Tanzania

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Tanzania
Culture
Tanzania is home to over 120 culturally diverse tribes but shares a common official language of Swahili. Apart from this linguistic bond, each tribe is unique. Their manners of worship, local government, and rituals — even their systems of trade and wealth — vary greatly from tribe to tribe.

One of Tanzania’s major tribes, the Masai, dominates the northern portion of Tanzania. Residing in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, tribe members constantly seek new grazing areas for their cattle. Cattle are of great importance to the Masai, providing not only a source of food, but also serving as a symbol of wealth and prestige for their owners. The Masai wear a single toga-like piece of clothing, usually a bright red or blue color, and cover their bodies in ochre.
Geography and Climate
“In the midst of a great wilderness, full of wild beasts…I fancied I saw a summit…covered with a dazzlingly white cloud (qtd. in Cole 56). This is how Johann Krapf, the first outsider to witness the splendor of Africa’s highest mountain, described Kilimanjaro. The peak was real, though the white clouds he “fancied” he saw were the dense layer of snow that coats the mountain.

Tanzania is primarily a plateau that slopes gently downward into the country’s five hundred miles of Indian Ocean coastline. Nearly three-quarters of Tanzania is dry savannah, so much so that the Swahili word for the central plateau is nyika, meaning “wasteland.” Winding through these flatlands is the Great Rift Valley, which forms narrow and shallow lakes in its long path. Several of these great lakes form a belt-like oasis of green vegetation. Contrasting with the severity of the plains are the coastal areas, which are lush with ample rainfall. In the north the plateau slopes dramatically into Mt. Kilimanjaro.


Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Some of Tanzania’s most distinguishing geographical features are found in the Ngorongoro Conse...