Anthropological
research in Mambo
by Mark de Waard, friend of Mambo
A couple of days after the start of the year 2013, I arrived
at Mambo to do a research for MamboViewPoint in combination with my study. At
this moment, I am a master’s student in Social & Cultural Anthropology at
the Free University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. My aim for this research was
to find out more about the perceptions of the people in Mambo village towards
the development projects facilitated, and how this would influence their
behavior. The contribution I would make to MamboViewPoint with this research
was that they could improve their communication with the villagers. My duration
of stay was almost three months. If I did not had to return to finish writing a
thesis, I would have definitely stayed longer at this amazing place…
The
arrival
At the moment I arrived, I experienced a beautiful place in
the Usambara Mountains: A stunning view over Tanzania and Kenya while I sometimes
could catch a glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro. Before this time, I have been in
Tanzania three times for holidays and an internship, but that I missed this
place felt as a missing for my previous trips to Tanzania.
Before I arrived at this place,
I had some serious doubts about how I would experience these three months.
First of all, I am really a person who loves cities and busyness around
himself: My internship for my former study was mainly in Arusha. During this
internship, I went for a program towards a very remote area for one week, and
at the end of that week I really felt ‘homesick’ to the big city. Now I was
going to stay at a remote area for three months, which is way longer than this
one week during my former internship.
Another point which I was
a bit worried about was my level of Kiswahili. Before arrival, I spoke a bit of
Kiswahili, but this was on such a level that it was not really useful to work
with. Despite of these worries, I also looked forward to this adventure: This
would become a personal challenge for me, and I would try as much as possible
to contribute useful anthropological knowledge to MamboViewPoint.
The worries I had at the
beginning quickly disappeared after my arrival. I noticed that Mambo and
MamboViewPoint is a nice place with a friendliness of people, which I did not experience
that much as during my travels around the world. Herman, Marion, and the rest
of the staff gave me a very warm welcome, and because of them, I knew I arrived
at a good place.
The
start
Since almost one year before my departure to Tanzania, I have
already started reading literature and scientific articles about this topic. At
the moment I arrived, it was time to assess all this knowledge in ‘the field’. I
started with just observing what was going on. Luckily for me, shortly after my
arrival I was brought by one of the staff members, Kipimo, to a general village
meeting. He really took care of me, and could explain me good what was going
on. Together with Ndege, the local manager, I discussed in the first week how
to come in contact with the people. He had some very good ideas which helped me
to present myself more to the people of Mambo. Another staff member, Amiri,
brought me into contact with the younger generation of the village. He is one
of the members of the local football team ‘Dogodogo Stars’, and since the first
week I also became a member of this football team. Also Herman and Marion
helped me a lot during some brainstorms about what is going on in the area, and
provided me a clear picture of Mambo by telling about important and less
important happenings.
The
process
Like always, the start is the most difficult part of a research,
and in the beginning I was worried about how to start. In the first two weeks,
I conducted interviews with only two villagers. These two were staff members of
MamboViewPoint, so I could not be satisfied. However, I also put a lot of
effort in the beginning by just talking with people, participating in
development projects or social activities. It turned out that by doing this, I
built the foundation for a large numbers of interviews in a later phase of the
research.
In the beginning I was
struggling with finding translators. The guides of MamboViewPoint were did a
good job, but they were very busy with trips for tourists which made it
difficult to make appointments with people. I was very lucky that I met Hoza,
who became my research assistant. I already knew him, because he was
participating in a tree nursery project. It turned out that his level of
English was satisfying to me, and he had good ideas on how he could help me.
After his first time translating for me, I was convinced that he was the right
person who was going to help me making this research a success. Thanks to him,
I adjusted my goal of 25 interviews towards 30 interviews, which became in the
end 33 interviews!
During my talks with the
people in Mambo village and surroundings, I realized that people really enjoyed
my visit. Most people experienced the interviews not only as being a passive
research subject, but also as sharing knowledge in two directions. Just
visiting people at their home and listen to what they think made people very
happy, which get symbolized by the disappointed reactions by some people if I
did not interviewed them yet. Additionally, of all the people whom I have
interviewed, there was only one person who was not willing to be interviewed.
The interviews and
participating in meetings and social activities resulted that it was for me not
possible anymore to walk in the village without meeting people. While I left
for walking to the village, I heard my nickname ‘Maliki’ called by many people
shouted. In the beginning of my stay I was always 10 minutes too early for an
appointment, while at the end I was always 5 minutes too late for an
appointment. This was because I had to greet so many people on my way.
The importance of
anthropology is that the researcher is his own research tool. This means that I
had to come closer to my research subjects by talking and participating in
their lives. This will open doors to achieve more results by making use of my
senses. I feel like I really achieved this in more ways. People opened themselves
a lot to me. First of all, the people in this area are very open and friendly
by themselves, and show a lot of hospitality. However, I think I increased
their openness by really showing interest towards their lives. I talked with
them, stopped for a greeting while walking in the village, hang out with the
people in the village center, and participated a few times in voluntary village
works. Also my Kiswahili at the end of my stay really improved. Whereas I could
only say ‘Hello, how are you?’ at the beginning, at the end I could introduce
myself and present the aim of my interview fully by myself. This was partly
because I have spent many hours sitting with the MamboViewPoint staff and just talking
in Kiswahili.
The
end
I already knew it a bit, but after this research I discovered
I am studying the best study there is: doing research by communicating with as
much as possible with people. Fortunately, the people I researched in this case
also turned out to be amazing friendly people. This also resulted to me that I
felt very sad in the days before my departure. Despite of this, because I was
almost leaving, I knew I had to enjoy every moment of being here even more.
But with the coming of the
end of this research, it is also time to analyze my findings of this research:
First of all,
anthropologists always have the tendency to argue the good things bad, and the
bad things good. However, Herman and Marion made it very difficult for me to
criticize their projects they are implementing. The reactions of the people in
the village made me realize how much the people appreciate MamboViewPoint.
During my conversations, it turned out that many people saw MamboViewPoint as a
new alternative to bring more
development in this area. This is because the ones who are supposed to
facilitate development, the local leaders, are experienced as being not
reliable. The people in the village experience MamboViewPoint as much more
reliable in facilitating development, so people depend more on them. However,
this could be a disadvantage, because in the end it are the people themselves
who should develop the area. Still, people are very happy with certain
developments on which they had to wait for many years, but are brought by
MamboViewPoint very fast.
Another very important
thing I found out during my stay here is that the willingness of people to
participate in development project is very high. However, they put some
restrictions on their participation: As long as the project is transparent and
the facilitators can show what the benefits are, the people in Mambo are very
willing to contribute their efforts to a development project.
These are some of the main
findings during my stay here. But at the moment I arrive back in The
Netherlands, I have to analyze all my collected data and start writing my
thesis. This means that I am going to spend my time for three months in the
university library. While analyzing and writing, I will constantly think back
of this great time here: In this period, I noticed how much I love this country
and its people, and how much I want to come back to the place where I had one
of the best periods of my life!
For Dutch blogs written
during my time in Mambo, visit http://markintanzania.waarbenjij.nu
or http://vamosbien.nl/?page_id=398
