A Day At Kilolo

Today we went back down the way we had come yesterday to Kilolo.  Since Kilolo is only 45 kilometers from Iringa it was a far shorter drive.  While yesterday’s drive was punctuated by mud, sliding vehicles and terror over the possible plunge down a mountainside, today’s drive had herds of cattle to contend with.  (It also was over the best part of the road we were on yesterday.)

When we got to Kilolo the pastor suggested that we start the meeting right away.  The group waiting for us was rather small consisting of 2 pastors, 3 evangelists, the parish secretary, and 2 people from other preaching points.  We started the meeting with introductions and general statements by Tom, Sandy, and Itiweni.  By the time Itiweni started her seminar people were showing up.  Soon there were 25 people at the meeting – 14 women and 10 men.

As Itiweni went along the questions started coming.  Can we just do savings?  (Yes)  Do we need a constitution and can you give us one?  (Yes and yes)  Can we come to your training session?  (Yes)  Can we send 4 people instead of 3?  (Yes)  And so on.  The question and answer period lasted at least half an hour.  There was clearly much interest and excitement here.

After the meeting I asked the leaders a little about their group.  It turns out that the Kilolo group started meeting in January.  By February they had elected leaders (3 men) and decided that they would start saving to get enough money to start a SACCOS.  They were each planning on saving 5,000 Tsch/month (about $3.30).  With 30 members (16 women and 14 men) they already had $200 saved and were hoping they could give out one or two loans by the end of the year.  

They told me that they had decided that they had to start a SACCOS when they realized that none of them could apply the farming methods they were learning because they did not have enough capital.  As they were talking about this problem they came to realize that many church members were also having trouble with their dukas (small shops) since they did not have enough capital to buy the stock they needed.

The pastor told us that everyone is very excited to start a SACCOS.  They want to make it a success and “win the respect of the Iringa Diocese.”  He said he believes that showing that Christians are willing to lead the way for the community will help spread the Word of God.

As we were leaving the church some of the attendees came over to say “God bless you for coming.”  People kept telling us this and shaking our hands until finally the pastor gave Tom his son’s hand and said he should lead the way out of the church.

We had “chai” (tea with chapatti, hard cooked eggs and white buns) with the pastor and several of the SACCOS members (some of them are members of other churches) and church elders.  We talked some more about SACCOS and what the other parishes are doing.  They told us they want to ask their partner for help in starting their SACCOS.  We told them that they needed to write to their partner and we would be happy to meet with them when we get back in the US, but any request needed to come from them.

We left early enough to get back to Iringa and make some more arrangements for the upcoming training session.  Since it is so hard to get out to some of these villages, and since there is only Itiweni to do the training, we decided to make a series of training videos to send out to the villages (Sandy and I have brought 2 portable DVD players to try out.  We will work to send more if they are happy with them.).  Overall we decided that we should make 5 DVDs for now and try to get enough copies to send out to all of the SACCOS.

The biggest obstacle to our travels today was the large amount of cattle on the road!

If not roaming over the road they were pulling the wagons.

Kilolo is a pretty brick building just off of the main road.

Our first greeters were some children (actually the first greeter was a boy without any pants - but that picture has been censored)

When we started the meting there were only a few members there.

Before long the group had grown to 25.

After the meeting people kept coming up and saying "God bless you for coming."

We ended the day at Tumaini where Itiweni and I did some work.