Rob…
ROB
Yes.
JIM
…I remember you were taking something over there with you.
ROB
Yes.
JIM
What did you take with you?
ROB
We took lots of school supplies and things like that. But I also took my three children’s science books that I’ve written thus far, and presented those to the teacher. They’re in English, but I thought it would help them with their English, and they could figure out from the pictures what was going on, I’m sure, from the illustrations, and she was very, very thankful for that. We all brought stuff that we could send. Russell and Sandy brought some soccer balls. We also were able to contribute monetarily to that particular school.
JIM
To that school.
ROB
Yeah.
JAN
O.A.T. has a nonprofit foundation called Grand Circle Foundation, and they support a lot of programs around the world, and in Tanzania, they support the school that we were at. So if we could - if we specified that school, we could contribute to that school while we were there.
JIM
For listeners that may not be aware of it, Rob has written three children’s books, and they were illustrated by his cousin, Beth McMahon Baker, and so the illustrations are there with the stories. And they’re interesting ways of telling stories of, like, Archimedes and Bernoulli and Marie Curie. And so these books went there. They’d be looking at Beth’s illustrations. They’d know what’s going on. And I’m thinking, someplace, there’s a child there who has her own podcast, and says, “I saw an American who actually knew what an atom was. It was amazing. It’s like they have an education system over there.”
JAN
Yeah.
JIM
The school, was it a government-run school, public school? Is it a denominational?
RUSS
Yeah, it was a public school, yeah.
JIM
Public school.
SANDY
You’re supposed to - the parents or the family is supposed to provide the uniforms and things like that. But they don’t turn you away if you can’t afford a uniform. In a public school, they don’t. They’ll do whatever they can to help families get their kids in school, whatever that may be.
JIM
So I’m just wondering about - is it accessible to just anyone? Are there any cultural barriers to go to school, like, “You shouldn’t go there because of this?” Or are there any financial barriers?
ROB
Financial maybe, because transportation…
SANDY
Yeah.
ROB
…is an issue, because they don’t provide transportation.
SANDY
Right.
ROB
So in rural areas, sometimes the kids have to walk a long way…
SANDY
Right.
ROB
…to and from school. And that might be prohibitive for some.
JIM
I want to talk a little bit more about education, and I want to connect it to the female genital mutilation issue that’s going on there, because I think that needs to be explored a little bit more. In Kenya, female genital mutilation is actually against the law now. Is it that way also in Tanzania?
ROB
Yes.
JIM
But the girls are especially - this is a coming of age. Both the circumcision and the genital mutilation for the girls. The cutting of the clitoris is all done - it’s a coming of age thing. So when they’re 12, 13, that’s when that’s likely to happen, and I understand that because it has to be done without being seen, that it’s often done when the girls are asleep…
DEE
Hmm.
JIM
…and then someone comes into them then, and it’s done without anesthetic…
ROB
Yeah.
JIM
…and it’s done with a razor. And so some of the people, I understand, have been sending their daughters, their girls - to escape this, they will send them off to a boarding school where they would be away from that threat. But you also - didn’t you talk to someone who used to perform…
ROB
Mm-Hmm
SANDY
Mm-Hmm.
JIM
…that? And what does she do now?
ROB
Sand?
SANDY
Go ahead.
ROB
[to Jan] Go ahead.
JAN
Well, first of all, this was during our “Day in the Life” at the Maasai boma, and what happened was we sat down as a group - the 14 of us in our tour group - with our guide, Eki, and then two women from the Maasai village - one was the second wife, and the other was the person who used to do this procedure. And now what she does is she acts as a midwife, and she helps to deliver babies. The story of the second wife was a bit heartbreaking to me. She was a very vibrant woman. I would have called her the leader of the pack. She had - she was joyful and a strong personality, and while she had had this done to her, she was determined that her girls would not have this done to them. But at one point, when her oldest daughter was with her grandparents, I believe?…
SANDY
Yeah.
JAN
…they arranged for it to be done to her.
DEE
[sigh]
JAN
So that was heartbreaking to hear that story, but none of her other children have had that done, and she was quite clear on - there are ways they follow up with the girls, to be sure. They have physicals, um, at school.
ROB
At school.
JAN
They’re educated about it. Initially, when women started to not do it, the Maasai men would reject them for marriage. But over time, because then the Maasai women would find other men to marry outside of their tribe, the Maasai men had a wake-up call that perhaps this wasn’t the best way to handle the situation. So, because the women found another way, men have started to accept this now. But it is illegal, and there are penalties for it, if it’s done.
ROB
Severe penalties.
JAN
Severe, yeah.
JIM
Such as?
ROB
Jail.
JAN
Jail, yeah. Long jail terms.
ROB
Long-term jail terms.
JIM
Okay.
SANDY
Parents and the person who performs it can go to jail.
ROB
That’s right.
JIM
Anyone responsible for the girl…
SANDY
Yup.
JAN
Yup.
JIM
…would be involved in penalty.
ROB
Yeah.
JIM
Okay. When you said second wife, second chronologically?…
JAN
Yeah.
JIM
…What’s the status? It’s just like, the first wife is the first one married.
JAN
The first wife is - and she has some say over future wives, their choice, and what happens with them. It’s a division of labor is what I saw it as more than anything.
SANDY
Yeah.
JAN
It’s a way to - somebody asked at one point, “How do you divide the labor?” And it kind of came down to whatever needs to be done. That’s what I understood it to be. But you have multiple wives and multiple children, and that’s a labor force. It’s like farmland in the United States when people had multiple children, only on steroids. It’s a labor force. So to get away from that, you’ve got to provide other ways to make a living.
[music]
JIM (voice-over)
We’ll return to the conversation in just a moment, but first, you won’t want to miss next week’s show. It’s our first ever annual, or semi-annual, or occasional Quiz Show, where our intrepid hosts will be put to the test on geography, on history, on how well spouses know each other, and, new for 2024, our own special election year category. Join us April 10th. Just now, we return to the final segments of our trip to Tanzania with Sandy & Russ and Jan & Rob.
[music ends]
JAN
Christianity is growing in Tanzania, and you can go along, and what you see are churches, old churches, small churches, and then next to those buildings are large new churches.
SANDY
Yeah.
JAN
And it’s pretty cool. We saw it a lot. What Eki told us was that they build a new church, but it takes time because you have to build it as you have the money to build it. So it can take years to finish. You don’t take out a mortgage on that church. You raise the money you need to build it and then get to complete that church.
ROB
You build it “polepole.”
JAN
“Polepole,” slowly, slowly.
ROB
Slowly.
JAN
We had a Salvation Army encounter while we were on this trip. We really found this out because Russell, again, because he’ll engage anybody with anything. So I kind of want him to tell the story of where we were and how he found out this person was a former Salvation Army officer.
RUSS
So after this lady, Martha was her name?
SANDY
Martha.
RUSS
She gave us her testimony. So I went up to her afterwards. I said, I liked your testimony, but I see you have a collar on. And I’m assuming that - I’m assuming you’re not a Catholic priest. [laughs] And she said no, that she was Anglican. And then she asked where I went and I told her. And then she started to cry and gave me a big hug. And then Sandy came over and talked to her. She was an officer. Claimed to be an officer, but obviously wasn’t an officer anymore. So, we talked to her…
JIM
You mean, she was Salvation Army?
JAN
Yeah.
SANDY
Yeah.
RUSS
Yeah.
SANDY
She was a captain.
RUSS
Yeah.
SANDY
Went to training college in Kenya.
JAN
She was in charge of this, or at least partly in charge of this center on albinism, and how they fight against the prejudice against people who are albino. Because there’s this huge superstition…
ROB
Yeah.
JAN
…about people who are born with a lighter skin. And she suffered from that, which was…
SANDY
Yes, she…
JAN
…her life story. That was how she had been actually abused and abandoned by her family.
DEE
Oh.
JAN
So it was because of talking about that that then Russell engaged her about The Army, and, lo and behold, the small world comes to fruition in Tanzania.
JIM
If it’s Western imperialism, if it’s French or Spanish or Italian, I’m expecting it to be Catholic. But Tanzania area was German and then British, right? So…
JAN
Mm-Hmm.
SANDY
Right.
JIM
…you’d expect it to be Protestant.
JAN
Right.
RUSS
Yeah.
JIM
Is Protestant Christianity the predominant Christianity in Tanzania?
JAN
There’s a lot of Catholicism, a lot of Lutheran…
ROB
Lutheranism.
JAN
Lutheran from the German heritage. I don’t know how big the Anglican communion is. It’s a conservative country, religiously.
RUSS
Yeah.
JAN
You can’t really talk about, um…
JIM
What does that mean, conservative religiously?
JAN
You can’t talk about LGBTQ rights. It’s illegal.
ROB
That’s illegal.
JIM
Oh, okay.
JAN
I would say that way. It’s a more conservative - it’s like Africa as a whole.
JIM
Like social issue conservative.
JAN
Yeah.
ROB
Yeah.
JIM
Okay. All right.
JAN
But it’s coming out of faith. That’s coming from religion.
JIM
Mm-Hmm. Having done the trip now, is there anything you would have done differently while over there? Like, “Okay, we’re going to do this trip again. But this time, we want to make sure we see or do” - what? Is anything like that in your thinking?
ROB
I can’t…
SANDY
Not for me. I expected the trip to be really good. And it exceeded my expectations.
ROB
Yeah. Me too.
SANDY
It was - I really can’t find anything to complain about as far as - we were in first class accommodations. We had excellent - the food was good, well prepared, safe. We could eat anything they put in front of us. So when they served a salad and things like that, we could eat that. We didn’t have to worry about it. So the food was outstanding. Eki and the drivers were superb. And they really wanted us to have the kind of vacation that we wanted. And so, so much of what Eki put into it was pacing ourselves and giving us options. So, “Here, we can do this. But if you don’t want to do this, that’s fine.”
ROB
Yeah.
SANDY
You never felt like, “Oh my gosh, not again,” or, “Can’t we just have a few hours?” At least I never did. Yes, you got tired and things like that…
RUSS
Peter did.
SANDY
Yeah. [laughter] And there were some people that needed that time down, and we took advantage of that a few times, too, and didn’t do a planned activity. But, far exceeded my expectations.
ROB
Yeah, I would agree totally.
JAN
When we were in the Serengeti, we had makeshift showers…
SANDY
Oh, yeah.
JAN
…and they were kind of a neat experience. So, Russell, [laughs] tell the story of the shower.
RUSS
Um.
SANDY
You had to order them.
RUSS
Oh, well, yeah, okay, yeah. So you have to order a shower, [laughter] and they bring the water to you, and they pour it in a pail, and each of our tents had two rooms inside it. One was a little toilet room, and one was a little shower room that you went in and you zipped yourself inside, and then overhead, you just pulled some chain, and the water would come down, and you would get wet, and you would stop it, and then you would soap up, and then you would rinse off, and it was all very nice. The water was perfect.
SANDY
The temperature, yeah.
RUSS
Yeah. So it was a very nice experience.
JAN
Five gallon bucket…
SANDY
Yeah.
JAN
…and it was, it was like the perfect temperature every time.
SANDY
It was.
ROB
Yeah.
SANDY
It was amazing.
JAN
I don’t know how they did that. It was all solar - mostly solar heated. I suppose one of the inconveniences was sometimes we had to take our electronic devices and charge them someplace like in a main building. We couldn’t do it in our tent.
SANDY
Right.
JAN
Again, because power was limited. But it always worked out.
RUSS
There was a lot of solar power because a lot of the power that you purchased from the power company was very unreliable.
ROB
Right.
RUSS
When we were out in Serengeti, we had very limited power, very primitive lights. And so you felt really careful about using it. But like Jan said, there was a table, and every night, everybody would take all of their electronics and hook it up to this one table, and hopefully everything charged up before you would go. But it didn’t really matter because a lot of times, you didn’t even have a signal anyway.
JAN & ROB
That’s true.
RUSS
So…
JIM
Yeah. But you were using your phones as your cameras, right?
JAN
I would. Yeah.
ROB
Exactly.
JIM
So you needed that.
SANDY
We had a camera too, yeah.
JIM
And other than pictures, videos, and memories, I wanted to talk about anything else you might have brought back. And I’m going to ask Jan to talk about your excursion into Kenya when you went to the border area.
JAN
This was cool because we were out looking at wildlife, and we got to walk - we were close to the border, and it wasn’t a guarded border, so we were able to walk into Kenya, and there was a Maasai gentleman there, and there was a border marker. So we could take our picture by the border, and there was a border marker, and he was there, and he was selling - I think his primary purpose was to get business for the beaded jewelry that he had for sale, which I bought one. And I loved it because I could remember being on the border. It’s one of the things they had to cut off of me when I broke my wrist.
JIM
It was on your right wrist…
JAN
Exactly.
JIM
…and so to take care of you, you had to cut it.
JAN
So I’m going to have Deanna help me fix it, because I know she can. Sorry. In the same way that Jim Cheyne, Sr., would drive out of his way to see Idaho and cross the state line, we walked across and we’re going to count that we were in Kenya. Sandy’s the only one that’s legitimately, I think…
SANDY
Yeah.
JAN
…the only one that’s legitimately been to Kenya because she went on an Army mission trip.
JIM
Oh, so you’ve been over to Africa, too?
SANDY
Yes. I was there in 2012.
JIM
Again, a mission trip, not a vacation.
SANDY
Yup.
JIM
So this is the first time for the two of you on vacation - Jan ’n’ Rob on vacation there.
SANDY
Right. Right.
JIM
All right. And then you also mentioned a certain type of wood that was part of their souvenir type stuff. Did you bring any other things back?
ROB
Yes. We brought a carving of…
JAN
Ebony.
ROB
…ebony. That’s what it is.
JIM
Oak. Balsam. Pine.
SANDY
Ebony.
JAN
Ebony. You’re right, Sand.
RUSS
Ebony and ivory.
SANDY
[singing] Ebony and ivory. [laughter]
JIM
I was wondering if we were going to survive a two hour recording session without a song breakout from Sandy.
JAN
No!
SANDY
That would be so disappointing.
JIM
We were so close. We were like 15 minutes before getting on the bus to leave, and she breaks into song.
JAN
That’s what I love about her.
ROB
Yes. We bought a couple of ebony carvings. Yeah. There you go.
JIM
So Russ is showing us an elephant. And is that ebony wood, Russ?
RUSS
Yes.
JIM
And the tusks are…?
RUSS
Plastic.
JIM
Please don’t say, “Ivory.”
JAN
They are not ivory.
ROB
No, they’re not ivory.
SANDY
It’s the [inaudible] ebony they have.
JIM
Okay. And that’s a bull elephant. We can have an ebony, yeah. Excellent.
RUSS
I put it up to the camera, so it looks big, but… [laughter]
JIM
Yeah, well, it can fit in your hand, but slightly larger than your hand.
ROB
Yeah, he said - he goes up to the person and says…
RUSS
Up here, it looks really big, doesn’t it?
JIM
Yeah, it does. It looks fearsome.
SANDY
So, Russell goes up there, and the guys start showing him elephants, and, “How much is this?” And the guy’s like, “$250.”
DEE
Ooh.
SANDY
Russell says, “What do you got for twenty bucks?” [laughter] And the guy takes him to this elephant.
RUSS
I had to go to the way back of the store. [laughter] But Rob got his at the front of the store.
ROB
Yes, I did. It was a bigger one.
JIM
Excellent.
JAN
You want to talk about tanzanite? Tanzanite is the gem that is from Tanzania.
ROB
Very rare.
JAN
And…
SANDY
Yeah, the only place you can get it.
JAN
Yep. So Sandy, do you have your ring?
DEE
Oh!
SANDY
Well, here’s the story with the ring.
JAN
No!
RUSS
The rock fell out.
SANDY
I am not wearing it right now because I was wearing it, and I was driving and looked down, and there’s no stone in the ring…
DEE
Oh, my goodness.
ROB
Oh my gosh.
SANDY
…and so I stopped. I had been at the Corps, and turned around, went back to the Corps, but before I went back inside to start looking around, I reached in my pocket, and it actually had fallen out in the pocket of my coat.
ROB
Oh, wow.
SANDY
And I think what happened was when I pulled my hand out, one of the prongs caught. And the prongs aren’t very big on it. So I was able to pop it right back in. But I am not wearing it because I’m nervous now…
ROB
Oh, yeah.
SANDY
…that it’s falling out. So I’m going to go to a jewelry store and see if there’s something they can - if they can help me with that problem. Because I don’t want to wear it if it’s going to…
DEE
Right.
SANDY
…fall out. I mean, that makes me too nervous. I would not enjoy wearing it, so…
JIM
Just for the listeners…
SANDY
We’ll see, but, yes, it’s beautiful, but…
JIM
Yeah. Just for the listeners who may not know tanzanite, what color is that?
SANDY
It’s a blue, almost to a purple.
DEE
Oh, that sounds pretty.
SANDY
I think the darker the blue, the better the stone.
ROB
Yeah.
JIM
Is it opaque?
SANDY
And it gets almost into a purple.
JIM
Can you see through it?
SANDY
Hmm?
JIM
Can you see through it like you would an emerald?
SANDY
Uh, yeah. Well, I don’t think you can see through it, no.
JAN
More like a ruby than a turquoise though.
SANDY
Yeah.
JIM
So we had the tanzanite…
JAN
Tanzanite.
JIM
…is the mineral, and it’s mined there. And then you had the ebony wood…
ROB
Mm-Hmm.
JIM
…carvings. But obviously, you guys travel for the memories of it.
JAN
Yeah.
RUSS
I think the O.A.T. Travel Company was a pretty smart, too, because they partnered with a lot of hosts, and actually advanced them monies so that they could develop properties to take people like us to stay in.
ROB
Right.
JIM
Yeah.
RUSS
So there were several defunct coffee plantations that were very far away from the road, and we had to get on some horrible roads, and you would have no idea that these places even existed. They were so far off the roads…
ROB
Yeah.
RUSS
…but once you get through the gates, these beautiful paradises are opened up to us with these beautiful bungalows…
ROB
Yeah.
RUSS
…for us to stay in with these exceptional lodges for us to eat in.
SANDY
And pools.
ROB
Yeah, swimming pools.
RUSS
Pools, and all kinds of manicured gardens and beautiful paradise places that we got to stay in.
ROB
Yeah.
RUSS
So we were treated very well…
SANDY
Yes.
RUSS
…it was very nice. And it was a lot different than being on a mission trip.
JIM
Just a curious thing. Like the Maasai villages you visited, the schools that you visited, are these regular stops on the itinerary for O.A.T. or other safari companies? Do you get the feeling that they’re sort of posing for you?
RUSS
Sometimes I did, yes.
ROB
See, I never felt like that.
RUSS
Only because when it was time to buy some stuff, all of a sudden whoosh! a hundred blankets came out…
ROB
Yeah.
RUSS
…with beads and stuff all over the floor for us to purchase. So I think that they have definitely been visited before, but, once again, it didn’t feel like it was terribly, um…
SANDY
Staged.
RUSS
…staged.
ROB
No, right.
JAN
They…
ROB
But we talked to a couple of the drivers who said that nobody does it like O-A-T. Nobody supports the local people the way that O-A-T does, or gives the tour groups the same experiences that O-A-T does.
SANDY
It was not cheap to go on the safari, but you felt really good about the money you spent, because you saw yourself what your money was doing for people. And they told us that all the time. “This is because of you. We are able to do this because of you.”
ROB
That’s right.
SANDY
“You are the reason that we can do the things we do. Because you came here with O.A.T.” you know. They do it right.
JIM
So what did you learn of the language?
ROB
“Hello” is easy. It’s “jambo jambo.”
DEE
Oh, yeah.
ROB
Or just “jambo.”
SANDY
Yup.
ROB
And everybody greeted everybody that way. Every morning.
RUSS
Not me. I say, “Good morning.” [laughter]
ROB
Yeah.
JAN
Yeah. Well…
JIM
“Jambo, jambo.” Okay.
ROB
“Thank you” was “asante,” and if you say, “asante sana,” it’s just “thank you very much.” “You’re welcome” was “karibu.” “Karibu sana”: “you’re welcome very much.”
JIM
Sana.
JAN
Polepole.
ROB
“Polepole” is “go slowly.” Sandy is my “dada.” And…
SANDY
And Rob…
JIM
I just want to hear that again. Sandy is my “dada.”
ROB
Wait. You gotta hear this. And Rob is what?
SANDY
Is my “kaka.” [laughter]
ROB
I don’t like that, but…
JIM
These are things you said before you went to Tanzania, right? [laughter]
ROB
Yes.
SANDY
True.
ROB
Jim and Russell, you are my “Shemeji”: brother-in-laws. I don’t know wife.
JAN
I have no idea.
ROB
But Jan is my first wife. [laughter] But those are some of the common Swahili words that we learned. Mount Kilimanjaro was gorgeous. We got to see it.
SANDY
Oh my gosh. It was so impressive when we finally saw the whole thing.
ROB
Yeah.
JIM
So are you too close to see it all or too far away?
SANDY
There’s too many clouds.
ROB
Yeah.
JIM
Oh, too many clouds.
ROB
Yeah.
JAN
It was cloud covered when we first got there.
SANDY
Yeah, it was cloud - you could see it from our tent camp, and it actually was framed quite beautifully out the main…
ROB
Yeah.
SANDY
…main tent where we ate and everything. But you never caught the very top that was covered in snow from our…
ROB
Couldn’t see the snow.
SANDY
…from our tent camp. But then when we were out in the - just Baja-in’ across the countryside, you turned around, and when you saw it, it was just like - it was breathtaking.
ROB
Yeah. Yeah.
SANDY
It was - it’s huge. It comes out of nowhere. It’s…
JIM
Well, it’s a volcano, so it’s not a part of a range.
SANDY
No.
JIM
It’s just there’s the plane of Africa, and then here’s this…
SANDY
Right.
JIM
…enormous…
SANDY
And yeah, it was - it’s very impressive. And they were talking about the country borders and how they drew them…
ROB
Oh, yeah, that’s funny.
SANDY
…to include or exclude Mount Kilimanjaro. It was pretty funny. It was…
ROB
Yeah.
SANDY
…I can’t remember all the details.
ROB
If you look - if you look - Jan’s got the map.
JIM
This was the Germans when they wanted to put…
ROB
Yes.
JIM
…Kilimanjaro inside Tanzania.
JAN
Right.
ROB
Yes. If you…
SANDY
Yeah.
ROB
…look at the map, it’s like a totally straight line…
JIM
And then it bumped to…
ROB
…from the east to the west…
JIM
Right.
ROB
…until you get to Kilimanjaro, and then they did a big loop around that, so Tanzania got it, and then it goes straight again the rest of the way.
JAN
It was the Germans. That’s what we say.
SANDY
Yeah. It was - it’s a beautiful country. Yeah.
ROB
It really is.
JIM
I’m going to go into Margaret Mead mode and just ask you details about culture that are not going to be very interesting. It’s just a - I’m curious, that’s all.
JAN
It’s an amazing place. Tanzania…
[music]
SANDY
Yeah.
JAN
…won me over.
ROB
Yup.
JAN
And…
SANDY
It’s a beautiful country.
JAN
Oh my goodness.
ROB
It is a beautiful country.
JIM (voice-over)
You’ll find links to O.A.T., that’s Overseas Adventure Travel, and other organizations mentioned during our series on Tanzania in this show’s transcript, available at cheynemusic.com/transcripts.
Next week, The Not-So-Newlywed Game, Where In The World? Way/No-Way, Believe It Or Not, So You Want To Be A Citizen - these are just some of the games we’ll be playing on The Quiz Show - Episode 22, as we continue Making Our Way. Until then.
[music ends]
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links:
Overseas Adventure Travel: < https://www.oattravel.com/>
Grand Circle Foundation: < https://www.grandcirclefoundation.org/>
Wine to Water: < https://www.wtw.org/>