On Sunday I went to visit the Cultural Tourism Programme in Mto wa Mbu, or in English "Mosquito River"!! This village is on the way to the Northern safari circuit and next to Lake Manyara. In fact Tom and I stopped here to get bananas with our driver but we had no idea at the time about the village. (There is problems in advertising the cultural tourism programmes). Because of the location there is a lot of potential for safari tourists to add on a cultural tour on their way to the parks. In this village over 120 languages are spoken and over 50 different ethnic tribes are represented. This overwhelming mixture is the effect of a period of socialist policies in the 60's by the Tanzanian government. In an effort to alleviate the effects of poverty the government introduced a series of policies that forced rural households to move to villages where they could more easily provide basic services. Our guide here told us that all the people live here peacefully and are even aloud to intermarry. The only problem is that sometimes the Maasai will steal other villager's cattle at night. (Maasai believe that god gave all cattle to them so they don't see themselves as thieves. They are just returning the cattle to their rightful home). But there is usually nothing anyone can do about it. I went to Mto Wa Mbu with students from the Professional Tour Guide School. Daniel, a diploma student in cultural tourism, is helping me with my project while I'm here and so has invited me to all the cultural field trips. It is better for me because it is cheaper: they know how to use the daladalas and we even were able to hitch a ride with a tour guide coming back from the parks! The students also like to practice their guiding on me so they identify all the plants and birds and tell me stories about animals! When we first arrived at the village we interviewed the coordinator Wes about the impacts of tourism and how the programme is run. Wes told us about the schools and water projects and even showed a report of income and accounts (not that I understood it). Then we went on a tour of the village, through the banana fields and up a hill to a huge baobab tree where we saw a view of Lake Manyara and the Rift Valley Escarpment. We also stopped at the village milling machine. This is where all the villagers take their maze to be pealed and pounded to make their traditional porridge like food, ugali. It costs each villager 5 cents to use the machine and some can't even afford to peal their maize so they eat brown ugali. We also stopped at the village pub where we were taught how to make banana beer and were given some to try. I just pretended to sip it because there was too much millet floating around and it didn't look drinkable for a Mzungu! And they were all laughing and talking in Swahili when they gave it to me so I wasn't so sure about it! Before going for dinner in the village we stopped by the hospital where a doctor came to talk to us. He didn't speak English so the students later told me he was talking about Malaria being the biggest problem here. Overall all I didn't see much supported by tourism funds here. The milling machine was donated by a development agency and the hospital funded by the evangelical church. I had a conversation with the principal of the tour guide school when I got back. We talked about how they should advertise their projects more to the tourist who come and pay the village development fee. We also talked about the sad possibility that after the donors of CTP left a lot of the money is going into pockets and not to the village. That is a really harsh accusation but I do believe the programmes should pay attention more in letting people know about how tourism is helping. This will ensure that people don't hesitate in donating more money and will recommend the programmes as a must to tack on to a safari. My trip is now over half finished! I'm actually getting used to life here and feel like I could stay longer but I have a deadline and of course I miss everyone! I can't wait to actually share everything in person! Xx amy