A Day At Nduli

If you drive north out of Iringa on the Dodoma road you will pass the airport and, after about 20 minutes, find the turn-off for Nduli.  A ten minute drive down this road gets you to Nduli.  The church at Nduli is a pretty brick structure that, according to a cornerstone, was built in 2002.  Pastor Laiton Muyinga came out of the parsonage to greet us.  His was a familiar face, as we recognized him as a member of a district choir we heard at Tumaini in 2001.  Don’t give us credit for remembering a face we saw only once 10 years ago; Tom recorded the concert and we have watched the video many times. 

Induli is a relatively large congregation with 8 preaching points and about 1,000 active members (about the size of most Lutheran churches in the US!).  The pastor at Nduli has big plans for his parish.  He has started a number of new enterprises from harvesting honey to making peanut butter.  To get these plans going, and to give the farmers here the capital they need to do a good job in their fields he wants to see a SACCOS started.  “I think that a SACCOS is a must for my parish,” he told us.  He believes that unless he can get a SACCOS started there will not be enough capital for the parish to operate.

After tea with the pastor we went to their World Day of Prayer service.  It lasted about 2 ½ hours.  In attendance were 26 women and 13 men.  The church service was designated especially for women.  In the middle of the service the women performed a play based on a parable of Jesus in Luke 18:1-8. It was amazing!  The play was teaching them about the very problem that started us working with micro finance!  The problem is that traditionally when a man dies his eldest male relative inherits everything – his property, his money, his family – and comes and takes what he wants and leaves the rest.  Since he often only wants the property and not the family this results in many widows being left destitute.  In the play the woman goes to a judge and the judge reluctantly grants her the right to all of the property and tells her she does not have to go with her deceased husband’s elder brother.  (This is of course the law, but most people do not know this and often ignore it.)  As in the scripture lesson, the widow had to be persistent, and plead her case before the judge many times. The women were great!  Even without knowing Swahili, we could follow the story fairly well.

Following the service we met with the emerging SACCOS.  So far this group has organized enough to elect a chair, treasurer, and secretary.  68 people have joined this group, each paying 20,000 schillings to join.  This means that they now have 1,360,000 schillings (or about $905).  They wanted to open a bank account and deposit money but they could not do this without a constitution.

We spent about two hours with them explaining the basics of how a SACCOS works and what would be in a constitution.  We told them we would send them a constitution to read and vote on.  We also invited their leaders to come to the training session in two weeks and told them we would give them the forms they needed and show them how to keep their records. 

Tom spent some time telling them how a good SACCOS is a partnership between strong Mamas and strong Babas.  Since they have already chosen 2 men and one woman as leaders we suggested that they elect a woman as a vice chair and try to keep their board and committees balanced.  (Of the 68 members, 48 are women and 22 are men.)  We also discussed the need to grow their SACCOS with savings.  With the strong leadership of their pastor and the good mix of members we think this will be a good SACCOS.

As the meeting broke up we talked with some of the members about why they wanted a SACCOS.  Larensia Malila, 44, told us that she wants to start a business and needs to get some capital (she is hoping to get $200 to go into business).  “I need to have a kiosk to pay for my children’s school fees.” She told us.  Her husband works at the airport and has uncertain hours and income.  She has 5 children, three of which are going to secondary school partly due to scholarships.

Festo Mtega, 34, has 3 children and wants to improve his farming and maybe start a business.  “I have learned how to improve my farming from the CVP plot but I can’t apply this unless I can get some capital.”  He also would like to implement some of the ideas that the pastor has brought to Nduli – but he can’t without raising some capital (he is hoping to borrow $250).  Festo wants to be able to pay his children’s school fees, build a new house, and buy dairy cows.

As we were leaving some kids came around looking for the candy-man. Sandy took over the responsibility of giving these children their sugar-fix, making a few new friends with big smiles.

Tomorrow we are off to Mkwawa.

Nduli is an attractive church just a short way from the Dodoma road.

The parsonage looks nice but the walls are crumbling.  They are building a new one with guest rooms!

We thought the pastor looked familiar.  We had seen him in a choir concert in 2001.

The worshipers were mainly women.  It was a special service dedicated to Mamas.

These two kept peeking at Tom.  They wanted more candy!

As soon as church was over they got some!

The SACCOS meeting was crowded.

Larensia Malila wants to borrow some money to buy a kiosk.  She hopes to be able to pay for her children's school fees.

Festo Mtega would like to be able to implement what he has learned from the CVP plot.  Without a loan there is not much he can do.

Sandy took over for the candy man (I think she was jealous).