Educational Media Reviews Online

This 4 DVD set is more of a travelogue than a documentary and will be of greatest interest to a library with a travel collection. Anyone planning on travelling to the national parks in Tanzania would benefit from watching this series. One of the things about travelogues is that while they capture the whole picture, they do not capture the whole experience—you do not feel the heat or humidity, have to swat flies or get covered by dust as you travel.

Each of the DVDs has seven chapters, starting with an introduction to the specific park area and one segment on a human interest segment on the Masai people with the majority of the chapters focusing on the land and wildlife.

One of the best features of this series is the cinematography. The beauty and diversity of the Tanzanian wildlife and the landscape is well documented in this series. The tour guide, Stanford Milinga, is articulate, although his Tanzanian British English can be difficult to understand at times. The slow pace of the travelogue captures precisely the feel of a typical tourist safari—traveling by Land Rover through the countryside, stopping where there are clear views of the wildlife, followed by a discussion of that particular animal and its habits. These DVDs do not have the high drama of a National Geographic wildlife documentary nor the quality film editing and are more like a fairly well done home movie. The background music is contemporary African and blends in well. Frequently, chapters end with the screen going black for a few seconds.

In Arusha & Lake Manyara National Parks, the highlights include giraffes, hippopotamuses in and out of the water, water buffalo, antelope and tree climbing lions, a visit to the Arusha Town on market day and a look at a local primary school.

Tarangire National Park has the second largest concentration of wildlife outside of the Serengeti. It lies south of the Masailand grass plains where elephants, water buffalo, cheetahs and lions are among the animals seen.

Ngorongoro Crater & Conservation Area is an ecosystem that is also a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Travelling around the crater floor, which covers over 100 square miles, there is a wide array of wildlife—lions, cheetahs and warthogs, zebras, gazelles and ostriches, giraffes, hippos, elephants and birds like the African Kingfisher and the Cory Bustard.

Southern Serengeti takes the viewer to the vast plains at the beginning of the calving season for the wildebeests and zebras. In this disc, there is a voiceover narration explaining the importance of the migration although there are only a couple of scenes showing the vanguard of the migration, but not the full migration. Other animals seen are cheetahs, jackals, ostriches and love birds. One chapter is on the local art colony in Arusha with visits to an art gallery, and to ateliers for painting and carving in the Makandi tradition.