Throw Down Your Heart

Today was a long and wonderful day. We had a planned field trip out to Bagamoyo, which is a more rural town about an hour north of Dar es Salaam. We spent the morning at the Kaole ruins, which is one of the oldest coastal settlements in East Africa. We had an archaeology professor from UDSM with us to tell us about the history of the town. It was one of the first sites for trading with the Middle East and Asia, and where the Asian influence began to flow into Africa. This influence is still seen today, with much of the coast population considered Muslim. A few centuries later,Bagomoyo area became a major slave port. Slave traders went into the mainland to capture people, and walk them 500-700 kilometers out to Bagomoyo, where they were auctioned and then shipped to Zanzibar, and then onto the home countries of the slave traders. Eventually Dar es Salaam began to develop, and traders and colonists set their sites there instead of Bagomoyo, for its more ideal bay for fishing and a port. Today Bagomoyo is a struggling little city, with many people moving from the mainland to the coast, and native residents fighting for jobs and money.


So we started our day at Kaole, and after checking out the ruins, we walked back into Bagomoyo to get lunch at the Traveler's Hotel. While our lunch was being prepared, we went down to the beach to stick our feet in and relax after a very long walk. Turns out there was a school group there on a field trip, and we got to play with a large group of children on the beachI tried out some of my Swahili on the kids, and they thought it was great! I'm slowly picking up more vocabulary.

After lunch, we walked to the first Catholic mission in Tanzania and East Africa, and visited their museum. It had some interesting exhibits on the beginnings of Bagomoyo, the German colonization of Tanzania, and the slave trade in Bagomoyo. There was also a giant baobab tree planted on the mission grounds that was planted in 1868 when the mission was opened. It was the best baobab I've seen, it still had its leaves and everything - baobabs aren't in season right now, and look kind of gross without any leaves on them.

We then walked back to the daladala stop through town, and walked through the neighborhood streets. People in Bagomoyo, and much of Dar es Salaam and Tanzania live in houses with mud walls and palm-frond or tin roofs. Many of them are decrepit and falling apart, and hardly an acceptable place for someone to live. Seeing those houses, and seeing the smiling faces of the children playing in front of their homes made me truly realize how unimportant material things are. If these people can be so content in this state, how can someone like me who is so privileged to be able just to go to college, ever be unhappy with life? It was definitely a moment today when my brain clicked, and I truly appreciated how blessed I am to have the life I do, and how much I really ought to appreciate it.