Pernille Bærendtsen, Information Worker, Tanzania
Within the past year I have travelled more than ten thousands of kilometres around Tanzania: I have been to Kiteto, Longido, Tanga, Pangani, Lushoto, Kisarawe, Nairobi, Arusha, Moshi, Kilimanjaro, the Southern Highlands and Mtwara.
Everywhere, everybody talked about the weather.
In Kiteto the acacia trees were blooming in January (photo below); according to the Maasai the flowers are a sign that rain is near. Later in January I was confused about the weather, but the heavy rain finally came, and was about to drive me mad in March where I went on a 12 hour trip round Kisarawe to find material for an article on land on sale for biofuel. In April I got malaria during the masika - the long rains which drowned the area around my house in Dar es Salaam. In October random showers were indicating that the mvuli had started in Dar es Salaam, and now in November the morning showers go through the roof of my house, leaving a poodle in my bedroom.
The long rains have become shorter. The consequences are clear.
Lakini, my problems are nothing compared to 80% of the Tanzanian people who live in the rural areas. Most are dependent on either maize or cassava which are the most popular stable food in Tanzania. While the cassava plant can sustain lack of rain, the maize plants need lots of water. If the longs rains - the masika - which normally runs from March to June, is shorter than this, the maize plants dry out, or produce only very little.
People starve, food prices go up, all other prices go up, i.e. on transportation. If you live in a Tanzanian village where the economical dynamics are limited, it takes little to make life go in the wrong direction.
This is exactly what happened this year in Tanzania.
In May the masika - the long rains - in many places stopped too early, and in many places there was no or too little rain, resulting in drought. People in 10 Tanzanian districts were asking for food in May. In Kiteto the Akiye tribe - the hunter gatherers - were starving in April. In Moshi the maize plants were yellow while the soil cracked of thirst in September, and while the snow melted on the Mount Kilimanjaro, it is suddenly there on the Mount Meru, a newspaper noted.
80% of the Tanzanian population, who depend on agriculture as a means to get something to eat, have either no food, eat less meals or have to pay more to get fed. Tanzanians don't understand why the weather changes, only that it changes their foundation of their livelihood.
Completely.
When I visited Longido in early November, where the mvuli – the short rains – had started, the Maasai woman I travelled with, told me the unusual story that a Maasai man had committed suicide the week ahead. All of his cows had drowned due to sudden rain.
It is an absurd feeling to visit a Tanzanian village waiting for rain when you know that Tanzania is among the 100 most vulnerable countries in the world having contributed the least to total global carbon emissions. Climate change affects us all. In Tanzania, amongst others, it causes hunger because the rain isn't there or it isn't enough.
There is no way I can explain this; I don't even get it myself.
Part of this post was made for BLOG ACTION DAY 2009
Pernille has worked in Tanzania since September 2007; previously for 26 months along and across the Ugandan border to Southern Sudan with civic education and Sudanese refugees, with activism in Copenhagen; and youth and reconciliation in ex-Yugoslavia. She blogs from Tanzania on www.pernille.typepad.com.