Visit to the Hadzabe village

Tonight we slept in a lodge in the area of ​​Lake Eyasi, here live several populations, some of which still follow traditional customs and habits, refusing progress; yesterday we visited a Datoga village and it was very interesting, but today we are going to visit a Hadzabe village.

The Hadzabe are also called Bushmen, or inhabitants of the forest, as they live in the bush; they are found only in Tanzania and are very few, between 700 and 1,000 individuals.

They speak a particular language with "clicks", like that of the San and the Nama; it is not certain what the Hadzabe origin is, it is possible that they have ancestors in common with these populations of Southern Africa or simply, in the past, they have had contacts, but having only an oral tradition, many facts of their history are gone lost.

They are hospitable even if we cannot communicate with them, as they only speak their language and a few words of Swahili, while we speak English, it is also for this reason that we have a local guide with us, Charles, who speaks a little their language and who explains us how they live.

They practically do not have a real village, but take shelter in the caves or build shelters, made with the bark of the baobabs, especially during the rainy season; they are not permanent, but they move on the territory, for example if they hunt a big prey, instead of taking it to the "village" it is them who move where the prey is, in order to eat it.

In a village lives more than one family, they constitute a sort of clan, or group, and the head of the clan, or of the village, is the best hunter.

They are hunters and gatherers, one of the few remaining populations living in this way.

Men go hunting, using bows and arrows, some of them have a wooden tip, others are made of iron and others are poisoned with the poison that they extract from the Desert Rose or Adenium obesum; they usually hunt early in the morning or at sunset, when it's less hot.

Instead, women collect berries, fruits and tubers that they find in the bush; use wood to dig or dig with bare hands.

During our stay at the village, the men show us how to light the fire and how to throw the arrows, while the women show us how they harvest the fruits and the tubers and they also make us taste them; they also collect a tuber that looks like a white beet that they eat raw.

Women, during the day, remain separated from men and sit in a semicircle, talk to each other and sell, to those who visit, some objects they make, such as smoking pipes, other objects in wood engraved with fire, coral necklaces and miniature bows with arrows.

It has been a good experience and very real, they are not used to visits at all, I think that there are very few people adventuring here; and they are happy to welcome visitors; the hope is that there will not be too much tourism that will change their lifestyle.