Why is everyone building?

Walking around Karatu, I've noticed a lot of people are building houses. A lot of houses. Last week, I counted the construction projects on my walk to work. I live about a mile from the hospital, and my commute passes through a fairly rural setting. There are 18 houses under construction, eight new houses (finished in the last six months) and 12 extensions being added to existing homes, all along one mile of unpaved, country road. That seems like a lot to me, and it's not bounded by economic status. Everything from one-room mud huts to (what pass for) mansions are sprouting like crocuses on the first day of spring.

The construction along my morning commute represents a small example of a larger phenomenon visible in most parts of Karatu. There's a brick-laying bonanza going on, and it's making me wonder: why is everyone building right now?

I've thought about it over the past week and came up with a few possible answers. Please note that what follows is pure speculation, based on my personal experience from living here over the past two years. No effort was made to consult expert opinion, quantify information or conduct rigorous analysis of any sort whatsoever. With that caveat, here are my explanations:

1. High fertility rate
People are popping out babies like crazy. Children are everywhere. We are suffering an acute staffing shortage at the hospital because one third of the housekeeping staff managed to get pregnant at the same time. That's no exaggeration; their due dates are within one week of each other. Tanzania's census service estimated the total fertility rate of 5.4 children per woman in 2010. Compare that to 1.9 in the USA, and keep in mind that the true rate in Karatu is probably higher than the nationwide statistic because fertility rates tend to be higher in rural areas. The fact is there are more and more people living here, and people need houses to live in.

2. Improved transportation
Karatu is like the American railroad boom towns of the nineteenth century. Last year they finished the paved road from Arusha—the only paved road in the district—which makes it worlds cheaper to move people and goods back and forth to the third largest city in the country. The paved road cut the travel time to Arusha from seven hours to two. It's also funneling ever-growing caravans of tourists to visit Ngorongoro and the Serengeti and bringing their dollars and euros to the lodges and lodge employees. It also brings driver-guides and their shillings to the guest houses, bars and brothels—not an inconsequential economic boost either. Not only are there more people to house but there's more money to do it with.

3. Lengthy construction times
Building a house can take a very long time here. Some of the sites I tallied in my informal survey have been under construction since I first arrived. A big reason why you see so much building going on is that you are seeing the overlap of many years' worth of projects. Nobody waits until they have enough money to build the whole house before they start. When you have enough money for a foundation, you build the foundation. When you get money for bricks—maybe a few years down the road—you buy bricks. When you find money for mortar—a few more years—you build the bricks into walls. There's a very practical reason for doing it this way, and it has a lot to do with the my final factor...

4. Houses are illiquid
Nobody is going to ask to borrow your half-built house to help pay their water bill. If you kept the money in cash, someone would ask for it. In individualistic, Western countries, it's hard to say no when a family member asks for financial help. In a society where social support is built entirely on family and community ties, it's impossible. When Cousin Emanuel comes knocking because the crop failed again and the cow died and he can't afford water and think of the children... you had better pay up or ostracism awaits. If there's two things we have no shortage of in East Africa, it's relatives and problems. The only way to hang on to your money is by turning it into something illiquid as quickly as possible. When payday comes, you go straight from the bank to the brickmaker. Even if half your bricks get destroyed by rain waiting for roofing tin, that's better than losing all of your construction budget to Aunt Balbina's medical bills while you wait.

I'm sure there are some other factors at work. I have no idea how important each of the factors above are, though I suspect the last one is the biggie. It's interesting for me to experience the process of getting to know a place. First you might not even notice details, then you see them but not the reasons for them—at this stage, it's tempting to conclude that there are no reasons and people are being senseless—then you begin to put the pieces together and understand the underlying forces shaping people's behavior. Or maybe you just think you do, and there are still more layers to peel back. This is all just wild speculation after all.

Long overdue

Well it turns out that, to nobody's surprise, I'm terrible at keeping up with blog posts.

I guess I was in the middle of our trip to Lake Natron when it got away from me last october.

We made it to Natron. Here's Ben dipping his toe in its caustic waters:

We had passed Oldonyo Lengai (the sacred volcano of the Maasai) that morning, and the scenery was beautiful. Hard to believe it hasn't been turned into a national park yet.

After that the excellent road that we were on met up with the main tourist road, which was also unpaved but much worse in every way. We started seeing landrovers again, the whole road was covered in washboard bumps, and we also started running into tourist gates.

There is a law in Tanzania stating that communities can charge tourists for visiting sites of cultural or natural beauty in their jurisdiction. What various villages have interpreted this as is that they can put up toll gates across public highways and charge anyone who looks foreign driving past. The fees shouldn't have applied to us, since we are legal residents of Tanzania and not tourists and because we were just trying to get to the other side of these villages and were not interested in any nature or culture in their jurisdiction anyway. But the guards at the gate weren't having any of it, even when we showed them our papers and explained at length the situation. They insisted on charging us an outrageous sum to pass. So we ended up giving them 5,000/- as a bribe instead of paying $15 each, and they let us through. They also told us there was another gate on the way to Natron that would charge us again. Instead of going through that rigamarole again, we instead turned off at the closest dry riverbed and drove down that to the edge of Lake Natron.

It was alright, kind of pretty but left me wondering why people make such a big fuss about it. We did get to see some flamingos up close in a sort of tide pool though.

On the way back we realized it was going to be hard to retrace our steps. The dry riverbed had flattened into the larger mud flat on our way down, and we didn't know exactly where we had come from. Fortunately we were able to just make out our tire tracks from earlier. Unfortunately a herd of giraffes and zebras had wandered right across our path, and we looked like terrible people for driving right at them. We didn't want to disturb them; we just didn't want to get lost since we were already kind of low on water and fuel.

Anyway, we did find our way back to the road. Right before we turned onto it, we were met by a very angry man coming the other way on a little Indian motorcycle. He was gesturing wildly for me to stop. I looked back for Ben, but didn't see him behind me around the bend. I saw that the man on the little motorcycle had a machete, and I thought "no way I'm going to stop for some stranger in the middle of nowhere with a weapon." I pinned the throttle, and relied on the power and suspension advantage of the Honda to quickly leave him behind. After a while, I stopped and waited for Ben to catch up. He had also seen the man and did the exact same thing as I had. We both opened the throttle and didn't look back again. We've heard stories about bandits waylaying travelers in this part of the country.

On the way back we got an even closer look at Oldonyo Lengai, but the top was still covered in clouds.

From there we headed straight South through Engaruka to Mto wa Mbu. I don't have much to say about that part of the drive except that the road was terrible, it was very hot, and there was not much to see until we hit Mto wa Mbu. Just butt-pounding driving on the washboard bumps and unending hassle from the tourist gates. I highly recommend anyone going to or from Natron do so through Monduli. It's longer but an infinitely better drive.

We made it back to Mto wa Mbu for a cold beer (the first in days) and a hot meal. Then we zipped up the escarpment to Karatu. Just like that the trip was over. Back to work the next morning. I'm infinitely obliged to Ben for going with me. It was quite a bit of fun and definitely not the sort of thing you want to do alone.

We even forgot to do an end of trip picture, so instead here's a selfie we took upon reaching Lake Natron.

Addendum:

I lost my raincoat on this trip. I don't remember precisely where, but I suspect that Ben left it at the guest house in Kitumbeine after I lent it to him during that terrible storm. I even have photographic evidence of him wearing it there. I liked that jacket; it was a Christmas present from my sister. I hope that Ben is properly ashamed of himself.