Clinging to the side of mighty Mt. Kilimanjaro's fertile southern slope, a people group thrives on
practices of living that have survived millennia.

Their simple homes, easily entertained children, kind smiles, and sweat-inducing
field labor -- not to mention their almost complete lack of "modern
technological conveniences" -- speak to a society that exists in a way so
diametrically different than those of the western world, yet is somehow
surprisingly sustainable in a globalizing world.

On a recent trip to Tanzania, the East African nation which borders eight countries and
the Indian Ocean, my wife and I, our college friends who live in nearby
Moshi, and a Tanzanian friend of theirs spent a day hiking on Mt. Kilimanjaro. As we followed the tiny dirt trail higher on Kili and
deeper into its lush jungle, we were introduced first-hand to the Tanzanian
people group known as the Chaga. Our guide was a young Chaga named Oscar who
leads short day hikes and has served as porter for foreigners who come to climb
the tallest free-standing mountain in the world. His clothes are simple, his
footwear simply sandals made from old tires. He has a boyish face, his skin is
dark and his smile is wide and white.

 “This is my
home,” Oscar tells us as we approach a tiny thatched hut. Children stop their
playing and stare at us as we leave the trail and gather outside the home.
Someone in our group disappears into an adjoining building to use the
squatty-potty as Oscar offers a generic introduction to his family, in vari ous
states of busyness or play around the plot of land – all seemingly happy.

Oscar shows us some coffee plants that form a sort
of border around his family’s home. He breaks off a couple green beans and
rolls them around in his hand, explaining how the beans are harvested, the
outer skin removed, dried out over many weeks, and shucked, before they are
roasted for consumption or sale. It occurs to me at that moment that despite
the fact that coffee is one of this people’s and nation’s largest exports, Oscar
and his coffee plant are a long way –
geographically and culturally – from the nearest Starbucks, where a pound of the
mega-chain’s Tanzania Medium Roast is a hot seller at $12.95.

While much of the western world walks down shiny
aisles of supermarkets and chooses from six different brands of celery salt,
the Chaga depend fully on the soil they walk on. Living off land replete with
natural resources that Kili gives them, the Chaga grow maize, sweet
potatoes, yams, arums, beans, peas,
red millet and bananas. When the harvest comes, they share with their neighbors,
but not for profit – they share because that’s what neighbors do. Chaga
families run their kihambas – or
plots of land passed down from generation to generatios – using advanced
irrigation practices, terraced farming techniques, and continual fertilization
have survived millennia, making the Chaga one of the wealthiest people groups in
the 8th poorest country on Earth (according to gross domestic
product, per capita).

Recreation comes packaged differently here as well.
Children keep a wooden top spinning in the dirt by slapping at it with a whip. 
Other children simply play the universal game of “stick and wheel,” a toy
reminiscent of Puritan America. Adults enjoy lively conversation in small, wooden pubs
drinking the local mbege beer, in
chairs underneath a banana tree, or while working in the fields. DVDs, iPod and
Xbox are foreign concepts here – unnecessary, even.

My ears pop as we climb in elevation. The trail winds along with deep
greenery on either side, switches back to descend into a shallow valley and
then becomes steep to climb again. Each climb yields inexplicably beautiful vistas:
sun-drenched terraced farms on an opposite hill, rail-thin waterfalls that seem
to trickle thousands of feet down the mountain into the fertile earth below,
and Moshi town and the vast, flat expanse of land beyond. The air now has a
slight chill to it, though slightly diminished because of the labor of our
hike. For those who think all of Africa looks like The Lion King, one step onto this trail
pretty much shatters that misconception in a heartbeat.

The homes were fewer in number the further we hiked, often standing alone
amid tall banana trees or bunched together in clusters. Oscar points to a ridge
on the side of a hill facing us, indicating to us the beginning of Kilimanjaro
National Park. “Beyond that line,”
Oscar says, “no one can live.” We were approaching the highest inhabitable
regions of Africa's tallest mountain.

The higher altitude huts and communities were perhaps the most fascinating
to me. The dirt trail we were on is the only physical connector between these
people and a market, pub, or pavement, even. A trip into the lower elevation
communities to sell a basket of bananas or maize could take a whole day, the
majority of which would be spent hiking to the main road. These people
advertise their various goods and services, as well as make community
announcements, in Kiswahili scrawled in white paint on the front of a tiny
wooden pub. Sort of the East African version of the Dow Jones ticker.

Given the simplicity of the lives of the Chaga, one could imagine our
surprise to discover electricity this high up on the mountain. A simple wooden
gutter catches runoff water, which continually flows over a simple water wheel
made out of an old bicycle rim. The wheel turns, creating an electrical current
that travels to an adjacent hut through a thin copper wire. The current this
contraption produces likely only powers a single light bulb, a radio or maybe a
cooking surface, but the ingenuity to create such a functional – albeit simple
– generator this deep in the Tanzanian jungle still amazes me. One does what
one must, I suppose.

At our hike’s end today is supposed to be a waterfall. I’ve been to
waterfalls before, so this destination does not particularly compel me to press
on. It is the beauty of the hike – the journey – and the not knowing what wonder
will be around the next bend that makes me put one foot in front of the other.
A wonderful chameleon. A cluster of sweet berries. An awe-inspiring lookout.
Indeed, the natural beauty of this trail and its surprises would have been
payoff enough.

But as we saw from a distance … then hiked down to … then experienced
up-close the seemingly untouched waterfall which was our destination, all my
categories and boxes and definitions for “beauty” were annihilated. Cold, clear
melt water cascades over a craggy cliff into a pool 200 feet below in
thunderous fashion, its mist serving as a natural air conditioner for the
entire valley. Along the waterfall’s path and around its eventual resting place
were trees and plants of the deepest green. No wonder, I thought, so many Chaga
had set up farms in this fertile valley, where drought and oppressive African heat
could not threaten the soil that has sustained them for so long.

The Chaga have occupied the southern and eastern slopes of Kilimanjaro since
the 11th or 12th century. The home of the ancestral
Chaga, however, is the nearby North Pare
Mountains, where nomadic,
Bantu-speaking groups from other parts of the continent settled. Soon, however,
population growth in the North Pare
Mountains led some banana farmers to
seek new lands, and the new Chagaland soon became the nearby and mighty Kili.
Today, there are an estimated 1.5 million Chaga on and around Kilimanjaro, as
well as in Arusha and Dar es Salaam,
making the Chaga the third-largest ethnic group in Tanzania.
Even today, some overpopulation on the mountain has forced some Chaga to
relocate to low-lying areas and cities.

Oscar heartily greets every person he sees as we walk back on the trail
toward our truck. The Chaga, like most Tanzanians, take greetings very seriously.
One would never think of passing by another Chaga without happily acknowledging
his presence, making sincere small talk, and parting with well-wishes. Older
people are greeted in a particular way which bestows honor on them, because
they are believed to be closer to their ancestors.

We experienced this first-hand with a group of four or five siblings playing
outside their house. The oldest could not have been older than nine, the
youngest a toddler. They called up to Oscar and Maggie, the two Tanzanians who
were with us, greeting them with honor. Maggie explained that even though the
rest of us were white – mzungu – we
were older and therefore worthy of honor as well. The oldest sibling, a little
girl, not only greeted each of us as she would an older Tanzanian, but she
invited us into her house to eat leftover food from the night before. When
asked what her mother would think of such an invitation, she replied in
Kiswahili, “My mother won’t care. She isn’t home.”

It seemed as if the hike out was half as long as the hike in. We stopped
again at Oscar’s house, where my friend, who lives in Tanzania,
buys a kilogram of dried, shelled coffee beans for 2,500 Tanzanian shillings –
that’s $2.14. Oscar teaches me the only children’s game I see on the property:
a wooden top and a whip to keep it spinning. I make a fool of myself for a few
minutes trying to master the juvenile yet surprisingly obtuse – and altogether
entertaining – activity.

As we piled into my friend’s Toyota
4x4 truck and started back down the mountain, we drew the stares of nearly
everyone we passed. “Mzungu,” old men muttered to each other. “Mzungu!” the
little children yelled. We were a spectacle, because of the color of our skin.
Maybe they recognized us as outsiders or even, God-forbid, intruders on their
land. Maybe they imagined our carefree, wealthy lives of unlimited income and
full stomachs in whatever Western country we came from.

I stared back, thinking about the Chaga’s simple life – the coffee, the
chickens, the kids’ games, the single light bulb, the walks to pristine
waterfalls – and wanted it for myself. Suddenly, the rat race of
appointment-keeping, the background noise of the nightly sitcoms, the
convenience of one-click shopping and unlimited technology, and the keeping up
with the Joneses seemed altogether frivolous. Disgusting, even.

Here’s a Caucasian, middle-class writer living in the most affluent city in
the most affluent country, envying the lives of Africans.

Now that’s irony. Beautiful irony.