From Tanzania Corespondent Lute Wa Lutengano…

I have failed not to write something about football. After all, all talk now is about the ‘beautiful game’ taking place in ‘Ku-Joni’ as my tribal ancestors used to call what is now the land of Madiba a.k.a. Mandela – South Africa.

You see where I come from in Benaland, now in the newly established region of Njoluma – I hope this silly name will change soon – all young men of those yesteryears in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and even the early 60s, used to be taken to South Africa.

They were taken there to provide cheap labour in the famous Kimberley Gold mines of that land of then apartheid. Actually this means my ancestral land was part of what the mining conglomerates in South Africa used to consider ‘reserve labour region.’

In no time this going to the mines became fashionable. For after two or so years these young men would come home with a new bicycle, a suit, an iron trunk and the mining torch perched on ones forehead with its batteries hung on the back.

You can imagine their impact in the Bena villages, and I believe the same was the case in all villages in the other neighbouring tribes. It must have been cool. A young man donning an old woollen suit, pushing a bicycle with a torch on his forehead leading a group of elderly villagers at night from one drinking hole to the next was quite a sight. He was naturally a superstar. And all parents wanted their daughters to wed this young man.

And so the legend of the ‘ku-joni’ was built around these famous young men who when their spirits were blown high by the local ‘ulanzi’ bamboo wine or traditional beer – ‘common’ or ‘kangala’ – would also do a strange jig called jive or crooning. Later on I was to learn that ‘ku-joni’ simply meant ‘ku-johannesburg’.

I believe many village belles of those years when our land was under the Germans and later the British do recall these ‘ku-joni’ young men. Naturally these former belles are now great grandmothers, if at all they are still alive.

This also explains why in the early 60s and early 70s most young men and women in primary and secondary schools in the southern highlands region – Iringa, Mbeya and Songea – organised themselves into jiving and crooning groups singing basically Zulu and Xhosa songs popularised by the ‘ku-joni’ boys.

These groups became so popular until someone in the Ministry of Education got wiser or rather envious and banned them. I for one, for example, was a member of the popular Skylarks Group at the then Mkwawa High School. We used to mesmerize the Iringa Girls belles and once we even managed to convince the school management to ferry us all the way to Mbeya, some 300 kilometres away, to render a similar service to the famous Loleza Girls members.

One thing, however, which I am told by the elders, is that these ‘ku-joni’ boys were not into the many sports which were mushrooming in the colonial territories then. These sports included football.

The ‘ku-joni’ boys were rather more into booze, music and dancing and ofcourse into ladies as well. No wonder therefore, much as the World Cup is taking place in Africa, and we had six African teams for that matter, the African presence has simply wilted. I am beginning to wonder whether it is not the ‘ku-joni’ syndrome revisiting us.

From Tanzania Corespondent Lute Wa Lutengano…

I was last in Kipengere, a sleepy village below the imposing Kipengere Mountain peak on the eastern end of the famous Mount Livingstone ranges, in the mid 60s. The village which is roughly mid-way from Njombe town to Tandala in Ukingaland, Makete used to be an important stopping stage for our rough ride from the town to our boarding school in Tandala.

It was an important stage because of the nature of road particularly during the rainy season. The rough road from Njombe usually became worse from Kipengere onwards. It was therefore important to send some scouts in advance to check on whether the muddy and slippery road had dried a bit before attempting to drive the 40 or so kilometers to Tandala through the notorious Mang’oto escarpment. Sometimes our waiting would go for days or even weeks. 

I had not gone back to Kipengere since those schooling days. It was therefore with added curiosity that I found myself driving on that same road to Kipengere last week. It was a nostalgic short visit. Many changes had taken place. The road was in a better condition and I was told the notorious Mang’oto section was being tarmaced. Actually this would be done to the whole road to Makete.

I arrived at Kipengere mid-morning and realized it was the same old sleepy village but now surrounded by large farms of wheat and maize. There was however piped water and more traffic along the road with some sleek saloon and four wheel vehicles zooming past the village.

But all life seemed to lead to the Kipengere Roman Catholic Parish mission centre. This is where there are schools, orphanages, medical and agricultural support services and naturally an imposing church. No wonder I had no choice other than turning towards to the straight, narrow and tree lined road to the mission centre. It actually reminded me of sleepy Florence, somewhere in that land of Berlusconi – Italy.

At the Centre I was interested in meeting the only person whose name is synonymous with Kipengere, if not the whole of Njombe development activities – Father Camillo Calliari. He was out on the mountain working on a water supply project he is planning for several villages, some more than 50 kilometers away.

But as luck would have it, as I drove out of the mission gate, Father Camillo arrived. The Romanian born 71 year old Italian father with graceful receding grey hair and generous beard was surprisingly sprightly fit. He is a missionary priest, like so many others doing good in this part of Tanzania. Ordained in 1965 he left for Tanzania in September 1969. Unlike other missionary priests Baba Camillo likes to do his work his way. For those who know him, he is not only a priest but also a farmer, mechanic, manufacturer and charity and development worker.

Since 1996, for example, Father Camillo has built 14 concrete water reservoirs and 250 piped water outlets in 15 villages in and around Kipengere reaching 35,000 residents. He also has 6 prefabricated ovens for bread supplied to villagers. More than 200,000 books, thousands of pens, erasers, crayons, chalks and the like have also been distributed to schools in the area.

Father Camillo, whose mission has its own hydro-electric supply system is now busy trying to expand the supply to surrounding villages by constructing a big dam, piling stringing wires, constructing four cabins for processing and turbine housing. Apart from running medical facilities the mission also has an orphanage for hundreds of children from the area whose parents either died of AIDS or other natural causes.

As an agricultural expert he runs large crop and dairy farms with his artificial zebu heifers now producing up to 25 liters of milk per day per cow. His expertise in these fields is now benefiting thousands of villagers in and around Kipengere. To cap it all, his mission is now ready for the mineral water project after successfully testing hundreds of water from the natural springs flowing down the Kipengere mountain peak.

Eight thousand kilometers from Italy, Father Camillo is not only changing the spiritual lives of thousands of Njombeans but also providing each of them with clean drinking water, medical facilities, a light bulb, a glass of milk and wheat bread on the table. Not only is he the Baba of 13,000 baptized Kipengerians but he also a true manifestation of Giorgio Torelli’s recitation “The Gospel of Toil.”

“The end of any mass,” says Father Camillo,” is the dawn when you remove the white garment worn and dive into greasy overalls and devote efforts to the most desperate. I worry though whether there will more to follow this line of duty after I pass on.”

From Tanzania Corespondent Lute Wa Lutengano…

As you read this third rate column I will be somewhere in Benaland in Njombe district in the famous southern highlands of Tanzania. I will be there with a group of three other Arusha friends who are now getting used to Njombe. For this will be the third time they accompany me to this land of ‘ulanzi’, the local bamboo wine.

However this time it will be during the season which they have never experienced before. You see all the other times we have travelled to Njombe have been during the Xmas season; a season renowned for heavy rain and fog in the southern highlands. But the June/July season is all winter in this land.

To most Tanzanians winter season is something they only read in books or see in television. Not for Njombeans. For the Benas, Kingas and Wanjis, the natives of this land, winter is something they literally live with.

I remember it was in the mid 60s when I first had a firsthand experience of this winter. I had joined a boarding primary school located somewhere on top of the Mount Livingstone ranges, Tandala Lutheran Church Middle school. One evening in June I realized that all the veteran pupils at the school were as usual drawing water in basins from a water duct passing through the school – remember this was long before piped water had reached the area..However instead of using it they were placing it under their beds inside the dormitories. I wondered; what the hell was going on here.

That night I was treated to what was to become the norm. That night, notwithstanding the sparkling stars in the sky, sleeping was pure hell. Tucked inside my heavy blankets I could not go to sleep because of the chilling, actually body numbing cold. I woke up and put on all the clothing material and socks I could find in my wooden box and re-tucked myself inside those blankets. It did not work.

I rattled my teeth till morning. But I was in for another shocking revelation. When I went out to fetch water from the duct it was all frozen. And looking around I could see some white flowery material engulfing all the ridges around the school. Later I was to be told that this was called snow.

I now understood the reason behind my colleagues’ decision to keep some water under their beds. That is it would still be water in the morning.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions. If we were going to survive in these conditions we had to devise ways of staying alive. We were forced therefore to mould some charcoal ovens and place them inside our dorms – though with stern warning from the school teachers that we must leave all windows open otherwise we would die of carbon monoxide.

The mornings were hell until around 11 am when the sun’s heat would thaw the snow and soon afterwards the whole land would then be swallowed up with fog. It was not until early in the afternoon that we would all rush out to bask in the mountain sun. Oh! How I loved that sun.

It was not until many years later that I came to understand why Europeans or North Americans and others from lands which have harsh winters love to fly to the tropical lands and shores to just lie, laze and bask under the tropical sun.

It would therefore not be surprise to see sometimes in the very near future hordes of Njombe tourists swarming the Bagamoyo, Kigamboni and Zanzibar beaches along the Indian Ocean to bask under the tropical sun. Sunbathing Tours! That will be a popular advertising slogan in Njombe streets.

From Tanzania Correspondent Lute Wa Lutengano…

Sitting on the veranda of one of the Maruhubi Beach Villas I could not fail to understand why Zanzibar has for centuries attracted people from all over the world not only to visit it but settle there. The evening sea breeze braised my cool face as I sipped my chilled tropical fruit juice.

The swaying palms contrasted with the tranquil Indian Ocean while in the near distant across the ocean I could easily see the Chapwani and Changu Islands with silhouettes of fishermen boats straddling them.

It is said people have lived on these Spice Islands for 20,000 years. But history proper starts when the islands became a base for traders voyaging between Arabia, India and Africa. Naturally Arabs began settling first in what is now the Stone City but it was the Portuguese who were the first European power to gain control of Zanzibar in the 15th Century. Then, 200 years later, in 1698 Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultanate of Oman for another 200 years before in 1890 becoming a British protectorate and subsequently in December 1963 becoming a constitutional monarchy and a month later the famous Zanzibar Revolution taking place.

No wonder the Isles have a long cosmopolitan history of trade in ivory, spices, slaves and gold among others which interestingly enough in 1840 must have played a role in forcing the Oman Sultan Sayyid Said bin Sultan al-Busaid to move his capital from Muscat in Oman to the Zanzibar Stone Town.

And here I was, having had a sumptuous meal at this beach resort. The previous day I had a similar meal at the nearby College of Hotel and Tourism, also in Maruhubi area. I believe my hosts had wanted me to grasp the importance this Maruhubi area has in the history of Zanzibar.

And truly there is a lot of history in this part of Zanzibar which is a few kilometres north of the Stone Town. I would not hesitate to add that apart from the legendary slave trade history this area also has some romantic tale to it.

This is the area which also has the Marhubi Palace, or rather ruins. Sultan Barghash bin Said, having visited England in 1875, got so inspired by what he saw there that on coming back to Zanzibar between 1980 – 1982 he built the famous Marhubi Palace. This was built for use of his many secondary wives – King Mswati and President Zuma take note – who totalled 99. The
Sultan, being no fool, lived in Stone Town.

Another interesting romantic story which revisited my mind on that beach that evening was that of the famous Arabian Princess Salme. Along the Mizingani road there is the Palace Museum – Beit el Sahel – which was originally built and served as the official residence of the Sultan of Zanzibar.

Inside that museum is the memorabilia of Princess Salme, one of the few famous women in the history of Zanzibar. Born on 30 August 1844, Princess Salme was one of the daughters of Sultan Seyyid Said of Oman, who was the first Sultan of Zanzibar. Princess Salme, or Seyyida Salme binti Said bin Sultan Al Busaidiya, to give her full name, was born of a slave mother. Her name was Jilfidan; she was tall and strong with startling blue eyes, pale ivory colored skin and long black hair that came down to her knees.

According to history, in 1856, when Salme was 12, her father, Sultan Seyyid Said, died, and Sultan Seyyid Majid succeeded to the throne. Princess Salme’s dearly loved mother died three years later during a cholera epidemic. Sometime in 1865, Princess Salme met one Rudolph Heinrich Reute, a German businessman. The couple soon became lovers. In early August 1866, news came to Sultan Majid’s palace that Princess Salme was pregnant by the
European man.

Her carnal association with an infidel and her pregnancy by him were strictly forbidden and considered an unforgivable crime. Because she feared for her life, on August 24, 1866, with the support of the British consul, Dr. John Kirk, Princess Salme fled Zanzibar to Aden. Her baby boy was born in Aden on December 7, 1866. He was baptized in the Anglican Church in April 1867 with the name of Heinrich. Princess Salme converted to Christianity and was later baptized Emily. Soon after she married Rudolph, her lover and father of her child, the family settled in Hamburg, Germany.

Salme died on February 29th 1924, at the age of 80.

Perhaps all the millions of people who flock to Zanzibar year in year out are chancing to encounter their own Princess Salme. I am not sure if I am not one of them.

From Tanzania Corespondent Lute Wa Lutengano…..

I am now in Kampala, the land of Kaguta the son of Museveni. I seem to have begun my life in this city of Bodabodas, as the thousands of motorcycle taxis are known here, from the wrong foot. On my arrival on the night of last Saturday, I checked into this favorite hotel of mine along Kampala road. I immediately rushed into the hotel pub cum restaurant to have a snack before I could hit my bed.

Inside the joint I was pleasantly surprised to meet a Tanzanian colleague of mine, actually a former Arusha resident, one Mfinanga, who was in Kampala to attend some regional conference. As he was leaving early in the morning for Brussels he informed me that I am lucky as my young brother from Arusha , Suk Chat, was also in town. I promised I would look for him the next day.

After my morning official duties I began looking for Suk Chat in all the other establishments in the city. The last I heard of his whereabouts was that he was the previous evening seen at Speke Hotel. Late in the afternoon I returned into my hotel only to be told by the hotel management that actually Suk Chat had all the time been staying in the same hotel I was in. To make matters worse he had now checked out sometimes around noon and left for Arusha.

I was demoralized and decided to proceed to the Grand Hotel Imperial where on Sunday afternoons there is some live band music on its Coffee Terrace bar. There I met more Tanzanians attending the several conferences taking place in this city of many hills.

It was here that I also met a long lost Kampala Cab Driver friend of mine. He is an elderly man who is a Baganda. I engaged him into some conversation, by first wondering why there were now fewer Bodabodas on the streets of Kampala than during my previous visit two or so years ago. There is a major crackdown on the errand Bodabodas in town, he explained.

For many years, I was told, the Bodabodas had violated all traffic rules known to mankind. Enough is enough, the Government decided to arrest the situation. Actually the Kampala Traffic Police do literally ambush the Bodaboda cyclists. This has sometimes led to some comical tragedies whereby the driver jumps off his motorbike and disappears leaving behind the hapless passenger to his or her own peril.

The name Bodaboda, I was told, was coined in line with the history of the origins of this mode of transport. It is said that some many years ago they were actually the major means of ferrying people across the no-man’s-land between the Kenya and Uganda border – that is Border to Border.

Now this mode of transport is catching up back home in Tanzania. Unfortunately it is taking a more tragic mode, as criminals of all types are now using it to rob and even kill their victims. This is all very strange to Ugandans.

My Ugandan friend, Steven, that is his name, was very shocked to learn about this turn of events in the Bodaboda business in Tanzania.

However he had one outstanding commendation to Tanzania’s unity. For example, he was a little surprised to learn that a bona-fide Tanzania was free to buy and own land or a farm in any part of the country.

In Uganda, he told me, it was almost impossible for him to move north or in some parts of Uganda and buy, own and build or farm there. He lamented, however, that others from other parts of Uganda were free to come down to Kampala and its surrounding areas to just do that. That is unfair, he told me.

I believe he was a blue blood Baganda.

From Tanzania Correspondent Lute wa Lutengano…

I have this tendency to surrender myself to the law enforcement officers in any town I visit and plan to spend a night or more. It is not that I am prone to breaking laws but rather I feel more secure when I know that the Police chiefs in my new destination do now of my presence. That is just in case. And luckily I am acquainted with many of them in the various Tanzanian towns.

So as I drove towards Morogoro town the other week I called the Police chiefs in that town to inform them of my arrival and overnight stay. I arrived in the evening and checked at a recommended newly established facility, Gwami Hotel. I must admit that this is a homely and clean facility which is very convenient to transit travellers like me, because it is near the Dar es Salaam , Dodoma and Iringa highways.

There is not much night life at this establishment, no wonder I found myself patronising the nearby Gold Park night club. It is here that my Police friends caught up with me and we sat down for some drinks and the attendant ‘nyama choma’.

Naturally the topics we discussed veered towards crime in the region. I was told they, the Police chiefs, had undertaken some heavy crackdown on crime in the region and now it was on the wane. Remember Morogoro, I was told, was always the main hideout or playground for Dar es Salaam criminals.

However, I must admit, some of the crimes I was told of must be unique to Morogoro only. Take this case of a young man who cut his own manhood after being told he could sell it, or rather it could fetch a cool 10 million/- on the market. I saw the naked picture of the young man without his pendulum. Poor him, I was told, he died before he could suffer more for his folly.

Then there were the Kilombero Bank robbers. Theirs was an enterprise which assembled criminals, who were actually prominent businessmen from Dar es Salaam , Morogoro and Dodoma . The group of a little more than ten formed a special committee on the Bank job. They also had special sub-committees on transport; security; gas works; gate-away; and financial matters. Little did they know that they had been infiltrated by the police.

On the grand day as they assembled the gas tanks and began cutting the iron grills to the Bank safe room, the police ambushed them all, except for the planner, a young man with expert computer knowledge who is still on the run. In the fire exchange that ensured they were all killed. Again I saw the pictures of the dead and heavily built ‘entrepreneurs’.

Another group of bandits was betrayed by the love of a woman who befriended one of them. This group specialised in robbing lorries laden with luxury goods on the steep slopes between Dodoma and Iringa. Little did they know that the woman, with a generous posterior, was actually a cop. The bandits were ambushed as they slept in a guest house with their ‘woman.’ They put up a gunfight and all perished in the resultant heavy police fire. Again pictures of their dead bodies were there to prove all.

The next day I proceeded to Makambako in Njombe district. The southern road from Mikumi is being done by some Scandinavian company. It is a great and amazing job they are doing. At the Iringa town escarpment, for example, the company has decided to widen the meandering road by cutting deep into the imposing rocky face of the slope.

I scaled the road into town amidst the heavy road – works. As is always the case, I proceeded straight to Miami Bar at Mlandege where all connoisseurs of ‘ugali’ and ‘nyama choma’ in Iringa town assemble for their lunch. It is here that I called the Makambako Police chiefs that I would there in the evening and naturally for several overnights.

From Tanzanian Correspondent Lute Wa Lutengano…

I always love devouring any literature on the most revered human being on earth. One, who is almost a living saint and who has made many Africans, black people and mankind at large stand high and proud in their defense of humanity – Nelson Mandela.

To many he is the world’ most loved statesman, a warm and magnanimous human being who is also willing to own up to his failings. This is the man who came out of prison after 27 years smiling and preaching reconciliation to all. To most people he is the founding father of the modern South Africa and it is the idea of Mandela that is the glue that binds that country together.

This year Madiba, as he is fondly called, marked his 91st birthday. He has naturally become fragile. Many fear that inevitable moment. And many shudder at the thought of a South Africa without Mandela.

As confessed earlier, I am a Mendalaphillist. Whatever material I get hold of on the old man is food for me. Actually whenever I read something on him I feel rejuvenated and realize how minuscule my contribution to mankind is. It surely is a humbling experience.

The other day, though, I was more than humbled to read that actually the great African icon grew up in simple surroundings in a typical African village like any African child. Actually it read just like my childhood experiences.

In the article, Mandela talks of his wish to have his final rest alongside his ancestors in Qunu, in Western Cape, where, he says, he spent the happiest years of his boyhood. In his autobiography, he describes it as a place of small, beehive shaped huts, with grass roofs.

“It was in the fields,” he writes, “that I learned to knock birds out of the sky with a slingshot, to gather wild honey and fruits and edible roots, to drink warm, sweet milk from the udder of a cow, to swim in the clear, cold streams, and to catch fish with twine and sharpened bits of wire.”

Wow! I felt like I was living in that same small village many years ago in my boyhood. For what else did I do when growing up in Chalowe village in the Bena plains of Njombe, in the Southern Highlands? Similar indulgencies!

I learnt to knock down birds from the sky and from the many leafy trees in the villages. Though I have to admit I was very poor if not very bad in that art. I, and many other failed boys like me, had to find another means of catching birds. This involved spreading some grains on the ground where we would set up a trap involving a half suspended bamboo-woven-bowl held by a stick tied to a long rope. As soon as the birds were under this bowl we, hiding somewhere far, would suddenly pull the rope and naturally the
supporting stick and the bowl would collapse on top of the birds. We would then come with a huge blanket and catch the birds.

And like Mandela we also spent most of our time gathering wild honey and fruits and edible roots. I will never forget the ‘makusu’, ‘masada’, ‘masaula’, ‘mafwengi’ and many other famous wild fruits from the southern highlands. Actually with the advent of the Sumry bus services to Mbeya I have already begun receiving in Arusha some fresh ‘makusu’ fruits from Njombe.

I also tried drinking warm sweet milk from a cow’s udder. In a nutshell I was a disgrace. Not only did I miserably fail to place my mouth appropriately but the cow became so enraged that I received a well aimed kick. I ended up spending a few days in bed after a thorough thrashing from my father. Naturally I never went again near a cow.

We, the Chalowe boys, also enjoyed bathing in the clear, cold streams in the village. Though, on one occasion some wayward youths stole our clothes while we were frolicking in the waters. You can imagine the spectacle we made as our naked, wet and small bodies toddled along the village streets to the respective homesteads.

Fishing! I also loved fishing. But for all the years that I used my crude fishing rod whose twine rope and sharpened bit of wire was attached at one end, I caught only one fish. This was in contrast to my friends who caught basketfuls of fish all the time. For that, I plan to re-visit this hobby in my old age.

As you can see I grew up just like the old Madiba. But all the past, present and immediate future signs show that I will never be a Mandela.

Click here for Lute Wa Lutengano’s Bio

Basic human rights are often taken for granted.  Further still, hospitals to go to, schools to attend and even clean drinking water are things many of us count as the entitled norms of daily life. For many of our fellow human beings however, this is simply not the case.  Some of our brothers and sisters do not enjoy such basic human rights as liberty, freedom of expression, or personal security. Proper medical care and an education are little more than a far off dream. RELATIVTY OnLine’s Tanzanian correspondent Lute wa Lutengano pulls back the tattered velvet curtain of Africa to reveal the plight of many in his region. His words should remind those who have more to be thankful for pulling a winning ticket in the grandiose lottery of birth.     

It was cloudy and chilly morning when I walked into the offices of Mr. Alatanga Nyagawa, a charming young political activist in Njombe town in Southern Tanzania. I had gone to enquire about the several NGOs based in Njombe. And Alatanga was and is the Chairman of the association of NGOs in the district.

Sitting before him in his office was a middle aged white lady who I was to later learn was a German volunteer. Mrs Angela Gierl, told me she was in the business of helping a health centre in Uwemba – the St Anna’s Health Centre, some 20 or so kilometres south of Njombe town.

From the brief exchange we had in that office it occurred to me that Angela was gravely concerned with the life of the Centre which caters for about 25,000 in the area. In my good stride and for the sake of being polite I casually told her I would also try in my small way to assist in solving the problems of the Centre.

Angela was, to my surprise, delighted and her sad face lightened up, on getting this promise. She explained that she was sadly on verge of returning to Germany because her visa could not allow her to continue with her efforts. She would try coming again next year. We exchanged contacts and she promised to follow up with me on the matter.

That was a few months ago and I’d almost forgetten the whole incident, when the other day I received a message from one Sister Bernarda Hyera, a sister and overseer of the St. Anne’s Health Centre at Uwemba. The message reminded me of my earlier meeting with Angela.

But hers was, to be more precise, a lightening a bolt to my conscience on the plight of the Centre. She narrated to me the need for urgent assistance to the Centre which she described as being in a very sorry state. And this she explained was adversely affecting the people’s lives.

The story begins some seventy seven years ago, in 1932 to be precise, when the German Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing established a dispensary in Uwemba in the then Tanganyika. Later in 1976 this establishment was made into a Health Centre. For a long time it was supported by the families of the Benedictine Sisters from Germany . But the most of these Sisters died, and now the community consisted of mainly local Tanzanian Missionaries. 

Unfortunately and predictably they, the local missionaries and their families are poor and cannot financially support such an enterprise. With no Government support, funding has naturally decreased to an extent that the Sisters themselves do not even have salaries. Sister Hyera now says medical equipment and medicine is inadequate if not there. Premature and unnecessary deaths therefore occur because of this and even when there are referral cases, no transport in available. Poor peasants simply return home to suffer and die.

She adds that if she and her fellow Sisters could provide an improved health service, there would be fewer premature deaths, fewer orphans, higher productivity and a better quality of life. 

To illustrate this tragedy Sister Hyera writes; “In September 2009 the local medicine man came into the hospital because his 11^th wife was giving birth and needed medical attention (which he, of course, couldn’t give). Then he proceeded to explain how women had come to him for medical attention and were unable to pay his fees; in compensation for the services offered by him, he married them – so he acquired 11 wives.”

This, Sister Hyerasays, is just one example of the violation of women’s rights and a direct result to the fact that the hospital is right now not always in a position to help these women. This coupled with ravaging HIV/AIDS, at 21% in Uwemba, the Centre is a lone and fragile cry in the wild, which needs everybody’s support.

“I have no doubt that with better health care, the economic situation of the population will improve; and then the patients will be able to contribute adequately for the health care they are receiving. However, there will always be a certain amount of people who are too poor to contribute, but will be treated anyway, as we do,” Sister Hyera cries out.

How to help: call 0767 725199

E-mail hyerabern@yahoo.com.

From Lute wa Lutengano…

I had just collected some water from the ‘Last Water Point’ stage on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro , when I suddenly felt a bit dizzy. This point, for those who are not conversant with the great mountain, is literally the last place where one can get or see water. And there is a very visible signpost to remind you of this.

The ‘Point’ is a short distance from the 3760 metres high Horombo Hut, on your way to the last hut, the Kibo Hut, at the foot of the Kibo and Mawenzi peaks.

This, in the mid 90s, was my first attempt to climb Kilimanjaro. Well I have scaled the mountain three times now to presently qualify myself as an alpinist. But that time, being an amateur in the art climbing the Kili, as it is fondly called, I had in my haste failed to heed the ‘pole, pole’ (slowly, slowly) advise from the porters and guides, thus the dizzy spell.

Slowly I now wobbled along the rocky trail up to the saddle. That is the area famously known as the lunarscape. It is the area between the two peaks, Kibo and Mawenzi. There is literally no life here. Not even a fly. It is simply a desert with sand and some lifeless pebbles and boulders for company.

The gushing wind did not make things easier. I was on the verge of sinking down and attempting a crawling move when I saw them – the imposing ice glaciers directly under the glaring tropical sun. My sagging legs stood firm and I felt re-invigorated. Early next day I was able to see these amazing glaciers from close range – twenty-plus-storeys-tall, standing firm and defying nature. They so much inspired me that I managed to make it to Uhuru peak, 5895 metres above sea level.

Eternalised by many a great writers including Ernest Hemingway, the ‘Snows of Kilimanjaro’ are surely one of the wonders of the world. Kilimanjaro, the highest free standing mountain in the world rises majestically from the rolling savannah plains to the barren and frigid three and a half mile peak, attracting thousands of climbers from all over the world every year.

No wonder I was shocked the other day to read in the New York Times of last Tuesday that the ice cap atop this majestic mountain has continued to retreat rapidly since those years of my climbing. Actually, the paper writes, scientists are saying in a new report that the ice cap has declined 26 percent since year 2000.

More alarming, the scientists note, eighty-five percent of the ice cover that was present in 1912 has vanished. To measure the recent pace of retreat, researchers relied on data from aerial photographs and from stakes and instruments installed on the mountaintop in 2000, said Douglas Hardy, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts and one of the study’s authors.

Yet the authors of the study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reached no consensus on whether the melting could be attributed mainly to humanity’s role in warming the global climate.

However there was a suggestion that the recent melting had more to do with a decline in moisture levels than with a warming atmosphere.

Now I have serious doubts. And I must add, very serious doubts, whether our future generations will be able to get inspired by the ‘eternal snows of the Kilimanjaro’ like I did, and make it to Uhuru peak. I shudder to think of the implications.

From Lute Wa Lutengano…

So I was in Dar es Salaam. Like it or not this formerly sleepy and maybe sleezy city is now catching up with the modern cities of the world. Its illuminated electronic billboards, international restaurants, modern night spots, glitzy and ugly cloud kissing structures and bumper to bumper traffic jams are testimony to this.

Naturally, like all third world cities, there is the other side of its life. The stinking and overflowing open sewerage, the cardboard, rat and cholera infested wobbly structures which go for homes, the hordes of beggars, lepers, prostitutes and all that which goes for a rotten and hopeless life in this world.

This is the ugly truth which is so glaring to everyone. One would therefore hope that deliberate moves were taken to bridge this gap. Because like it or not this is a time bomb. Empires have collapsed under such realities.

But then what did I notice. Every high flier, be it a politician or businessman, is steeped deep into practicing ostentation. Remember I once mentioned in this same third rate column about some parents who gave their newly married daughter a gift of two fully furnished houses with full wardrobes and two carports with two flashy Mercedes Benz fuel guzzlers. That seems to be the norm in Dar es Salaam.

People vie with each other to host flashy and vulgar weddings and functions as beggars fight for their pickings outside. It reminds me of a book I came across the other day, ‘Downfall of an Autocrat’ by a famous Polish writer, Ryszard Kapuscinski.

In one of the chapters, Kapuscinski, who once covered Africa single-handed for the Polish press in the early 60s, describes a reception that the Ethopian Emperor Haile Selassie threw for visiting leaders that he attended.

A sumptuous feast was on inside the venue. Outside, Kapuscinski writes, “in the thick of the night, a crowd of barefoot beggars stood huddled together. The dishwashers working in the building threw leftovers at them. I watched the crowd devour the scraps, bones and fish heads with laborious concentration.”

The rest is history, Haile Sellasie, whose title included King of Kings, Elect of God, Lion of Judah, His Most Puissant Majesty and Distinguished Highness, the Emperor of Ethiopia, was soon after deposed and died a lonely and miserable death in solitary confinement in a dungeonl in the basement of one of his palaces.

Other notorious leaders who practiced ostentation with a vengeance include, the former big man of Congo, Joseph Desire Mobutu, a.k.a. Mobutu Mutu wa Mikolo Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Zabanga, roughly translated as “the all-conquering warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake.”

In his signature leopard-skin cap and carved wooden scepter topped with an eagle, Mobutu who at one time lived on his luxurious houseboat, the Kamanyola, on the Congo River, built a palatial home inside the deep Congo forest in the northern town of Gbadolite which had all the trappings of the Napoleonic era glitzy. This was a time when people were dying of hunger and poverty in most parts of the vast Congo.

Again in the end the big man who could “go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake” was toppled and also died a miserable and lonely death. He was buried by a handful people in a remote Moroccan cemetery, thousands of kilometers from his own people.

Many are the examples of the ‘Mutu ya Mokolo’ in our world. But then mankind seems not to learn from these vital teachings. And Dar es Salaam definitely seems to be full of ‘Muto ya Mikolo’.