This month it’s been eight years since I moved to Tanzania and here are the things that I’ve learned about me, about Tanzania, and about the world. It’s been an eye-opening, mind-opening, heart-opening, spirit-opening experience.
July is a special month for me. Number one, it’s my birthday month. And number two, it’s also the month that I came here to Tanzania to live. A birthday of another type. And today I want to share the things that I’ve learned since moving to Tanzania.
Coming here to Tanzania has been such a big feeling of coming home. Being able to take off that armor of what it means to be black in America, to be able to just feel more comfortable in my skin. It’s an amazing experience. The culture here is very peaceful. People are very friendly. And I felt at home here in Arusha, looking up at Mount Meru, almost right from the beginning.
And so here are the things that I’ve discovered here.
Now, I’m not trying to say that everything is wonderful here, that there aren’t problems here. And certainly yes, Tanzania and the rest of the continent has also suffered from the impact of colonialism and Eurocentrism and white supremacy. I can see that here too. But even still, there is still so much that I’ve learned here. And I talked about some of that in my Roots of Wellness series.
One of the first things that I felt here was a real alignment and connection to nature and the natural rhythms of things. It’s a very agricultural kind of community here. A lot of things are based upon farming. There is a more connection to seasonal foods and growing my own food, being out in nature, hearing the birds, learning new birds and animals. It’s been a wonderful experience. I’ve approached it with a child’s eye. I’ve always loved learning new things.
Being here has really opened my eyes up to new ways of being. It has also taught me how to just allow things to be the way they are. Many people come here and they have a hard time because things are not like how they are used to, not how they think things should be. Like how should purchasing things be? Well here, people bargain a lot. It’s not like in the states where the price is on the sticker and that’s what you pay. No, here it’s different. So people can have trouble with that as they are given higher prices. If folks think you can pay a higher price, they’re going to try to get a higher price. It’s that way in many other cultures as well.
Learning to go with the flow and allow things to be the way they are opened my mind, to new ways of seeing things. What is the relationship of money and community? What is the relationship of younger people to elders? What is our duty as people in this community, in this society? What is expected of me as an elder? What is expected from me as a woman?
Here I have also gotten very close to seeing the amazing diversity and beauty of nature, of the divine. To see every day as I come outside here in my garden, as I walk around in town, as I drive around, as I meet people, the amazing diversity and how important and wonderful it is. To know that I’m a part of that diversity too. Me, just the way I am.
Being here without much of the stress and the worry that is a part of the “modern” world has been healing. Without the expensiveness, the constant social media promoting a version of who you’re supposed to be. And the pressure, pressure, pressure that just isn’t here in the same way.
Being able to just release and let go has been amazing. It’s allowed me to really find my true self. To take the time to listen within and to explore. I talked in the previous video about reinventing myself and being here has taught me more about who I really am. When I lived in Ann Arbor, I often felt like I had to choose between people who think like me and people who look like me. So many of the ways that I think, the things that I believe, were thought of as white in America. Eating plant-based, wanting to be out in nature were thought of as white things. Coming here, I realized, no, they actually are truly African ways. Many things have been taken away from us as African people. So many ideas, practices and ways of being have been stolen from us, reconfigured, repackaged and given back to us as if it wasn’t ours. As if it came from Europeans, as if it came from white people. When that isn’t true at all.
Our African culture is at the root of everything. Living here in Tanzania has been a Sankofa process of reaching back to reclaim what is truly ours and truly us. Our original African ways of viewing Mother Nature, our African ways of viewing Spirit and God, our African ways of viewing community and our connection to community and our responsibilities to community. Seeing that in action here has truly been the most amazing thing.
Every time I go back to the States, it reminds me again of just how far away “modern” culture, U.S. culture, and I assume probably European culture, is from being healthy.
Being here has helped me to become really whole and healthy. It’s helped me to become healthier physically because the food that I eat is more natural. That hasn’t come from bazillion miles away. It’s mostly local food and it’s very fresh, it’s very ripe, and it’s largely unprocessed. There’s not a lot of that junk food and fake meats and fake cheeses. What is here is very expensive so I’m not encouraged or really desire to eat that stuff. So I eat better here.
I’m outside getting fresh air and sunshine every single day. Earthing, putting my feet on the ground, breathing that fresh air, getting exercise every day has helped me cultivate a good close connection to earth.
The water that I drink is filtered and it’s direct from the mountains, spring water. It’s not been chlorinated or treated. I’m getting fresh clean air. I’m getting fresh clean food, getting fresh clean water. And without the stress and the constant barrage of negative media images and news it’s been a fresh and cleansing for my mind.
I can feel the difference.
I’ve also felt from the very beginning much closer to the divine here. There’s something very spiritual, at least to me, about this place. When I come outside, I can put my hands on a tree or, in my walking, I can open my heart up and my mind up to my connection to my ancestors, to my connection to the divine. I can feel the energy going through my body.
It’s been spiritually healing, and it’s been emotionally healing as well.
As I’ve gone through this reinventing myself phase and relearning my strengths, and my power, to believe in myself, and to open myself up to whatever is the next phase for me, it has been a really liberating experience.
So it’s been a mental liberation, it’s been spiritual liberation, it’s been a physical liberation, and I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. I know that things are continuing to unfold for me. I keep meeting new people, new opportunities, keep opening up.
I’ve had the opportunity to meet some amazing people, both locals as well as other diasporans like myself, and the connections that I have formed, even right now, it’s giving me chills thinking about it.
Coming here to Tanzania has taught me to be truly me, and I can’t imagine ever living in the States again. Tanzania is my home now.
I hope you will come to visit Tanzania someday. If you’ve never been to the African continent, whether you choose Tanzania or Nigeria or Ghana or South Africa or Rwanda or Kenya, wherever it is, if you haven’t been here and you are of African descent, I must tell you that it is an eye-opening experience.
We’ve been taught so many things about Africa. That it’s dangerous. “Oh my God, you’re going to go to Africa?” My uncle used to be so worried about me. Many of my family or friends were worried, why would I want to go there and live there? If you haven’t been here, you just can’t even imagine.
And so I encourage you to come and see for yourself. Come to Tanzania, come to wherever, whichever African country speaks to you. I encourage you to come to several and see what it feels like. I think we owe it to ourselves, as people of African descent, to put our feet down on the African soil, to breathe the African air. To see what it feels like to be in a place where everyone is African and whiteness and the European culture is not the norm. To be able to see a different way of living and a different way of being.
It’s an eye-opening, mind-opening, heart-opening, spirit-opening experience.
This liberating process is a what I have brought into my Whole & Healthy coaching programs. With both my 1-on-1 coaching clients, and in my online program. To help you find your way to physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional healing. So that you can bring your much needed magic out into the world.
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