In Tanzania, Maggie Duncan Simbeye is a trailblazer, opening doors for other women to dare big. As one of the first Indigenous woman safari drivers and guides and owner of her own safari company – Maggie’s Tour Company, her story is nothing short of inspiring. Growing up in a rural on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain, her prospects like those of so many other young women, were limited to getting married and having children.
She did get married which turned sour. Left alone to fend for herself and her children, here’s her story.
Born in 1975, Maggie grew up in a rural village in Tanzania near Moshi on the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro in a very controlling patriarchal community. It was a tough life with abusive lifestyles from schools to most homes.
This was not the life Maggie wanted. Focused on being independent and not following in the footsteps of her mother and the local rural women, she ventured into tourism “to empower myself and other women who are slaves in a patriarchal society like I was,” she says.
Most rural women stay home to clean dishes, cook for the men and the family, wash, take care of the cows, fetch water from the river, and collect firewood rain or shine.
After high school, encouraged by her mother and grandmother, Maggie enrolled at the Vocational Educational and Training School (VETA) to study catering. It was tough because there was little money for herself and her four siblings.
After graduating, Maggie was employed by the government (VETA HIMO) to teach at the college after which she secured a job at the prestigious Ngurdoto Hotel where she served dignitaries like Kofi Annan (the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006 and co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize) and the former President Kikwete (the third president of Tanzania).
It was here that Maggie started dreaming of owning her own safari company. She enrolled herself at a tour guiding college in Arusha (Professional Tour Guiding School, PROTS) despite not having enough money for the fee. “The administrators allowed me to pay half and finish payments after I got a job because I had enrolled my siblings there and so they trusted me.”
The challenge was to raise the required funds with a job that allowed her to attend college during the week and work weekends. And a job she did find – as the first female bouncer at Colobus Club, a nightclub in Arusha whose owner she had met at Ngurdoto Hotel.
