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So I know we came to Tanzania to go on safari. I know, too, that “safari” is practically synonymous with animals and pictures of animals. But I really thought that we would still get to interact with Tanzanian culture at some level. And we haven’t.

We arrived at our first lodge, Arusha Mountain Village Lodge (http://www.serenahotels.com/tanzania/mountainvillage/home.asp) and the first thought that went through my head as we walked in the door was “How fabulous! This looks like the lodges of the 1920s and 1930s, where you might see Somerset Maughan or Mark Twain or some dashing British officer coming around the corner at any minute. I’m so excited to be part of adventure travel like that!” And it has continued that way. Think of dashing gentlemen in safari outfits, swanky lodges in the middle of nowhere, and all the British colonial travel extravagance you can think of … minus the lavish dances at night and the long duration of travel on ships but plus modern conveniences like showers… and that’s what life has been like. We even had free internet at one lodge in the middle of the Serengetti (it was $1 for 2 minutes in most of the other lodges).

It has been a beautiful, luxurious, exciting, and simple way to travel. And we’ve had almost none of the culture shock we expected. But we also haven’t gotten really any sense of what Tanzanian culture is like, apart from interactions with travel guides and hotel staff. In some ways, it feels like we’re being deliberately separated from learning about day-to-day Tanzanian life.

Andrew pointed out that you really don’t get a sense of what American day-to-day life is when you visit National Parks in the United States, either. So maybe that is part of what I’m experiencing.

Still, almost all the guests at the lodges are European, Asian, or American – and normally white. Tanzanians – probably most Africans – normally can’t afford even the money to pay for transportation to their own National Parks, much less the entrance fee (for them, the equivalent of about US $1.50, higher for tourists – about US $50), or the time off to go on a holiday. When you talk with the lodge staff, most of them are at the lodges for 2 to 3 months at a time, then have a week off to go visit their family – if they can’t find other work for that week. I’m really unsure when these people have a chance to see their families – it sounds like they’re never home, let alone at the same time as their spouses and children.

I had an interesting conversation with an American woman who has been in Dar-es-Salaam for a year while her husband taught on Fulbright Scholarship. She indicated the vestiges of the old colonial lifestyles are still very strong, as are the class and race distinctions that would have gone along with them. According to her report, many black Tanzanians will give you the answer you want to hear to your questions about lifestyle, money, and even animals, rather than the answer than what may be the true answer. And they still address white people as “madam,” “sir,” and “papa” (for older men), even when there’s not any reason for that kind of salutation.