"Africa: Perspective "
Meredith and I fell in love on Kili. By the end of our trek we were enamored with Meckmillan and Alan - our guides on the mountain. It would be tough to find two finer human beings.
Meckmillan was our guide. Meckmillan was actually one of the guides on President Carter's trek up Kili's Marangu route in 1985. He is about forty, with dark eyes, a beard, and a quiet, understated demeanor. Meckmillan has four children - two sets of twins! Alan is his assistant. He is 27, about 5'5" and one of the most charming, honest, and friendly people I have ever met.
There isn't a lot of money in Tanzania. To put this in perspective, I once mentioned to Alan that Meredith's company, Exxon, is the largest in the world, worth $120 billion dollars in revenue a year. Alan thought about that for a moment, and said, "You mean that Exxon makes more money than Tanzania?"
What little money there is tends to find it's way into very few pockets. Alan and Meckmillan work exclusively as guides on Kili. During the peak seasons, they might head up the mountain, two, perhaps three times a month. For this service they receive payment from the tour company, and whatever tips they receive from the clients.
This does not amount to much by US standards. Of the $1400 total we shelled out to climb Kili, the government of Tanzania took $748. "Come to Africa Safaris" in Kenya took their cut, as did the actual tour operator, "AAH Tours and Safaris". The owners and managers then get their share. What little is left finds its way to the men who actually do the work, the guides and porters. These men each carry up to 70 pounds of gear and food up a 19,000' mountain.
We slept in a tent with our own sleeping bags and pads, and the two extra pads supplied by the tour company. We wore top-line Gore-Tex outdoor gear and expensive waterproofed hiking boots. We carried trekking poles to ease the strain, took Diamox and Ibuprofen, and had all our meals cooked for us and brought to our tent.
Our guide and three porters shared one tent and one (that's right, one) thin blanket. No bags. No pads. No Gore-Tex. No Polartech. Hell, no wool. Alan didn't even have a hat. The temperature on Kili drops well below freezing. And the air below 14,000 is constantly damp from the ever-present cloud cover. Alan wore one pair of pants on the trip with a tear in the leg that stretched from hip to knee. Meckmillan climbed wearing basketball shoes and carried a worthless aluminum flashlight that broke midway through the trek.
Meredith and I recognized that the men who kept us safe, entertained, fed, healthy, and happy were way at the bottom of this economic pyramid. So we decided to tip them well. It's generally recommended that each client contributes an amount equal to 10% of the trip's cost to a tip pool to be divided between the guide and porters. We decided to double that. We each tipped Meckmillan $60 and each gave $20 to every porter.
Somebody in the states told me later that we tipped too much. Told me that they saw me coming. But they never went to Tanzania.
We were able to see first hand what that money meant to our friends. For after we returned to Arusha, Meckmillan and Alan offered to take us to Tengeru to see an outdoor market.
Tengeru is a small town outside of Arusha. I guess you could call it a suburb, if there is such a thing in the third world. Alan and Meckmillan met us in front of the boarding house in the morning and led us through the back alleys and dusty, noisy streets of Arusha. Places that tourists hardly wander. We were going to the depot for the dalla dallas - the primary form of public transportation in East Africa. A dalla dalla (in Kenya known as a matatu) is a small mini-van, usually a Nissan or Toyota with a driver, a tout and a collector, and usually a very loud stereo pumping American R&B. They drive wildly through the streets headed toward a specific town or destination, stopping at each corner to pick up new passengers. Like a bus route, only smaller and independently operated. They often have colorful names written on the back window - "Nike Van", "Rastaboys", "Born to Die", "Death Wagon", etc. You get the idea.
The tout hangs out the window and at each intersection calls out their destination. People get on the van and the collector picks up the fare, usually a 100 shillings. About 1/8 of a dollar.
The average minivan has three rows of bench seats. The vans can hold comfortably (by western standards) 10, perhaps 11 people.
Meckmillan, Alan, Meredith and I all piled into a dalla dalla bound for Tengeru - with eighteen (yes, 18) other Africans. Twenty-two people all stuffed inside a minivan with crappy speakers blasting Jennifer Lopez (or occasionally a speech from the Tanzanian President) flying down the narrow road to Moshi, the tout hanging out the sliding door shouting "Tengeru! Tengeru!" at every intersection. And on the dalla dallas, there is always room for one more.
The whole process was amazingly efficient. Other than foot power and the ubiquitous black, one speed bicycle, this is the primary mode of transportation for the African citizen.
We arrived at Tengeru and wandered the market with Alan and Meckmillan. The market was basically a clearing in the town center where hundreds of vendors had spread blankets to display and sell their wares. Fruits, vegetables, potatoes, meat, live stock, clothing, shoes, pots, pans, blankets, sheets, dishes - you name it. If you could use it, you could buy it there. Meckmillan and Alan wandered the tightly packed rows of vendors and picked through the piles of used shoes and clothing, bargaining on items that would fit members of their families. The money that we brought to Alan and Meckmillan for a week's worth of exceptional service was, in front of my eyes, clothing his family, and subsequently providing income to another.
I never felt better about an investment.
Alan and Meckmillan took us to lunch that day in Tengeru, and Alan spent the afternoon guiding us around Arusha. Alan did this again after we returned from our safari. He walked us around town, asked us about America and answered our questions about Tanzania. He kept us safe as we explored some less than respectable neighborhoods in Arusha.
What struck me most about Alan was his genuine humility. We spent hours talking to Alan about life in Tanzania, his hopes, his plans, his history. Lots of times I asked him questions about his likes and dislikes - standard conversational fare for an American GenXer. "What route do you like most on Kili?" "What is your favorite food?" "Where do you like to visit?" To my surprise, these questions were almost totally lost on Alan. Favorite? As long as he had food on his table, he was happy. But the drought caused by La Nina is making food harder and harder to find for many families. Alan liked the Marangu route up Kili. Because it is more scenic? No. It is shorter, faster, and warmer. The quicker and more comfortably he finished a climb, the better. Marangu is called the Coca-Cola route because of its relative ease (and the bottles of Coca-Cola easily purchased at the huts along the way). To compare, the route we did is referred to as the Whiskey route.
He dreams of becoming a licensed guide for Kili, but the Tanzanian government is not offering any licenses this year, nor does he know how he will afford it. He dreams of owning his own tour company one day, but very few Africans own any businesses. Foreign investors own most businesses in Tanzania. He hopes one day get married and have a family, but Tanzania is terribly hard hit by the AIDS virus. As many as 10% are infected. Millions will die.
I went to Africa to get some perspective on my life. If there is anything that's easy to find in Africa it's perspective.
On our last day in Arusha, Meredith and I took Alan to dinner at one of the better restaurants in town. He gazed at the prices on the menu (still only a few dollars by American standards), but terribly expensive to his Tanzanian eyes. He ordered only a beer, his favorite, a Kilimanjaro lager, and wouldn't let us buy him a meal. I gave him my warm fleece hat as a gift, and we thanked him for spending so much time with us in Arusha.
We exchanged addresses, and he promised me something. He asked us if gold was expensive in US, and we said that it was. Noticing my earring, he told me that as gesture of his gratitude, he would one day send me a gold earring from Tanzania, as gold is easily purchased and far less expensive than in the US. He doesn't know when he will be able to do this, but promised one day, it will arrive.
I haven't received it yet. But I honestly believe, eventually, a crumpled brown envelope will arrive from Tanzania and will carry a small gold earring.
I look forward to receiving that gift.
That gift would be worth more to me than all the gold in Africa.
