HADZA

First off, these have been by far the most awesome and incredible days of my life. We left the Nou Forest and headed towards the Yeada Valley and home of one of the last hunter gather tribes left in the world. In the valley live only a few hundred members of this tribe at most and they spend their day to day lives hunting, gathering, and living as simple as things can get, most not even having semi-permanent homes since they travel to various parts of the valley so often. Besides this, their known as not only some of the happiest and most content people in Africa but also the only tribe that has never had a problem with hunger. Over human evolution people like the hadza have learned how to live during any season. Times of heavy rain or times of complete drought just leave them with different options for food, non better than any other. And there's always a well that can be dug for fresh water, no matter the season. In recent times they've had a lot of pressure both from the government who sees them as an eyesore as well as surrounding villages disrupting their traditional way of life by bringing in livestock, over grazing the land, and decreasing their range dramatically. But, just 11 days or so ago, the Hadza actually got approval from the national government to give them a fair amount of land in the Ngorongoro conservation area where they can live, for now, uninterrupted by these outside pressures.

Anyway, like I said before just being in the presence of these people have opened my eyes on ways of life and such in ways that I can't even begin to describe in this blog entry. They're some of the funniest people, who acknowledge the existence of the modernized world and, for the most part, refuse to enter it mainly because they're some of the laziest people on the face of the earth. They've developed a system where they spend only around 3 hours a day hunting and gather the days sustenance, and the rest of the time either gambling, conversing, or smoking a good amount of weed. The men will often be on hunts for hours, well a majority of the time is just spent smoking and gambling. Anyway, the first day here after a long day of travel was a dull one for the most part. I climbed to the top of the highest hill in the area (the middle of a eons old volcano) and was amazed at the 360 unobstructed panoramic view of the Yeada Valley. That night, most were finishing our research papers and was overall not all that eventful. The next morning was an early one, with us hiking down to the main Hadza camp to get a look at the few straw houses as well as meet some of the villagers. One man we met apparently was asked to join an archery competition in South Korea, and won. What the fuckkkk. Awesome.

After a meet and greet with some of the Hadza, we were off with the women to go pick some tubers, a staple in the hunter gatherer diet. Digging for tubers is a strenuous activity, but the Hadza are also people who don't like to do too much work, so if the ground is too hard or the tuber too deep, they'll just move on to the next one. After a good hour or so of digging with the group we learned how to start our own fires with just a stick, wood, and Baobab fruit to cook the tubers that we gathered in. So...I guess next time we're lost in Africa, I can start a fire. Oh, we also ate bees straight out of a beehive. Bees, larva, honey, and all.

That afternoon was spent learning how to make arrows the traditional way. After gathering a straight Grewia stick, shaving it to make it even, and putting it in the fire to straighten it. We were given feathers and a strand of Eland tendon to chew (tastes like beef jerky) to make the bottom of the bow. Then, a while was spent pounding out a nail that the Hadza had recently traded honey for and made the head of the arrow (mine specifically used for hunting Giraffe and Hyrax). That night, having our papers done finally was meant to relax, so obviously we relaxed the Hadza way and smoked a little of their favorite plant. I don't think any stoner can beat that story...

The next day was an early one when we packed up and headed across the valley floor to our next camp. The 16 km walk in the burning sun wasn't nearly as bad as everyone assumed it would be, but did take a good chunk of the day, especially the couple hundred meters we had to ascend to the campsite at the top of the ridge. On our way we spotted a cheetah and the Hadza ran off in an attempt to catch it (apparently cheetah tastes like fish..?) but to no avail. After an evening of rest we joined the Hadza around the fire to listen to some traditional music and watch some of their traditional dance. After a few songs were even we learned how to dance to them we decided to play some for them. Two of the girls brought ukelele's and played them a few songs that most of us know the words to at this point. The best though, was obviously T-Pain's “Buy you a Drank”, one of the more absurd situations I've ever been in. That evening, after being informed that it wasn't going to rain, we slept on the flat face of a rock in the highest point in the area. Beautiful stars, until it started to rain, obviously...

That morning was another early one, but well worth it as it was our foray into first hand hunting with these incredible people. Myself, three other students, and two Hadza set off to go find something that we could eat for lunch. After a few unsuccessful stalks of dik-dik, we had our eyes set on a troop of baboons high up a hill on some rocks. In order to not alert them, we snuck around the hill to come up from behind and above. On the top of the hill though, we came across a hyrax which our hunter promptly shot and killed. The rest of the day (a good 4 hours) was spent with me carrying around this dead animal, not as bad as you'd think...

Anyway, we never ended up getting out baboon friends. On the third of the four hills we chased them on (fucking TIREING day) our hunter shot and hit a branch directly in front of one, but, obviously no kill was made. Bastard baboons... As we all got back in the mid afternoon, two of the groups were unsuccessful, one nabbed a small bird, and one got a fucking Porcupine Those are some big animals. I guess it took them over 2 hours of stalking it, shooting it, and coercing it our of holes to finally kill it. Tasty dude though... I've now not only eaten both hyrax and porcupine, but also the brains of both as well. As the Tanzanians would say, “tamu sana”. Post lunch was met with some tradition Hadza gambling, which is actually a pretty cool system. Since the Hadza rely on sharing to keep equality amongst the people, excessive gambling with even odds all around distributes material wealth evenly among the tribe members.

Our kill:

Next was met with a discussion were we had the opportunity to sit down as a group with a group of them and get all of our questions translated directly with them. Honestly by far one of, if not the, best experience I've had. The things I've learned can barely be put on paper, but it really has given me a perspective on the world that I think is almost impossible to get without being face to face to these people who don't have any capital and live day to to day. But among this, they carry no worries, no problems, no strife, and no real issues aside from outside pressures. They're simple people who are perfectly happy with what they have, and what they have is next to nothing at the beginning of each new day.