After Pamukkale I headed straight South to Tanzania, to observe how the receding of Kilimanjaro glacier is changing life around it.
Once in Moshi I find myself in a extremely vivid environment and rapidly get used to moving around with motorcycle-taxi or a dala-dala.
But I still have road to go to get to my real destination.
Shimbwe is a chagga village that sits on a lower slope of Mount Kilimanjaro, right at the borders of the National park. This community gets first hand the water coming down the mountain. This means that the water is clean but also that is becoming scarse do to global warming and local human activities.
This place is literally surrounded by vegetation, mainly banana, coffee and avocado trees. People here used to have plenty of water for irrigation but that’s not the case anymore.
I’ve spent almost a week here, guest of a family of three generations of women. Mama Clara, her own mother and her young niece Vanessa.
Spending time with them and with local guide Victor (Shimbwe Tours) I really dived into local life, exploring the village and its hotspot, eating local food and even crushing at marriage parties.
What stroke me of this place is what a beautiful green land they have. Yes, they live in really precarious conditions, with dusty roads that gets muddy during rainy season. But what a beautiful fecund home has nature given to this people!
The thing is that they also need to take care of it and use it responsibility. Some people are cutting trees illegally, often damaging existing water sources and flows.
Local institution are trying to fight illegal logging and build new infrastructures to harvest water sources inside the park, but a better civic education and more fundings are needed.
If here in Shimbwe water is not yet a problem, it will be sooner for people living down the valley.
You can see that clearly in Maji Moto, a remoted village in the Arusha region where the only water source is situated 70m underground and the water that used to be distributed from nearby sources is not enought anymore to reach the village.
This place was founded by Maasai tribes that settler here years ago. Some of them still lives in the traditional Inkajijik houses made from sticks and animal dung. But this iconic circular building is becoming rarer and rarer, as more and more people decide to build rectangular houses to use metal sheets for their roof.
While this is unfortunate for cultural heritage, it is good for the environment as wood is becoming scarce in the area.
The changes in house coverings has a interesting parallel in local fashion. By now even older persons merged their traditional cotton robe – that already replaced animal skin dresses – with modern poliestere piles and hats.
A lot can be done to help this people in facing their challenges. I started collaborating with local leaders to help them using digital tools at their advantage, starting with a campaign to fund the planting or more trees.
However, despite all this issues and future threats, life in this small villages seems so light and peaceful. Everybody here will always offer you his best smile.
And that’s probably the biggest lesson I got from this people. To be happy with the few, simple things you have.