Village life

My life in Tanzania, until last Sunday, was mostly in Dar es Salaam.. and at the end of the last post on my excursion to Bagamoyo, I concluded that I like countryside.

This week, I went to stay in a village called Lwelu, near Mtwara - South-Eastern region of Tanzania where (it is said) development is happening rather slowly compared to other areas.


About an hour's bumpy drive from the nearest town, I arrived in this village with no electricity, no water taps, no motor bike, no mobile phone reception.

I stayed in the headteacher(of the only school -primary school)'s house (on the left). Fortunately or unfortunately, I was privileged to stay in probably the best house in the village. Watching and learning Mama's cooking was fun..(pic on the right: kitchen) I can easily write one full post on this.. maybe another time!

I stayed in this village for 3 nights, to see the life of ordinary Tanzanian people in rural area. So I had my thoughts on work, but my activities consisted of kula(eat), kunywa chai (drink tea), pika (cook), tembea (take a walk), pumzika (rest), cheza (play).. well, what could I do, that was what local women were doing :)

So, "taking a walk" was my most productive activity in the village. I went to see the primary school (no secondary school, the closest one is 1hr+ cycle from Lwelu), dispensary (one rural medical assistant + several nurses. no ward), farms (most of them does not even look like someone is deliberately growing things), market (only tomatoes, small dried fish, some green leaves, cassava, oranges available), water pumps (there was one made by Japan too!), workshops (where men hang around)..

My pictures can probably explain better so.. here we go! and of course, I just have to include the pics of over-excited kids of Lwelu :)


People lived quite happily. Is there a need for development assistance? I guess "yes" - because.. ok, they are not "suffering", but they know they can have a better life.

Talking to one of the teachers at school (there were a couple of teachers who could speak good-ish English), I was asked, "Seeing this village, if you are the planner, what would be the first thing you change?"

Difficult question!

My answer, at the end of the three-nights' stay, was infrastructure. I saw many issues, in infrastructure, education, health, people's mindset etc etc. Although I see the need to improve qualities of education and healthcare, Lwelu village lacked essential infrastructure to start off. A decent road access would improve opportunity for education and healthcare for the time-being, clean water for better sanitation, electricity and mobile phone reception for all sorts of means of communication.. well, you may disagree, but my impression of these few days was that this is what they need. NOW.