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| School kids in Gieta |
Mwanza province is located in the Northwestern part of
Tanzania along the Southern shores of Lake Victoria. For Anna and I to get Gieta we had to take a
1.5 hour flight from Dar, followed by a 1 hour drive, followed by a 30-minute
ferry ride across a section of Lake Vic, and then another 1.5 hour drive from
there. Needless to say, it was a long
haul which included a round-trip flight on ‘Fly 540’, a local airline with
really small planes (Liz no likey!).
Mwanza is the second largest town in Tanzania and Gieta is a
rural district located within Mwanza.
Gieta is a welcome contrast from Dar and reminiscent of the areas I know
and love so well in Western Kenya. The
geography is characterized by rolling hillsides and farm land with traditional
houses scattered sporadically though out the countryside. The weather was a welcomed change from Dar
with temperatures in the mid 60’s at night and mid 80’s during the day. The air quality was also much better and I
was able to heal from the respiratory problems I had in Dar.
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| Lake Victoria |
We chose Gieta because it was an area rumored to have
cholera outbreaks and poor water and sanitation conditions. When we interviewed the medical officer in
charge at Gieta District Hospital he told us there has not been a cholera
outbreak there in the past few years but they still have plenty of enteric
disease problems including amoebic dysentery, bloody diarrhea, and worm
infestations. I was comforted that it
was still an appropriate study sight.
Industry in Gieta is dominated by the Gieta gold mine which
is the second largest gold mine in the country.
The gold mine is owned by AngloGold Ashanti, headquartered in South Africa and employees hundreds of local miners. The upswing
regarding the presence of the gold mine is that we were able to find a decent
hotel for the week with a rocking Internet connection. The downfall of the mine is there are a lot
of tensions between the owners and the local people in regards to water and
sanitation. According to the locals, the
Gold mine owners are busy exploiting the countries natural resources while
promising (but never delivering) safe water to the people. When we enquired about this further,
apparently the gold mine wanted to deliver a pumped (and chlorinated!) system
from Lake Victoria, and plans were drawn up to start work, and then the local
government put it to a halt demanding that the mining company pay them directly
instead of installing the system. The
mining owners were concerned about corruption and had no guarantee that the
local government would deliver…..sigh….needless to say no such piped
chlorinated water system exists and the truth probably lies somewhere in
between. We were able to conduct a full sample in Gieta which included
8 households and 4 stakeholder interviews.
Here are some Gieta highlights:
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| Household well |
- Most households obtain their drinking water from
informal, shallow wells that are on their property or shared among a few
neighbors
- Most people boil or filter their water with a
white cloth
- There is great concern among individuals in the
area that water is contaminated from blasted particles in the gold mine and
they are concerned about water pollution from mercury and other chemical
contaminants.
- Several households report problems with amoebic
dysentery
- Almost all households store their water in
traditional clay pots which they dip cups into to have a drink of water
- Households have some form of a pit latrine, of
which I have attached a photo of the most interesting. This woman reported spreading hot ash on the
logs over morning to kill all the bacteria (novel!). The size of the opening is approximately the
size of a tennis ball (yikes) and she reported pouring salt down it to dissolve
“the solids.”
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| Pit Latrine |
One of the most interesting interviews we conducted was
among the wife/wives of a prominent “witch doctor.” To get to the house, we crossed a stream and
hiked up a sharp hill (pants pulled up over the knees) to interview some hard
to reach households. These households
were very interesting and were predominantly constructed of grass
thatches. They most closely resembled
mobile communities I had only previously seen photos of in Northern Kenya with
housing structures called manayattas.
The household set up looked like a traditional African compound with
multiple small huts for various wives and kids.
We entered one such lively compound with quite a crowd, most
men, seated in an open air waiting hut and the women (around 10) were gathered
in another section of the household.
Anna approached the group of women and asked if one of them would be
interested in talking about water and sanitation for the compound. The eldest wife agree and then about 2
additional women and 6 or so children followed us over to a quiet(er) area for
the interview.
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| Traditional households in Gieta |
At this point Anna
started to notice all kinds of interesting signs of witchcraft including 2
small treatment huts with several plastic storage containers outside for
tincture mixtures. The men sitting in
that open air waiting hut were waiting to be seen. Altered to the “signs”, Anna inquired if the
husband practices witchcraft and the women, who were his two wives, said he was
one of the most famous doctors in the area.
At that point he came out of the treatment hut and introduced himself. He was a young (looking), charismatic man
with interesting scars on his face. He
inquired what we were doing with his wives and then mentioned that he is a
doctor and if we need anything he will gladly offer his services. At that point, I started being superstitious
and couldn’t take a photo of him but I did get some nice shots of his wives and
children.
They were all very kind.
As commonly encountered with polygamy in Africa, the women operate as a
family until and hang out together, distribute all the household chores, help
raise each others’ kids, and appear to be very good friends. The two wives of the ‘doctor’ asked Anna to
explain to me that they are very good friends and like to have their photo
taken together. As always when I
encounter this in different cultures I am left questioning the concept of
jealously.
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| Wives of the witch doctor |
During our half-hour
walk to their water source (a protected spring) I was able to ask the first
wife some pressings questions I had. I
enquired about the most common issues for which people come visit her husband. She listed the following common reasons; sexual performance problems, fertility problems, issues with work and employers (even if I
thought about it for a split second, I did not seek services – ha!)
There were also miniature straw huts scattered around the
compound that looked like they may house chickens. Later Anna told me that the doctor would
extract the problem you were experiencing in your soul and place it into one of
the miniature huts, then when you came back to the doctor you would check on it
and make sure it was safely transforming in the mini-hut or at least that is
what I understood form the Swahili/English translation.
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| Small huts for spirits |
Interviewing
this household was a fascinating experience and I whole-heatedly appreciated
their willingness to let me into their compound, be open and honest about the
way they live, hospitable and welcoming, and to teach me about a culture that I
had never previously known. I love days
like this in the field. ; ) Gotta soak them up before coming back to
dreary meeting office time in Seattle.
Love,
Liz
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