Tanzania

What’s the biggest change in your life time?” was the question we asked the oldest man in the village. “Female circumcision” he replied whilst other men around laughed. An interesting statement from someone who has lived through so many other changes in his community – this practise has completely died out amongst the Wagogo people due to teaching and a governmental campaign throughout Tanzania. His answer may have been due to the season we were in – we had arrived during male circumcision time (a real celebration were the drummers played all night – every night) and many of the young boys were seen coming back early in the morning on the backs of bicycles from the special place. The old man then left to go and play an African game that requires good memory skills – not bad for 100!

So good to be back in Tanzania – we have heard that Mnase village have had the best harvest for 8 years! It will be amazing to be there for the first time when they have an abundance. Every other trip has been when they were in a poor situation concerning crops. The land looks so green for June – amazingly beautiful.

We have some exciting news …. the medical dispensary that is being built in the village of Mnase, Tanzania has now been completed.  After finishing the water well renovation the village asked if we could help with the building of a dispensary. At the moment the only medical help is a visiting doctor, once a month, for pregnant women and children under 5. Men, children over 5 and all other women have to walk or cycle 10km to the nearest small dispensary. Inside the new unit will be a waiting room a doctor’s room, an inoculation room and dispensary hatch, a store room and 2 small bedrooms for men and women.

This new building will be a huge benefit to the village … we hope to go out this year to celebrate with the people.

It was a full house as we showed some of the video clips and pictures from our recording trip in 2005. Initially we had decided to show the clips outside under a corrugated iron roof – but there was such a huge crowd (the news had got out – even though we had only told a few people) that there was a fear that the roof and structure was going to collapse when we started playing the music. We had to quickly stop the showing and run!!! There was much laughter later with the elders of the village, as they joked about possible news headlines – white people kill half the village of Mnase!

When we regrouped in a smaller venue with restricted numbers – we had an amazing evening. People were laughing, screaming and pointing as various members of the village were noticed in the photographs. The first time that any of them would have seen themselves on a computer screen.

As you can imagine there was much joy when we were able to pass on a gift of a keyboard from a musician friend in the States to our friends in Dodoma, central Tanzania. The interesting story was getting it into the country ….. when we arrived a custom official tried to pocket 200,000 TSH for us to bring the keyboard into the country. When we said we did not have that money on us … he gave himself away by replying “How much can you afford?”

Sadly this was not the only story of corruption during our trip to Africa. We called his bluff, and finally after the usual waiting game … he got fed up and let us go through!