A ground-level view of the training provided to Tanzanian troops to help them tackle the important but difficult tasks of peacekeeping in Darfur and perhaps elsewhere.

Training in the Bush

When my driver, Botto, picked me up at the airport in Dar es Salaam in November, he told me I would need a flashlight to check for snakes and small critters in my tent at the camp site in Msata, Tanzania.

 
It was 10:30 pm and I was exhausted. “Snakes and small critters, I’m ready for this!” I exclaimed, only half in jest. Even though Botto’s English was less than perfect and my Swahili was non-existent, we laughed together. All the while I was thinking, “Really, what kind of small critters are we talking about here?”
 
This was my third U.S. Institute of Peace training on behalf of the U.S. State Department’s Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program and my first time in Tanzania. The ACOTA program is a State Department–funded training program for African troops deploying to African peacekeeping missions. The training they receive is primarily military focused, except for USIP’s portion.

USIP’s Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding provides three to five days of training on practical nonviolent tools of communication, negotiation, mediation and other skills to deal with conflicts that begin at a low-level but can easily escalate into widespread violence. For example, how to use negotiation skills to get through checkpoints and roadblocks, and how to mediate differences that could lead to violence among civilians. I was heading to Msata to train Tanzanian military units who would be deploying to Darfur—a challenging environment to say the least. I would be joined in the workshop by consultant Joseph Sany.

So far so good, the flights had been smooth and Botto had been waiting for me outside of the airport. I would spend the night in Dar es Salaam and drive to Msata the next morning, a four-hour drive. As they say in Africa, this training program was “in the bush,” meaning we were staying in tents, eating at the campsite, and training at the small base located an hour from our campsite.

I went to sleep at 7:30 pm each night when the sun went down and woke up at 5:00 am, when I would eat breakfast at the campsite and then head to the base. The drive was over rough terrain—dirt and rocky roads. Along the drive we passed isolated huts. Each hut had a few grazing animals and food that families grew for themselves, self-sustaining environments that made perfect sense since there wasn’t a village in sight. Many of these people are from the Maasai tribe, which is among the most identifiable African ethnic groups due to their distinctive customs and dress. They live a traditionally seminomadic lifestyle.  

Each morning and afternoon as we drove to and from the base, little kids would suspend their chores around their huts and come out and wave to us. They knew like clockwork when we would be driving by and they waited for us and waved. The first day I smiled and nonchalantly waved back. By the last day I found myself eagerly looking forward to seeing and waving to them, a small but heartwarming connection.

Suffice to say, there were no small critters or snakes to worry about in my tent, just ants—lots of them but thankfully most stayed outside my tent. As we were driving back to Dar es Salaam from Msata, Botto said that he was sure I would return to Tanzania—and I agreed. I knew that the conflict management skills that the USIP training provided to the Tanzanian troops would help them tackle the important but difficult tasks of peacekeeping in Darfur and perhaps elsewhere.

This “bush” experience was uplifting in so many ways. Of course, daily Western comforts were absent, but witnessing the simplicity and cooperative nature of traditional Maasai families and connecting with the children in such a simple, natural way reinforced my belief that there are pure universal emotions that make us human and transcend barriers of culture, geography, language.

I will be back to Msata, Botto will be waiting for me at the airport, and the children and I will once again connect with a universal sign of peace and friendship: a smile and a wave.  
 

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