I know, I know ... Did you expect another amazing episode on the trip to Mozambique last summer. But today I propose something different. A jump space-time: about 1200 km further north in space and a couple of years in time with respect, indeed, to Mozambique this summer.
There are things that remain buried in our memory for years. Remain calm blankets the recollections of personal experiences that they have occurred over time. And then when there are almost completely forgotten, something unexpected happens that makes us come to mind. And then within a few days follow each other unexpected events that remind us that memory. How many episodes each other if they are not tied together for a rendezvous such as random chance of which we are involved spectators.
few Sundays ago I was with my lunch. At the end of lunch, waiting for the coffee, I was reading the latest issue of National Geographic and in particular an article that spoke of a particular ethnic group of Central Tanzania's Hadza. The article intrigued me because I've been in Tanzania two years ago. The Hadza name does not tell me nothing but the description that the author does, that is, that some synapses in my brain again interrupted. In fact I read that the Hadza are the inhabitants of the bush that extends between the lake and the Serengeti Eyasi are a nation of hunters and gatherers and live as their ancestors lived thousands of years ago. They hunt when hungry, do not cultivate the land but merely to gather tubers and berries or as honey from hives, have no rules or calendars and even a religion.
Reading these things back to me in mente il fatto che anche noi in Tanzania abbiamo visitato una tribù di boscimani (gli abitanti del bush), partecipando addirittura ad una mitica caccia nel bush. Ma il nome di questa etnia non me lo riesco proprio a ricordare.
Poi arriva il caffè, me ne devo andare e la cosa finisce lì. Poi però il giorno dopo il nome di quei boscimani mi riaffiora alla mente: hasabe, si chiamavano hasabe! Hadza, hasabe... ma vuoi vedere che sono la stessa cosa... Wikipedia mi viene allora in soccorso: “ The Hadza people , or Hadzabe'e, are an ethnic group in central Tanzania , living around Lake Eyasi in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau... ” Oh yes and my hasabe the Hadza are exactly the same thing.
Then I connect with the website of National Geographic and I finish reading the article (although this time in English). The hasabe (now that I have appropriated Permit me to call them, even if mistakenly so) they speak a language other than the native Swahili widely spoken in the rest of the region. Their language and the fact that they live in a semi-arid and inhospitable area has isolated them from the rest of the world and now live exactly how they lived 10,000 years ago.
Well this applies to the tribes visited by National Geographic but a little 'less than that seen by us living on the edge of their territory was contaminated with other ethnic groups and with the tourists visiting the lake for which Eyasi organized dances and hunting . The reporter then spoke of the difficulties, despite the help of an interpreter, to organize the expedition. After a first initial contact the reporter had agreed to meet with the elder of the tribe after three weeks in the vicinity of a given tree. Schedule an appointment had not been easy. The hasabe ignore the concept of the hour, week or month. Complicating matters was the fact that hasabe have no words to express larger numbers three or four. And also the trees in a wilderness which is the bush, they all look the same. But the day the appointment was timely Bushman waiting under the tree established. Asked by journalists if he had to wait long, the Bushman had responded as if it were the most normal thing in the world: "Only a few days."
That says a lot about the concept of time in Africa that I mentioned in more than one occasion in my previous posts. For Africans, time is an abundant resource and appearance patients is part of their nature. In particular hasabe engage in activities aimed at procuring no more than three or four hours a day: the rest is free time ....
And then wait at night alone in the bush, I can assure you, is not an experience of the quieter, with hyenas and leopards that roam in the shadows. Because we like good irresponsible in light of our electric torcetti we had ventured out at night in the bush in search of hyenas. Luckily, the children in the nearby village, attracted an unusual show of lights in the darkness, we were accompanied on our tour we were insane, and above all reported safe and sound (apart from some injury due to the thorny acacias) to our campsite. Without them we would never have been able to return to our tents, and now I think our bones whitening in the bush.
TO BE CONTINUED
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