Click here for the health centre project page. For an account of the trip from Kitty, read on.
Mbeka, Rhea, Davinder and I, (Kitty) flew to Dar es Salaam on 24th August, arriving on the Saturday 25th. We stayed with Mbeka’s sister, Mama Willie and her husband Noah in Mbagala Kuu catching up with Parapanda, the Theatre group he used to work with and other friends on Sunday. Monday we shopped for Kalalasi; skipping rope, basket ball, generator and other essential items. Then on Tuesday we were up at crack of dawn for the bus. Mama Willie came with us to cook with her 4 year old niece, Adolfina who’s mum had died recently. She was going to stay with her grandmother.
With Rhea’s camera equipment, the video player Mbeka picked up second hand in Winchester, a big bag of clothes etc, we had 15 pieces of luggage.12 hours on the bus to Mbeya, then on to Sumbawanga next day. The night before we left for the village, Mama Willie went down with malaria, so we left her in hospital in Sumbawanga, bought mattresses, food etc. and headed off to Kalalasi.There we stayed in the new house the Headteacher was about to move in to.There was a dining table and chairs, sofa, easy chairs and coffee table, windows with glass in and some plastic chairs.A walled yard with outside hole in the floor toilet, shower room, bare kitchen and 2 storage sheds, one with 2 huge bags of charcoal.The teacher’s wife over the way cooked for us until Mama Wille came.
The Health Centre was coming on nicely. We’d sent money over the last few months for cement, window and door frames and furniture. The walls were up to roof level and the community were pitching in. Women carrying water and bricks, men with bullock sledges bringing sand and cement. We paid some key workmen: plasterers and the main roofer but the villagers made and fired the bricks and worked for free. Mr. Chole, the former village chairman acted as foreman. The women sang songs they had composed for us. Mbeka translated, one line that sticks in my mind was “Now we feel we are alive.”
Over the next couple of weeks we had two trips to Sumbawanga on the lorry that runs daily from Matai.If asked he picks up and drops off in Kalalasi.The road is really rough so it takes three hours to travel the 63 miles there, longer on the way back with people unloading purchases along the way.We cashed £4,000 worth of travellers cheques and bought in the materials needed to finish the project.We got to know the people at Jeggo hardware quite well.A team of men from the village came to help load up.By the time we left the roof was on, walls plastered and floors cemented. Rain water storage tanks were under construction and the furniture was in the storeroom nearby.
Now the verandas are finished, walls painted inside and out, water harvesting tanks are being finished. The only thing left to do are the toilets. They are waiting for money from the local govt. for that.