Posho

Just want to make a quick apology if you notice any “T’s” missing! The “T” came off the laptop keyboard, we put it back on, but it still doesn’t always fire!

Lucy – Greetings from a very hot Africa. I am writing this sitting at our dining table with both doors wide open, wearing a strappy top (which is very culturally wrong so will have to change if I leave the house), and it I am still feeling very hot. We haven’t had any decent rain for a few days now and the days just seem to be getting hotter. Three cows just trotted past our door. The cows here are all looked after by small boys (about 10 years old or younger) and one in particular has decided that he likes watching how these Mazungu’s live and so allows his cows to graze right in front of our door. The cows are extremely docile so it’s fine just quite amusing when you turn around to see a cow looking in at your door!

This week we’ve done a fair bit of visiting or being visited. On Tuesday afternoon I went with Esther to visit Milka. It’s currently the school Easter holidays and so all the children are around. So when I went around Milka was there with Esther, Manyashi, Mariam and Jona, and the Miller children were also visiting so there was Hannah, Abi, Naomi, Ezekiel (known as Zeke). So there were a lot of children around! Manyashi was the first child that John and Milka looked after. He is currently at boarding school and so we’ve only recently met him. He is an albino and is therefore very ‘at risk’ in a country like Tanzania. This is part of the reason he is at boarding school. In Tanzania, and particularly in rural villages like ours, albinos are viewed as cursed and their body parts are often called for by witchdoctors. Manyashi’s story is heartbreaking as his younger sister, who was also an albino, was killed in front of him following a demand by a witchdoctor. It is horrible and sickening to think that this practise is still happening today. Despite of all this Manyashi is a very happy and proving to be very clever, young man.

Milka and I did manage to chat a bit despite of all the children around and she showed me her wedding photos. Was lovely to see them and was interesting to see some of the differences, but also the surprising number of similarities, between a British and Kenyan wedding. Milka and John had a lot of bridesmaids and flower girls, all dressed the same way, which surprised me. One of the odd differences was the fact that in all the group shots of family members etc, no-one is smiling. It appears that smiling is not the done thing!

On Thursday I had invited Milka and the kids, together with Baseki and her sister-in-law, Gole (who is about 6) and her brother-in-law, Kahabe (who’s about 10), around to ours to watch a film on our laptop. I also invited Velo, our house-help, to join us. I wanted to do it during the Easter holidays so that all the kids could join in. I was thinking that it would be a nice and fun way for everyone to spend time together and that the kids would enjoy the treat. However, I’m not sure it worked that well culturally!! We all watched Wallace and Grommit – “A Close Shave”… which may have been the first wrong decision. I thought this would be good as there is not all that much dialogue, it’s pretty visual, and a lot of the humour is visual. But in reality I’m not sure the kids knew quite what to do when they were watching it. The sat down and watched it but there were no smiles at all. Milka seemed to be the only one who got any of the jokes! Maybe the humour didn’t translate well, but I think the main issue was that some of these children may never have watched a film, or anything on TV before and therefore just didn’t know how to respond. I also made some chocolate-cornflake-cakes (with oats rather than cornflakes)… but again the kids weren’t that fussed. Chocolate is rarely eaten out here, and is not really seen as a treat. In fact quite a few of the African women I’ve met out here don’t even like it.. which is almost unheard of in our culture!

Watching Wallace and Grommit

(L-R Velo, Manyashi, Mariam, Baseki, Milka

on floor Jona, Esther, Gole and Kahabe)

However, despite all of this, I think everyone enjoyed themselves in the end. After the film the kids went outside to play and Milka, Baseki, Velo and I just talked. It’s great having Milka around as she speaks fluent Swahili (albeit Kenyan and not Tanzanian Swahili – there is a difference!) and fluent English, so she does a lot of translating. We talked about how long it would take to fly to London, and America, and some of the differences between British and Tanzanian culture. They were surprised when I talked about the diversity of people and cultures in London. They were very surprised when I said there were a lot of Africans living in London! Was really good to chat and just find out a bit more about each other’s cultures.

Chatting after film

(L-R Velo, Baseki, Gole and Kahabe)

On Saturday a pikipiki (motorbike) arrived to pick us up and drive us to Lugaye. Lugaye is only about 20 mins away on a bike along empty dirt track. Originally 2 pikipiki’s were meant to pick us up but only one turned up so the 3 of us got on (whilst praying for God’s protection!). I was behind the driver with Hitesh behind me and then Esther on his back in her carrier. Was good fun although I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to travel like that along a main road.

We were going to visit Musa, the main site foreman at Mavuno, who lives in Lugaye. Hitesh had asked him earlier in the week if we could visit him. He was really pleased that we had asked and said he would love us to come and visit. The culture here towards people visiting you is so different to back home .Here people really do feel truly honoured if you visit them, and it’s very much no-holds-barred on doing what they can to make you feel welcome. It is incredibly humbling. Musa welcomed us into his little bachelor pad! He lives in a room which is part of a fairly large mud-brick, tin-roofed house, together with 4 other families, each family occupying a separate room. There is also a large open area where food is prepared. As we walked in, there was a recently killed chicken sitting in a pot. I was pretty sure this wasn’t for us as it was 10 in the morning and we thought we’d just pop around for a couple of hours to say hi, and then leave. How wrong I was! Musa had arranged for a lady to make a lovely chicken stew for us, with rice and mchicha (a green vegetable a bit like spinach) for lunch. Before lunch we sat with Musa (and some sodas that he had bought for us) and just chatted about life here and life at home and found out more about how he came to be at Mavuno and his family. It was lovely just to have the time to find out more about the local people involved in this project. Whilst we were talking, Esther wandered off and spent most of the time playing outside with the local kids, just coming in to see us every now and then. Musa is a lovely guy (and a big Manchester United fan!), and really made us feel so welcome. We ended up leaving his house around 1:30pm.

In the afternoon we heard the choir practising again, this time with the keyboard, and so we went over to listen to them for about an hour. Although we’ve now heard them a number of times we never cease to be amazed at their singing and the beauty of their voices, always in perfect harmony!

In the evening we were invited over to the Helsbys for a barbecue, which was lovely! We eat meat very rarely at the moment so this was a real treat. After we had eaten, Esther kept everyone entertained with her standing up then falling over in the bath, laughing lots, then doing it all over again! Was a really good end to a very good day.

Hitesh – Thinking back at this week, it has been fairly eventful, but it did start slowly. I have been doing various things round Mavuno. Monday was spent marking out the walls and rooms for the first staff house. Now that the concrete slab has been poured, the walls are constructed using steel posts bolted in the concrete, with steel angle sections used to brace and “square” the building. Then steel mesh is suspended between the posts, and cement placed on the mesh to form the walls. Monday afternoon, we started putting in a few posts and welding steel angle sections together to start to form the frame of the house. Dave and I worked together.

Dave was busy on Tuesday, so I did a bit of plumbing connecting a new 5000 litre water storage tank to the existing one at the first family house. John and Milka will have up to 10 kids living in the house with them, so they will use lots of water! Hence the extra storage tank will help to save the pump from being run every few days. The job was fine, though I did manage to get stuck inside the new water tank! A new tank doesn’t come with any fittings. So you have to drill a hole at the bottom of the tank and fit an outlet coupler to it. This involves using a nut on the inside of the tank. (You can see where this is going!) Anyway, I was told that when I go in to tighten the nut, to take a bucket with me, so that I can stand on the bucket to get back out. I went in, fixed the nut, but couldn’t get back out again! The tanks are over 7 feet tall, and the bucket was too short! For the first time out here, I used a mobile phone! I had been given the volunteer phone by Dave about a week ago after Wayne left. I nearly left it at home that morning, but remembered thankfully to take it with me, and phoned Dave. Dave was actually in Mwanza, so he phoned Josh, who literally came running with another bucket (and lid) for me to get out of the tank. I was probably in there for about half an hour in total, and it was roasting hot. The tanks are black, and heat up very quickly in the African sun. I was very relieved to get out!

Family house water tanks - got stuck in the right hand one!

Wednesday, I went to Mwanza with Dave to pick up some supplies and do the weekly market shop. We picked up some steel angle sections, rebar, and other bits and bobs. It was a good day out, and I was very pleased to see the market for the first time.

Thursday was a quiet and frustrating day. There are a lot of bad rumours about Mavuno, all created by one or two corrupt individuals, who also happen to be chairmen of the Kitongo village. In order to clear up any of the rumours, as well as to build relationships with the chairmen (I think there are 25 in total for Kitongo – a village of about 2000!), they were invited to come and see Mavuno, have some lunch and ask any questions they had. They were supposed to come on Tuesday, but it got moved to Thursday. Come Thursday, they were supposed to arrive at 10:00am, food was being prepared and everyone was waiting in anticipation. Dave got a call about 12:30pm saying that they weren’t coming. We don’t know the real reason why. There are now more rumours and second guessing as to why they didn’t come. All of which is really frustrating, especially when Mavuno is desperately trying to be open and encouraging.

I think one of the reasons they didn’t show is an issue with “posho”. Posho in its purest Swahili sense is recompense. The village chairmen are responsible for making decisions on behalf of the village, and are supposed to look after the best interests of the village. If a decision needs to be made about a particular matter, they are supposed to meet, discuss the matter and make a decision. Due to their position and power as village chairmen, they ask for a sum of money to help them out called “posho”. If you’re like me, it can sound like a bribe. But, apparently you need this money to help “build relationships” (quote from Tanzanian Mavuno staff, trying to explain “posho” to us Wazungu). Giving money to a person of power that is making a decision concerning you or something you’re involved with sounds like a bribe to me, however which way you put it! Or is that just my prejudiced Western mindset?? But here in Tanzania, it’s to “build relationships”!

In my very limited experience with Tanzanian culture and life here in Kitongo, it seems that the idea of “posho” has become twisted. I’m really sorry that I’m giving my rather bias viewpoint on such limited experience! I feel quite frustrated that the good name of Mavuno can get dirtied and muddied by a few greedy and untrustworthy individuals! Even the locals that work for Mavuno have said that Kitongo is very “special” and they have not seen anything like it. A fair price for posho is around 2000 Tsh (Tanzanian Shillings) per chairman. That’s equivalent to about £1, but when you consider that the minimum daily wage is 3000Tsh, it’s not a bad amount for an hour or two worth of “work”. When Mavuno first came to Kitongo, that was the amount stipulated. Before any buildings were built on site, the Tanners and Helsbys were based in Mwanza – an hour’s drive away. They had a local guy called Malachi working for them, and he came for a meeting with the chairmen with enough money for 2000Tsh for each one. Anyway, right at the start of the meeting they demanded 10000Tsh each for posho! And for 3 hours the discussion was only about posho. Malachi said that there’s no way he could get that sort of money, but they kept on pressing him. Anyway, after 3 hours, when it was time to go, they just did the decision making business in a few minutes right at the end. They weren’t really bothered about the decision making, they just wanted as much money as possible from a Western organisation.

Anyway, because Thursday’s visit was just a tour for them to see Mavuno, they heard that they weren’t going to get any posho, and didn’t show up. We had a massive lunch prepared, including meat and sodas, they didn’t have to make any decisions, but just have a look and get a free feed. From what I’ve heard, most of the chairmen actually wanted to come, but one or two of the high-up chairmen (that have also been responsible for the bad rumours) persuaded the other not to come. It was a very frustrating day.

By the way, while all the politics were unfolding, I spend the day putting together a wheel barrow, and painting the rafters to our choo (toilet) with used engine oil to stop the bugs from eating the wood.

Friday was a very productive day. Dave and I, plus a couple of other guys got on with putting up the steel posts to the staff house. We got loads done, and I also had a go at some welding! It was my first time and harder than I thought, but I’m slowly getting the hang of it. Don’t worry, I’m only doing the non-critical welds!

Posts being put up at Staff House 1

Me welding

Here's a picture of some locals "busting rocks"! They're busy making gravel.

Esther – I has had a fun week playing with lots of children. I like going to the Helsby’s and playing with Kate. She is my friend. I also have learnt to put things on my head!

Esther's new hat!