Assunta' story

My name is Assunta Gleria. I have just returned from a few weeks volunteering for the kanga project and I am very happy to contribute a few thoughts and insights into life in rural Tanzania. I lived and worked in Africa for about 10 years from 1981 and 1996. Since then I went back only for short periods. I wanted to spend more quality time in some projects where my experience could be of some use. I found in internet the kanga project’s web site and I contacted Annie in February 2009. Janey blog has been a useful tool to imagine the reality of village life. My memory of African rural villages dated back 15-30 years ago and rural villages in Africa at that time were often places where TV, telephone and piped water were still unknown. Slowly by slowly I started to work and get prepared for the tasks I thought I would have to perform in Ilongero. I was asked, while I was still in Italy, to make some proper drawings of the girls’ hostel from the few sketches Bonnie did, in such a way that raising funds could be easier. Annie used to write me not worry too much about the drawings since my expectations could be very different from the reality. Indeed when I first saw the already built girls’ hostel it looked much better than how I thought. From the proposals submitted for a less expensive type of hostel Gloria choose the one based on the successful idea of more “private space” rooms than the usual dormitory type and I worked on that proposal for the new project. Bonnie and I arrived in Ilongero one Sunday morning and we found Maria waiting for us at the bus stop. Of that day I have a memory as a hectic day going up and down: old kibanda, new kibanda, girl hostel completed in the school site, visit to the school principal, visits to many other people whose names I have forgotten.

AN INSIGHT INTO THE VILLAGE OF ILONGERO
Today Ilongero is the largest village closest to Singida, the regional capital and on the road linking Manyara to Singida. During the dry season regular buses link all the rural centres several times per day and somebody told me that when communication was more erratic people used to walk to Singida. The one way trip by shortcuts could take around 3 hours.
In Ilongero there is electricity, but few houses are connected. People if they want connection have to pay for the poles and the wiring and the high cost of it is the reason why petrol lamps are still so common. I did not notice illegal connections to the existing poles and I guess it has something to do the high cost paid by the few. Nobody who has paid for a hundred metre connection about Tsh 1,000,000( USD 800) – and the lowest salary level for a teacher at the beginning of the career is about Tsh 150,000 (USD 120)- is happy to accept that somebody gets it for free. Yet electricity is becoming so important and this has much more to do with recharging mobiles that to get lighting in the houses. The shop selling telephone cards at the market place (with also a photocopy machine whose services I have frequently used) is also recharging telephones. It is done by removing the battery and placing it directly on a recharge. A queue of batteries is always waiting there and the shop is really the village’s hot spot.
Very few houses have piped water but there are public standing water pipes accessible only for a short period during the day. A woman paid by the water company would come twice a day to the one close to the parish where I lived and turn the tap, after removing the padlock. Women and girls would fill their buckets and pay Tsh30 for about thirty litres. July is winter time and there has been drought. I guess it is why the water has been in some way rationed. I had to study carefully the movements of the girls living in the parish guest house, to learn how to use the most of water without wasting the most of it as we are used to do in continental Europe. Yet those girls were washing themselves and their cloth regularly much more than I did. But sink, shower and wc toilet were looking ridiculous without running water and I wonder why people still continue to buy modern sanitary fittings for houses where a pit latrine and a sloping cement floor with a hole would be easier to clean, better functioning and space saving. Thirty years ago in Nigerian urban areas I remember to have seen bath tubes in new residential quarters used as flower garden, since running water was not there. There is always time to make improvements, but if you waste space the quality of your life will be immediately affected.
Ilongero village seems to live on agriculture. July is the harvesting period for sunflower seeds and the mill behind the parish is working all through the day in squeezing the seeds and getting oil (a very tasty one). However the mill cannot cope with the quantity brought in so seeds’ sacks are growing everyday, piled one above the other in front of the small building and making it looking like a war garrison. The village is located on the top of a hill and from the main square in front of the market we can see the corner of a large lake located on the Singida direction. Singida too has two lakes bordering the city. They are salty but beautiful places to walk around, with birds nesting on the swampy area and cattle drinking the water on some specific spots.

ILONGERO SECONDARY SCHOOL
The picture given by the school principal is the one that interested me more on my first day. In the school year 2009-2010 the school has enrolled 961 students but there are only four permanent teachers and nine part time students (still studying at the university) used as temporary teachers. They will leave as soon as lectures at University will start. One of the reasons given for the incapacity to attract teachers is the lack of electricity. The school in fact is not connected to the network and although it is a public school, owned by the government; it is the school which should pay for poles, transformer and wiring. School time is from 7 am to 2 pm therefore always done during daytime, but all modern equipments as computers, photocopy machines, laboratories etc cannot operate without electricity and the school at evening time is off limit. Buildings are spacious, but laboratories are getting dusty because not in use and the staff housing, newly built and comfortable has no power connections for pc, mobile recharge, and a fridge for food storage. The girls’ hostel too will make life easier if electricity is there. Up to now students are scattered all over the village. Nine hundred and sixty-one students is a big number for a village like Ilongero. If we think that probably at least half of them are coming from neighbouring villages and many of them rent some rooms in private houses the presence of the school is important for the economy of the village. I have met some students during my visits to villagers’ compounds where spare rooms were rented and shared between numbers of students to lower expenses.

THE SCHOOL ROUTINE
Life in the school starts at about 6:45 with the sweeping of the school premises. By 7:30 all students meet in the assembly point and listen what the teachers have to say. Orders for duties division are given and often some students move from the lines and start to perform something different from the others. The few teachers are authoritative and students keep the discipline (in an unbelievable way for Italian standards with so few teachers). Then the lessons start with periods of 40 minutes. There are breaks of ten minutes every two periods and a longer break of about 20 minutes after 11:00. Some periods are left to individual study or group work, (because of teachers' few number I guess) or tutorial in the staff room or physical exercises like running, etc. The school seems under control all through the morning and it is also understandable that “empty time” is accepted since eight hours of schooling, in most cases without having had breakfast or food break, are long to pass and concentration disappears.

TEACHING HISTORY AT ILONGERO SECONDARY SCHOOL
After knowing the teaching situation I offered to teach some subjects to form 3 students, the ones who could understand English .The two form 3 classes were merged with about 150 students all together. I agreed with teacher colleagues that I would cover “Map Reading” in Geography and part of the 20th century in History. I spent two days to prepare the lessons, after some teaching material was given to me by the colleagues. I was aware that it was important to stick to the syllabus and to the few available books, since the majority of the students have no books to study on, and most of them, after a brief explanation will have to copy the notes from the blackboard. The first day I was very anxious about my teaching, being afraid the students would have difficulties in understanding my Italian accent, and really many of them laugh at some funny ways to pronounce known words; after a while everything went smoothly and I could see from their faces that they were getting what I was explaining. When not they would ask me to repeat and in the last days, mainly in History there were “big” questions rising up as why Tanzanian students needed to study World War 1 and 2 and The Great Depression, since the happening affected only indirectly Tanganyika. As my explanation developed, by drawing on the blackboard a time line with the most important features of the period, I could notice their growing interest and at the end they told me that links were clear.

VALENCIA, A TEACHER WITH A BIG HEART
I had the opportunity to know better one of my teacher colleagues, who is the second principal in the school. Laurencia Matunda is in her early fifties and teaches English and Kiswahili. Although not married she has a teenagers living with her. Since she joined the Ilongero secondary school she has been helping a lot of students (by paying fees, providing accommodation and food). Some of them are already in the University and from time to time they come to visit her. During a dinner at her place we chat about the problems my teen age kids have been giving me in the past years. For her it has been the same. Last year one girl left her place but after a period on her own, she came back and this year she has been much more reasonable and helpful with everybody. Time passes and things change especially when you are 16-17 years old. At present two girls and one boy live in Laurencia premises.

MARIA’S COOKING
During my stay in Ilongero I started a friendship with Maria, a widow mother of three grown up children who is an active member of RWDA. Her eldest son is married and live in another town, the girl attends a boarding school and is at the end of form 6 and the last boy is in form 2. Maria is a good cook and I realized it during the first meal we had in her place on the arrival day. Taking into consideration that I would have had to cook with a kerosene stove, by my own at the parish guest house, after that first lunch, I immediately ask Maria if I could have dinners at her place. The secret for her meals’ good taste was an earthenware pot but she revealed it only at the end of my stay. During the long evenings waiting for the food to be ready, some students would come in Maria’s place requesting me a bit of tutorial in map reading. One night, I asked her to show me some pictures of her daughter. She came with many albums and we watched together carefully. Most of the pictures were of her daughter as it is in my house with family pictures of the first born. Her teen age son was a bit disappointed of seeing so little of him in those albums and he told to his mother. Probably it was the first time for him to see the pictures in his adult age and it was funny to notice the same reaction my second born had when watching family pictures at home and noticing that pictures of his brother were much more that those of himself. I wander if it is really favouritism as our boys were claiming or only two ageing mothers forgetting to take pictures because of the increasing household chores…..

Beth' story

My name is Beth Temple and I have just returned from six weeks travelling through Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda which included doing some volunteer work in Tanzania for the RWDA.

I have worked in Tanzania before and this time I was in a different village within the same general area in central Tanzania. The village was called Ilongero and was about 1 to 2 hours by bus from Singida. It was the rainy season and the road just kept getting washed away. (40 mins in the dry season). Singida has grown so much since I was there 4 years ago. There are a lot more sealed roads and mobile phones have arrived in force. Sometimes before electricity in the villages.

My day usually started around 5am with the morning call to prayer which I used as my alarm clock. I was involved with teaching English at the secondary school, overseeing the building of a hostel for accommodation for girls at the school, and picking up on a chicken rearing project. I tutored English in the evenings - so long, busy days.

Teaching English was a bit daunting at first but the kids were really great. Classes ranged from 40 to 70 students with ages from 14 to 22. A diverse group with some really bright students. It was great when they started asking questions and interacting more. There were a few challenges with trying to explain different concepts in my very limited Kiswahili and trying to yell over the rain on the corrugated iron roof. I happened to take some coloured chalk with me, so that was a real winner from the start. There were about 600 students in the school and just 5 teachers. Students seemed to spend more time cleaning the school and grounds then attending classes.

The hostel is progressing well with a great fundi (tradesman) in charge.
The hostel is badly needed and will hopefully be finished in a few months.

The chickens arrived for the chicken rearing project towards the end of my time there. So I was involved with mainly preparation work, roster meetings and it was great to see chickens actually in the kibanda before I left. It was lovely working with the women and trying to get to know them and their stories a little more. They were so happy to see the chickens arrive at last. Just waiting for ‘mayai, mayai’ now. (Mayai – eggs!) The chickens should start laying within a month.

I asked a couple of the ladies what they thought they would gain from the project.
‘The profit that we can make from the project can help pay fees for our children, help buy clothes and uniforms and to improve our health through eggs and meat’ Amina Ihuecha

‘We will start with 100 chickens and will maybe then increase to 200 chickens. We will benefit from the business and then our families will benefit.’
Asha Issa

Ilongero itself was a friendly little village with the usual hospitality of the Tanzanians with so many people wanting me to visit and have a meal with them. This is a very important part of their culture. There were lots of little challenges like learning to cook on a little kerosene stove and finding my way around all the paths and shortcuts in the village with no signs. It was very frustrating at times especially dealing with Government departments. But I guess that is the same worldwide! My Kiswahili definitely needs some work. I loved shopping at the local market, learning who supplied what and when and spending time with the children from the disabled centre across from where I was staying.

It was great to meet Gloria Nkungu, the driving force of RWDA at last and talk through the ups and downs of the RWDA with her.

After travelling onto Rwanda and having some contact with a lot of the bigger NGO’s I was even more proud and impressed with the grassroots work that is done by the RWDA and The Kanga Project. The projects are driven from the ground up, with community involvement keeping them running. I am already trying to work out when I can go back.

Leaving home again

Just when this place is starting to feel like a home, I have to leave. I left this morning among friends and family. I had people come to carry my bags, want photos with me, giving me gifts and wave me off on the bus. I felt so lucky and only just managed to hold back the tears. I was told by all to greet my friends and family, to have a safe journey and was assured God will be with me on my travels to my home. It was also mentioned that i musn't forget my people here in Africa and that i was welcome to come again. I was also lucky enough to have a small party with the women's group which included a lovely meal (chicken of course) and many kind words from the leaders. I was also given a Kanga from the group (with of course chickens and eggs on). i will miss this place very much and am sad I won't be there when the chickens come.

I took photos this morning of the chicken house as Joel Mbura had worked till late last night to finish putting up the logs for the roof. Great work. We have also almost finished the fence and the Iron sheets will go up on monday. We have put off the date of the chickens coming as we want to have the building perfect before they come. The issue of the local logs vs timbers was solved by Bonne who found a man with a farm willing to sell us good straight logs at a small fee. Good save and it enabled us to continue building.

The bricks for the hostel wall foundations have been completed and that project just awaits money and a good fundi to build.

Although I have left the village, I will still be involved with the Kanga Project and the Rural Women Development Association and I hope to continue helping them. When personal funds permit, I hope to return to see the projects thriving and peoples lives changed for the better. I have faith and so do they.

We welcome Beth Temple to Ilongero in January to oversee the projects and apply her skills to help the growth of the chicken business. She has experience in Tanzania (so knows some languge) and I think will be using this site also to update. Thankyou to her for showing an interest in these projects and more for wanting to help.

Please continue to check into the Kanga site and this blog site to see the progress of a little organisation with big dreams.

Signing off,
Janey

What comes first ?

The chickens or the house ?
Well for now it’s got to be the house. We are now on a time limit to finish the house as I have ordered the chickens for the 18th Oct and the house needs to be finished by then. Good incentive I thought.
At this exact moment people should be working on it while I am in Singida with three of our women's group members training in chicken keeping and rearing. We have two days training in Singida with a chicken expert at VETA (Vocational Education Training Authority) and then two days in the village with all the members. Doricus Mbura, Fatuma Ali and Mirium Monko are all great students and extremely excited about what they are learning and seeing; especially when we work out the money we can make. We have some theory training as well as some practical training. We have just completed our first day and are full of important information.
I will write again next week just before I leave this area to give a final blog in Tanzania. Hopefully I will be telling you about how the chickens are settling in and how lovely their house is. Thanks for reading.

Seeing is believing (especially here)

Well an exciting and dare I say productive week this week in little Ilongero. The women's group involved in the chicken buying and selling business are buying chickens and are just waiting to have enough to sell in Singida. They are excited about the big project of chicken rearing, and especially after our little field trip on Friday. I took six members of the group (some could not make it due to family and religious duties) to the project I saw in Ntonge the week before. We rang ahead to ensure we were given the grand tour. The chicken rearing team in Ntonge were extremely helpful to say the least and there was much asking and answering of questions (most I missed as all was in Swahili) but I could tell through the language barrier, that they were interested and excited. I believe having a visual of what is possible makes dreams so much more achievable, especially for our women who have little view of life outside their village.

The group learnt the important steps of chicken rearing and the correct process from egg to mating and selling. The group also said that VETA (see last entry) comes to them to buy their chickens so in effect they have a guaranteed buyer who comes to them, saving them travel costs and the possibility of not getting the price needed to make a profit.

We have all materials bar the local timber to finish the chicken house and, 'if god wishes' (one of the favourite sayings here) they will be waiting for me when I return to Ilongero. So chickens hopefully will be ordered and in their new home before the end of October.

We are continuing to make the bricks for the hostel and the locals join in as and when they can. But I can rely on them to water the bricks (not so they grow but to strengthen them) while I am away from the town. I have been away for the weekend to visit some friends on their volunteer project and am now in Singida to email and wait for Gloria to arrive on the bus.

Can't wait to see her and go through everything. She seems to have a knack of getting things done when she is around and is a bit tougher than I am, (she can afford to be as she is a local and knows the culture like the back of her hand).

So please keep wishing us luck and stay tuned for our next instalment. Anybody, feel free to message and ask any questions about our project. I am only here for about another three to four weeks.