July 30, 2025

Three buses. Two Bjajis. Nearly eight hours in transit. Over four hours of waiting in the hallways of government buildings. But I finally got the last pieces of paper I needed to begin research on Monday afternoon.

Tuesday was a mad dash to finalize research logistics, contact potential interviewees to line up meetings, and visit all of the village council offices in my study area to share copies of my research authorization letter and sign their guest registers—a uniquely Tanzanian phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, our success rate on the village visits was only 50%, but we’ll save that story for another day. I had the green light to begin work in one of three villages, and after a week of unforeseen delays, I was going to take advantage of that open door.

Wednesday dawned clear and sunny. I woke before dawn, my mind racing with details, packing lists, and interview script revisions. But I’ve never launched a field study without some headwinds on take-off, and this was no different. My translator and I spent the first 30 minutes of the day lost, because it turns out that navigating a maze of dirt “roads” through a pastoral settlement that could easily pass for singletrack in other parts of the world is not the easiest thing to do.

With spotty cell service, no home addresses, no street signs, and no road markings, you basically need a local guide to point out the right unmarked dirt track and to direct you through a disorienting matrix of jeep roads, washed out gullies, and fallowed maize fields. Fortunately, we were able to pick up on off-duty guard from the field camp who also lives and runs cattle in the community.

When the vehicle couldn’t get any closer, we parked and continued on foot. Imagine weaving through a network of unmarked footpaths crisscrossing sandy expanses and wooded thornscrub or miombo copses, at times cutting across stubbled fields. Our Barabaig guide strode ahead as confidently as if we were navigating the neatly gridded master plan for an urban neighborhood. We had no choice but to trust and follow, and after a kilometer or two, would suddenly hear our guide shout a greeting and find ourselves rounding a corner on the boma* of the person we asked to see.

This continued throughout the morning and early afternoon, until we started towards the fourth homesite. Our guide tried calling ahead in a rare moment of cell coverage, only to find out that they’d moved to seasonal pastures in another village. Our route back to a main road was too arduous to reach them the same day, so we had to postpone for Thursday.

As we wove through the maze of paths back to the dusty Land Cruiser, I slowly became aware that we were being trailed by several other Barabaig pastoralists. One youth followed us out of our last interview. A couple men slipped quietly into the procession from intersecting paths. One showed up with his goat herd on our flank. Though Barabaig purposefully locate their bomas far apart for privacy, with each nucleus surrounded by a mix of grazing lands and seasonal farm fields that will later provide fodder for the herds, it’s a very tight-knit community. I don't think anything happens out here that the neighbors don’t get wind of.

By the time we had reached the Land Cruiser, we had several of these wiry guys in their traditional draped blankets in our little procession, chattering with our guide. Some carried their wooden staffs. While it wasn’t entirely clear whether they genuinely needed a lift or just wanted to see the spectacle of a mwanamke mzungu (white woman) off-roading through the Tanzanian bush, we ended up packing three of them (including our guide) into the backseat and setting off for the nearby village. The man who had to stay with his goats looked genuinely disappointed.

Imagine having three backseat drivers who know the faintest trails in this rough country like the back of their hand shouting directions over the bench seat in another language in a place where it’s pretty unclear whether there is truly a right or wrong place to drive. We all got bounced around a lot, laughed a lot, and eventually did arrive at our destination. While I'm already behind schedule on the planned interviews, we redeemed a day that had gotten off to a rough start, and I am figuring out what it will really take to scale up a study spanning many square kilometers of this rugged and beautiful region.

*Editorial Note: a boma is a low wall encircling the homestead that is traditionally made of stacking brush in a large circle. All of the family homes, outbuildings and animal pens are located inside, in a large cleared area, and this enclosure will often be guarded against predators at night.

To join me on this journey, you can follow along with new posts in the Field Notes blog on this website or LinkedIn. My work is partially supported by the Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence and the Salerno Lab. I am actively fundraising for the next phase of my research, and welcome referrals to funders who are interested in supporting work on global challenges including human-wildlife conflict, poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation, and the impacts of a changing climate on all of these issues.