But they did seem to be going to a lot of trouble it was obvious that they were going to provide food because Mama B had made a pile of chapatis and boiled a lot of eggs. There were going to be speakers on different subjects, and Josiah had made up a number of pots to fill as a demonstration. The seminar was to last for two days.
I had the use of the Agency Maruti. This is a long wheelbase car like the Suzuki 4WD so often seen. They are India made and I found it to be an amazing vehicle. I had actually had a LJ50 with the Forest Service – a small two stroke with oil injection and it too was an amazing vehicle!
This vehicle had actually been assigned to Johnny Boy, but he had not yet arrived, but fate took a hand when a person assigned to Mbulu could not come due to ill health. The new Landrover was then allocated to Johnny Boy and the Maruti was assigned to me. Handy that because we hardly ever managed to wrestle the Suzuki from Big E or Round L!
Seminars are a common way of providing development in Tanzania, and the participants are usually given a pen and exercise book to take notes. ‘People do not arrive if you don’t feed them’, which is the reason for the food. The usual demand is that at least 25% of the participants be women – this is to ‘empower ‘ women, up I found underneath all, they have their own type of power.
So I took Josiah with the food and the equipment out to Engorora, while Big E went to collect the guest speakers – they were late and one of the speakers had to be replaced by a ‘less than expert’; but that did not matter because despite the promise of breakfast (at 9:30) people were only arriving in their small groups.
The seminar was held at the school, a wooden building; and for the first time I saw the problems education was facing in Tanzania. Now it is much better as sometime 2002/3 Tanzania was provided with a huge aid package from Denmark to target the education problems.
The building was of wood and termites had caused a lot of damage, so the door did not shut and weatherboards had fallen off. There was one desk to three students. A newly constructed class was made out of slabwood (waste from the sawmilling operation) this new building housed two classrooms with no desks; the kids sat on boards that stood on large stones or bricks. The blackboards were painted black, but most of the black had worn off.
Engorora School Building – Maruti Outside
The Slabwood Classrooms
Inside the classroom - the desks came later
I asked the Head Teacher how far some of the students had to walk to school : 4 miles was about the farthest! Most arrived with water containers because there was a water tap in the school compound.
The water came from Mt Meru. It was a line established for the Army Base at Monduli some kilometers away. It was supposed to be exclusively for Army use, but many villages had tapped into it illegally; so much so that finally there was not enough water going to the Army Base, so the line was closed down and they established another. The village people were left to suffer no water.
When the seminar participants had finally assembled, the women members were coerced into preparing the food that we had brought with us and after Grace was said the food was washed down with the typical milky, sweet tea.
The participants were given a school-type exercise book and a pen to jot down notes. Much care was taken to draw the margin on each page and as the speakers spoke, all took notes. Josiah spoke well and so did Big E and he used the picture in a book as a teaching aid – though nobody could see it. There were other speakers as well, talking about health and other matters.
Josiah demonstrated a jiko fuelled by sawdust – now this was remarkable! A jiko is a small, circular metal drum that holds a cooking fire. It usually fuelled by charcoal (one of the major causes of deforestation) of firewood. These jikos are most common in towns where firewood is more difficult to find; in rural villages three stones is a more common type of fire.
Mama B cooking on jiko
Now Josiah’s demonstration was to place a bottle in the center of the jiko and tightly pack dry sawdust around it, then carefully remove the bottle. With tinder, light the center where the bottle has been removed. The sawdust burns slowly at first, but soon produces hot cooking embers. Sadly this did not become popular and did have issues with sourcing sawdust – but it was available!
Another guy expounded the use of a solar dish to cook with, but the cost was way over what local people would be able to pay!
After lunch there was a demonstration on sieving soil using the wire netting frame commonly used for cleaning maize, beans or coffee. There was a supply of soil and rotted cow manure on hand to be mixed together with some water so the texture was correct.
There was on man there dressed in traditional Maasai regalia, and I did so want to take his picture, but had forgotten my camera.
So next day, I took our camera – phoo, he turned up wearing a brown suit!
Mixing soil
The seminar continued the next day was spent with a demonstration of cutting the polythene tubes correctly to length and filling them with soil – there is a knack in filling them. The bottom must be well packed to avoid the soil falling out when being handled. But softer further up so the seed can germinate easily.
The group was given some various seeds and they were told that they could start their own tree nursery.
Big E was happy with the seminar, and another was conducted at the village of Soko a few weeks later. I had some reservations – the side issues did not reinforce the environment/conservation message and there was no follow-up planned. But nonetheless I had learned a lot.
I found out later that he had been funded for these seminars and somewhat more than was actually spent! But that’s another story for another time.
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