Visit to Kangabasharo and Inzigo

Thursday, July 28TH 2011

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson

Today we visited the some villages outside of Bukoba. I am amazed at how “Mountainous” it is in this area. I need some help from the Geography teachers to know the correct Geo term to describe the area but it reminds me of trips to the Black Hills in South Dakota….but with jungle. Many times as we drive to different areas of the town, my ears will pop from the changing pressure. The Drive to Kangabasharo was very rough and slow going. We had to go down into a valley and although there is a lot of greenery I was told that it is not a fertile area. Smart informed us that Kangabasharo is the poorest region that COSAD works with. Part of the struggle is that people can not grow many types of food. Right outside the COSAD house there
are banana trees and pineapple bushes but in Kangabasharo, even the bananas trees struggle to produce any fruit.

Road to Kangabasharo



Homes in the village are tucked away on the hill

Because of the lack of food, students in that region don’t always attend school because they are too hungry to make the trek. Students walk for hours to school all over the city but touring the Kangabasharo school was truly heartbreaking. The poverty was very apparent in the student’s clothing and the fact that many did not have shoes. In the previous school we visited, Kiteyagwa, students often had shoes that didn’t fit and were too big but at Kangabasharo, very few students even wore shoes.

Kangabasharo school

One of the things teachers at Kangabasharo would like COSAD to do was serve breakfast for students as an incentive to attend each day. Smart is very hesitant about bringing in food without parents somehow being involved. In my “American” thinking I struggle to see students needing something like food and not rushing out right away to buy it. Smart is very wise in his mission of COSAD and would like to somehow empower the parents to produce something or get a loan for a goat. Empowering the parents help them to see the importance of education and it ultimately benefits the community- not just the students.

We walked to a home in Kangabasharo and I was amazed at the contrast between the “poor” living in a city like Bukoba and the way people in Kangabasharo live. We met Smart’s great-aunt, Anna Marie. We were invited into the first area of her home, which was made of clay. There were no windows and the room was not even large enough for all five of us to sit down. She was happy to take pictures and asked Smart to bring her back some shoes.

Walking from the school to the village.

Inzigo is another village about 30 miles from Bukoba. This area is also poor but it is the home of the COSAD One Woman, One Goat project. Smart said the women of this village were some of the hardest working he has ever seen and I can believe it from the conditions we saw. We met Joyce, the coordinator of One Woman, One Goat and Consolatha, who organizes the Sewing Singers.



Joyce, Consolatha and Smart

One Woman, One Goat is a project where a woman takes out a loan (from COSAD) for a goat. COSAD provides a goat, and builds a pen for it to be kept. The woman can use the goat to produce milk for her family as well as to sell as a business to bring income into the home. There are over a hundred women that are a part of the program right now but because it is so hard to get water in this area, many of the goats are not producing milk. Joyce took us to meet a couple of the women in the program and both have already repaid their loans and were beginning their own heard of goats. One of the women did talk about the water issue and shared that she has to walk over a half hour to find water and even then, she only has one water jug which she uses to bring back water for her family.

COSAD and Joyce are working in the next few weeks to begin phase two of the program and rather then women all raising their own goats, they will work together on a centrally located goat farm. Also, the homes are spread apart and the only way to reach them is by walking. Even if the individual goats begin producing milk, it would be hard to go around and pick up a liter from each. COSAD has already found a private school that will purchase the milk once the farm is up and running. Each woman would be a share owner in this enterprise. What an amazing program!!!

The Sewing Singers is a choir in Inzigo that helps COSAD provide uniforms for students in the Kagera region. It costs around $20 for all of the fabric and supplies to make a school uniform including shirt, sweater and shorts or skirt. The singers have all been trained on how the stitching should be done for government protocol on the uniforms and while the choir sings in practice, they sew. All students attending a public school must have a uniform. Although they might start out with one as a child, if they grow out of it- they are unable to come to school until they find a new one that fits. Twenty dollars is more then many families, especially in some of the villages, make in a month. Even then, the money is usually needed to buy other supplies in the
family. COSAD has received many donations that have been use toward providing education for these students. The uniform is never just “given” to families but Smart will go to the family and find out what they can provide instead. If COSAD gives a “loan” for the uniform what can the family sell them that will pay back the debt? The child is able to receive an education and the family doesn’t feel like they are receiving charity, but instead is earning the money. When the loan (weather paid in produce or money) is paid back, COSAD can turn around and scholarship another student with those same funds. The scholarships and support from the US has made a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of children here.

I know I am not explaining either of these programs as well as they have been told to me but please check out the COSAD website to the left for more information about their organization. What an amazing way to change a community one goat or uniform at a time. The proverb of give a man a fish and feed him for a day or teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime has never been so strong in my mind as when I am visiting this area with COSAD.

Since Inzigo is quite a ways out of town we went to visit Jasper, a member of the Imuka singers that was unable to come to the US for their tour but made all of the drums sold at the concerts. COSAD hired Jasper to make over two hundred drums which they sold in the US to pay for their tour. Through this sale, his hard work and amazing attitude, Jasper is able to provide much better for his family. In Tanzania it is common for extended family to live together so Jasper cares for his wife, children and some relatives in his modest house but with his new enterprise he is making plans for a nicer home.

Eating lunch in Jasper's home

Jasper carving a drum

Jasper's workshop

Jasper's family with us outside his workshop

Jasper welcomed us into our home and the shy man I met at the Imuka dinner back at the COSAD house was replaced with a very proud man who showed off his home, family and booming business. Because of the Imuka tour, Jasper has received orders and offers from people in the U.S. who will help him sell the drums all over the US and online. He is now the owner of a company and will have to employ around 50 people to get the orders finished.

Jasper’s home was a simple clay home, made up of three or four rooms. The dirt floors had been recently covered with fresh straw and a mat for us to sit and eat. There was a chicken laying some eggs in the corner but we tried not to disturb her. The reception was so warm and friendly. Jasper was very proud to have us in his home and many of his extended family came to see us.

It was a busy day and we were all tired by the time we headed back home.

Tuta onana baadaye (see you later), Erika