A Day At Mwatasi

Yesterday, Sunday, we crashed!  I’m afraid that we were so worn out that we spent the entire day inside doing a little reading, a little looking on the web, and lots of sleeping!  Today however we were back on the road with a trip to Mwatasi!

Mwatasi is a two hour drive south east of Iringa.  To get there you take the road to Pommern and instead of turning off, head out towards the hills.  Since it was a bit longer we could not drive straight through but had to stop and let Tom walk around a little (he needs to get out and walk around every hour or so to prevent embolisms from forming).  Stopping on the side of a hill we got a good look at the landscape – beautiful up here!  While we were looking around Tom spied a kid – so out came the candy.  Sure enough, once one kid had gotten candy more started coming out of the corn field.  Mama was watching – but she only laughed when she saw what they were getting. 

When we got to Mwatasi we were greeted by Pastor Elias Kadnda.  This is his first congregation since graduating from Tumaini 2 years ago.  Itiweni knows him from the University, it turns out he knows many of the students that were in Sandy’s communications classes at Tumaini in 2005.

Mwatasi does not yet have a SACCOS.  There is a group that has been meeting to form one.  After tea we met with the group.  This group currently has 36 members, 28 of whom attended the meeting.  After greetings and some discussion about who we are and how we can help them, Itiweni gave her presentation entitled “Uanzishwaji wg SACCOS” (starting up a SACCOS).  Tom is recording her instructional presentations and will be putting them on DVDs.  We brought some portable DVD players, hoping that in the future they can be used in villages where SACCOS are being formed.

Itiweni’s talk today covered the basics of getting organized, selecting the first officers, etc.  She emphasized the need to generate savings FIRST and then do business plans and work on loans later.  Three leaders (chairman, treasurer, and secretary) will be elected to start collecting savings.  Itiweni will be back later on to continue her instructions on running a SACCOS.

After the meeting we went over to look at the CVP acreage.  The corn was looking very good.  The pastor told us that up here there seemed to be too much rain to use the hybrid corn that was being used elsewhere.  He explained that when they planted half the plot with their traditional seed and half with hybrid seed the traditional seed did better (Mwatasi gets a lot of rain and is higher in the mountains than the other sites we have visited so far.).  He went on to say that when they combined their older seed with the spacing and other techniques from the CVP plot they were able to increase their yields 2-3 times.  Unfortuantly they cannot afford to use the CVP techniques without a loan for their crops – which is why they have started working on getting a SACCOS!

Two women were hoeing in the field right next to the CVP corn.  The pastor told us that the church members were all asked to come and hoe this field up so they could plant beans. Of the 1250 members, only these two women showed.   They had been working since early morning and it was now 1:00. 

When we went back to the church there were some members waiting to talk to us.  One of them happened to be the village mayor and the councilman from the Bomalang’ombe Ward on the Kilolo District Council.  Mayor Michaal Kisava, 50, told us that he wanted to get a SACCOS started as soon as he could.  He said that he believes that a SACCOS is necessary to help “this poor district of mine” develop (His ward, includes 5 villages including Bombe la ngombe and Mwatasi.).  The first thing he looks for is to have the people learn to save and budget their money.  “The education through your program is a real must for us to move forward.”  After that he says they need loans to develop their shambas.  “Right now we can only apply the CVP methods to a small part of our farms.  With a small loan we could do much better.”

Alafrisa Mpogole, 43, told us much the same thing.  “The first thing that we need is to learn to plan and budget and save,” she told us.  “A SACCOS will help bring changes to the village through learning.”  She is planning on telling others to join and hopes that Itiweni can come back soon to give them more lessons on savings.  She said that she has 6 children that she and her husband support.  One of them is a vocational school graduate who is now married, 2 of them are in secondary school, and 3 are still in primary school.  “We want to send them all to school – but there is not enough money for this.  We need a loan so that we can improve our farming and send them all to school.” 

As we were getting ready to go the children attacked!  (Actually the children are always very polite.  They come over and stand and smile and giggle a little to get attention.  They wanted Tom to give them candy of course!)  Tom had been giving some candy to the children as he saw them, but now they had banded together and were hoping for more!  Tom took a few photos of them and then a short video. He started the video playing on his camera and showed it to them.  Giggles, giggles, and more giggles went through the crowd.  We gave them a bit of candy and then we were off for Iringa.  

On the way to Mwtasi these carts were the biggest traffic concern.

Tom had to stop and get out.  Soon he had kids coming out of the corn field for - you guessed it - candy!

The views are really beautiful up here.

The class was very well attended.

This little stinker kept sneaking up the aisle for more!

The Mayor had lots of questions.  He also could not help giving the attendees a speech!

When Sandy quipped that it might be planting season, but to quote Jesus, “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few,” Pastor Kadnda translated it into Swahili for the group.  Their laughter let us know that they were familiar with the quote as well. 

Mayor Michaal Kisava, 50, told us that he wanted to get a SACCOS started as soon as he could.

Alafrisa Mpogole, 43, told us much the same thing.  “The first thing that we need is to learn to plan and budget and save,” she told us.

Sandy thwarted the kid's attack by handing out more candy!