Goshen College sends first group of students to Tanzania through study abroad program for semester

GOSHEN, Ind. – President George W. Bush has recently received a warm welcome in Tanzania, as have 20 Goshen College students. For the first time, during this spring semester, Tanzania is the location for the college’s study abroad program, Study-Service Term (SST).

Goshen College had sent students to Ethiopia, another East African country, since 2002, but “the unrest in the Horn of Africa was sufficient enough that it was probably not prudent to send an SST unit there for security reasons,” said Director of International Education Tom Meyers. “We had an excellent program in Ethiopia though, and we were one of the first semester-long college study abroad programs to go there. This is an opportunity for us to get to another part of Africa. We need to continue to learn about this very important part of the world.” The college also sends students to West Africa.

The group left for Tanzania Jan. 9 and will return to the United States on April 11. Jan Bender Shetler and her husband, Peter, are leading the unit to Tanzania. Jan is a professor of history at Goshen College and is well-suited for leading the group. She spent a year and a half doing research in the Serengeti region in 1995 and 1996 toward her dissertation, and lived in Tanzania’s Mara region from 1985 to 1991 with her family as development workers with Mennonite Central Committee and the Tanzania Mennonite Church. Among the courses Jan teaches are History of Ethnic Conflict, Christianity in Africa and the Diaspora, African History and History of Global Poverty.

The Shetlers led an SST unit to Ethiopia in 2005. “Jan and Peter Shetler have a great deal of expertise and understanding of East Africa. We are very fortunate to have them available as leaders for the first Tanzania unit,” said Meyers.

Tanzania is on the coast of east Africa between two other countries that also border the Indian Ocean: Kenya and Mozambique. The students spent the first half of the term in Dar es Salaam, the administrative capital of Tanzania and its principal commercial city. The government offices in Dar es Salaam were moved to Dodoma in 1996 making it the country’s political capital.

When Tanganyika united with the island of Zanzibar to form Tanzania in 1964, the new country adopted the motto of “Freedom and Unity” or Uhuru na Umoja in Swahili. In keeping with this motto, Tanzania has become a wellspring of diversity. It is one of the few African countries with a peaceful history since independence and it is a country with about equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, the two dominant religions. With this history of peaceful coexistence and a deep ethos of unity, the students have been warmly received and adopted into their Tanzanian host families.

During the first six weeks, students attended lectures at the University of Dar es Salaam and study Tanzanian culture and the language of Swahili at the Swahili and Culture Institute in Dar es Salaam. Among the topics of study were the history of Tanzania, including nation building with a focus on unity and peace in their culture. Students also studied Tanzanian art and literature, especially concerning issues of nationalism and tourism, and natural science with a focus on Tanzania’s diverse wildlife population and issues of conservation and development.

Tanzania has the largest land area among the East African countries and encompasses several geographical landmarks, including Mt. Kilimanjaro (Africa’s highest peak), Lake Victoria (Africa’s largest lake) and Lake Tanganyika (the world’s second deepest lake). Educational trips have been made by the group to places like Serengeti National Park (where students looked at how communities around the park are affected by wildlife areas and eco-tourism), Bagamoyo (historically one of the most important slaving ports in East Africa) and Zanzibar (the Spice Islands off the east coast with significant trade expertise).

Students are traveling to the northwest regions of Tanzania for the second half of the semester. The Mara region, one of 26 regions in Tanzania, is where students will be placed with families and in service assignments in rural locations. The capital of the Mara region is Musoma where there is a strong Mennonite presence due to the existence of Tanzania’s Mennonite Church. The assignments include a combination of teaching at elementary and secondary schools, medical assistance, AIDS work, orphanages and agriculture or water development.

Tanzania’s economy depends almost entirely on agriculture, which accounts for almost half of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and uses 80 percent of the workforce. However, due to topography and climatic conditions, cultivated crops are limited to only 4 percent of the land. Agricultural products in Tanzania include coffee, sisal, tea, cotton, wheat, bananas, fruit, tobacco, cloves, cattle, sheep and goats (although most are used for their milk and not their meat). Industries also account for much of Tanzania’s production and include diamond, gold and iron mining, salt, oil refining and agricultural processing.

Frequent Web updates and photos from the group are available from Goshen College’s SST Web site at: www.goshen.edu/sst/tanzania08.

Since the first SST units went to Costa Rica, Jamaica and Guadeloupe in 1968 and began one of the country’s pioneer international education programs, more than 7,000 students and 230 faculty leaders have traveled to 22 countries; the college currently organizes SST units to study and serve in Cambodia, China, Germany, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Senegal, Perú and Tanzania. The program’s uncommon combination of cultural education and service-learning remains a core part of the general education program, and has earned citations for excellence from U.S. News & World Report, Peterson’s Study Abroad and Smart Parents Guide to College, the John Templeton Foundation and American Council on Education.

Editors: For more information about this release, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

###

Goshen College, established in 1894, is a residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.