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A Sanctuary for the Senses:                              

The African Living Spa


The African Living Spa is not a single structure with meandering treatment rooms and hydrology. Instead, the African Living Spa experience is based ‘holistically’ on a sense of
place.  Africa’s vast spaces, plant medicines and the pure power of the land itself make up the essence of African indigenous healing.  The single-facility European or Asian spa, with its treatment-based orientation, is not relevant to East Africa. Rather, what the African Living Spa exemplifies is in accord with historical tradition: healing based on single or multiple remedies individually prescribed and administered by an indigenous healer in each personal treatment session.


Designed by Bradford Zak, the farm cottages reflect what he calls a Trio of Senses – Sense of Place, Sense of History, and Sense of Purpose.


“Sense of Place” (its cultural and geographical context) ‘celebrates the inherent spirit of the employees and their community’. (note 1)  It has been defined as ‘the identification with a place engendered by living in it (note 2) and ‘where place is a product of experience’. (note 3) ‘When a traveler experience places, their experience is not so much directed by what they encounter, but by what meanings they give to whatever they do encounter’. (note 4) ‘Place as centres lead to interesting dynamism in which the interplay between movement and pause defines what is a path and what is a centre’. (note 5)


“Sense of History” (its historical, socio anthropological context) leverages thematic opportunities of a property.  Both place and history are platforms to complete the project’s substance and give it sustainable purpose. 


A “Sense of Purpose” (its civil, self-improvement and environmental context) is a complementing element to the product defining concepts of “Sense of Place” and “Sense of History.” 


A Sense of Purpose for today’s traveler to Northern Tanzania can be defined as a “complex mix of escape – and search motives… search for presence-at-hand and personal development… novelty, authenticity, freedoms and social interaction.” (note 6)   It encompasses both guest and staff qualities – such as a traveler’s goal to achieve a physiological state of restfulness and harmony at a destination, or staff commitment and responsiveness for work and village community.  The emphasis of a “Sense of Purpose” builds on these notions with personal or spiritual growth, balance or health, enrichment and reward.

 

Above: Dr Pergola sharing with traditional healers of the Osero Forest Clinic, African Living Spa.

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Notes:

1 Traveller’s Experience of ‘Place’ –  Encounters with other Cultures and Venues pp3-6.

2 “The Power of Place: Bringing together geographical and sociological imagination,” John A Agnew, James S. Duncan, Unwin Hyman (1989) p2.

3 “The Institutionalization of Regions: a theoretical framework for understanding the emergence of regions and the constitution of regional identity,” Anssi Paasi, University of Joensuu, Department of Geography and Regional Planning, Fennia 164,1 (1986), pp 105-146.

4 “Tourist’s Experience of Place: New Directions in Tourism Analysis,” Jaakko Suvantola, Ashgate (2002, p31.

5 Ibid, p31.

6 “Tourist’s Experience of Place: New Directions in Tourism Analysis,” Jaakko Suvantola, Ashgate (2002), p96.

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