Day 10
It is hard for all of us to get up to have breakfast, leaving the soft beds of our luxury lodge for the rough roads towards Lake Eyasu at 6:30 am. But we are told it will be worth it — and it truly was an amazing experience to visit the Hadzabe tribal people.

Our visit to the Hadzabe is hard to integrate into our world view and I think very valuable for our two young ones to experience. These people, only about 1200 of whom are left, are hunters-gathers living as they did thousands of years ago, existing off the land through their own skills and speaking an isolate language, not like any other in the world although their “clicking” sounds are found in other African language groups.

We need to get a government permit first and to pick up our assigned translator and then head into the bushland to find a group of these people. We are told even 10 years ago, it would have been necessary to walk and look carefully to find them as they moved so often and quickly, living in caves at certain times of the year. Now they are partially stationery some of the year with small grass huts in a sheltered forest area. There are other groups of tourists who are visiting them when we arrive and I am not clear what the Hadzabe are receiving in return for their hospitality and time spent with us.

We are a little late which is just as well as some of us were very hesitant when we learned we would be asked to join them in animal hunting, which is their main means to obtain food. Some of the men show us the impala meat hanging up and drying from a tree and offer us a taste. We see their campfires, their only means of cooking, and their small grass huts. There are little children running around and playing in the riverbed area. The hunters who went out with some tourists come back, carrying a large dead warthog on a pole on their shoulders. We are told this will be later shared with other groups of this tribe in the area. The men are each wearing what looks like a baboon skin across their bodies

An extremely charismatic younger man gestures and shows us the special bows and arrows they use for hunting, with different tips for different animals. He is telling us a story it is difficult for us to understand but he tries hard to communicate through gesture. All of us agree that this man has the entertainment power to be on any media broadcast in the world.

We are shown how they sharpen their knives and how they make bows. At a certain point we hear a song and dance for the tourist group before us and then it is our tour, dancing in a circle to some powerful music. But, when we hear this song and dance later for a third group, I can’t help thinking how their lifestyle has been impacted by the advent to tourism and whether they are receiving enough in exchange for putting on a show for many foreign people. They have some current fabrics and clothes but I see little else from the 21st century here.

The teenage boys show us how they practice their shooting skills and many of us try our hand trying to pull back the very heavy string of the bow.

They take us further into the bush where they are hunting a mouse which escapes their expert snare techniques and then the women show us how they find bush potatoes, which is one of their staple foods, to eat.

At the end they lead us to an open area where they have their crafts laid out for purchase. We of course feel obligated to buy some of their hand-made items and I buy a wooden elephant for my grandson. None of us had any idea that such a group of people still existed and did not know we would be visiting them so this whole morning has been an exceptional surprise.
We saw many children up to about 5 years old. The parents are forced to send their older children away to elementary school in town after which they can return to the tribe or go on to further education. This exposure to the newer way of living is drawing more and more children away from the traditional ways so that the future of this tribal life is very uncertain.
We then visit a different more modern tribe whose specialty is metal working. We first sit in a small straw hut with the women and have a chance to ask questions of them through our tour leader as they speak Swahili. They demonstrate corn grinding and then Shira has a chance to try it by hand. We speak of life as a woman in this society and tell them something about our lifestyle as well. We sing them a song and they sing one to us. I think we spend a much greater time with them than other tourists who have visited and they seem to have appreciated it. We understand that here, as elsewhere, polygamy is the norm and no ones life is easy.


The metal working was very labor intensive, with old bellows used to bring up the fire temperature to melt the metal. The result was very beautiful bracelets with 3 kinds of metal and we bought quite a few of them as they are special hand-made art pieces.

We all truly enjoyed these visits. They were a good balance to our experiences with the animals in the wild and our comfortable camps where we were well fed and looked after. A more realistic look at life for some people in this part of the world who have retained their traditions and cultures.
We return to our beautiful lodge for a delicious late lunch together and know the images of this morning will stay with us for a long time.
