Learning from the locals

This past Friday was our first day doing fieldwork for our environmental policy class. The class was split up into seven groups, and each group was given their own research topic. My group was given the topic of crops/farming in Rhotia, Tanzania. We had to formulate interview questions and then go out into town to interview the local people. We had a guide/translator named Harry who is from the area and very familiar with the lifestyle of the local people. We only had enough time to interview seven households, but it was clear that many of the local people are realizing how climate change is affecting their livelihoods. Multiple people told my group that crop yields have been very poor the last few years and that seeds are still very expensive. We also found out that many of the local people have to walk over an hour to get to their fields or piece of land on which they are allowed to plant. Most of the people we interviewed farmed solely for subsistence purposes, only selling during a good crop year. It was awesome to be able to talk to these people and hear about their daily lives, but it was also hard to hear about their struggles.

When we were walking back to our camp, I started talking to Harry about what he wants to do in the next few years. He told me he wants to go to school (college) for wildlife management more than anything else in the world, but he can’t afford it right now. He said he hopes to start school sometime next year, but he wasn’t sure if it was possible. It totally broke my heart to meet a very intelligent young man who feels stuck because he doesn’t have the means to follow his dreams. Harry then starting asking me how someone like him could go to school in America, and I got beyond excited because I know for a fact that the University of Wisconsin and many other schools have initiatives to help foreign students attend college. I told him he had to come back to the camp so that I could help search for some information that could get him the education he wants. 

This whole experience made me realize how extremely lucky I am to have been born in the country I was born in and into a family that has supported my own dreams (even when they think I should be doing something else). I couldn’t help but be upset with myself for forgetting how unbelievably fortunate I am to have the opportunities I’ve had during my lifetime.