So picking up the story from Thursday morning:
We met Mr. Kitange from MIGESADO again on Thursday afternoon. He took us to visit the local dealer in pumps, pipes and all things related to water. We tentatively settled on the idea of EWB helping MIGESADO to add solar power to their portfolio, as a first collaboration: find sources and test samples, arrange shipments, equip a workshop for testing, repairing etc, train MIGESADO technicians, provide continuing technical support . . . But that evening I found the TAREA (Tanzania Renewable Energy Association) website – it’s easy to find on Google, at least on Google.co.tz – and realized that they could do the job themselves! Another thing we promised was to find out and let him know about a new design of biogas plant, which uses much less water than the original design.
Late on Thursday evening I finally got a call from Mr. Mallole, MP for Dodoma Urban. ‘Urban’ is misleading: it ranges 50 km from the city. He picked us up at the hotel on Friday morning. He was wearing his ‘parliamentary’ suit, but soon the tie was discarded and by the end of the day he was covered in dust. We met the District Commissioner briefly and then set off for a village, Mapanduzi, with the MP and a very nice but very soft-spoken young guy who was a dentist and also a medical officer of some sort for the area. Mapanduzi is about 30 minutes drive from Dodoma. We went first to the dispensary (what we would call a clinic). The nurses there have to carry water in 20 l. buckets on their heads from a well in a dry river-bed: two trips per day for the dispensary and one for their houses, which are next to the clinic . They said 2 km, but when we went there later we estimated it was 800 m. So the 25 km I reported previously for Ngutoto should be taken with a pinch of salt. With guttering and two 5000 l. tanks, they could collect water from the tin roof in the rainy season, and have 40 l. per day of clean water for the remaining 250 days of the year. They have no electric power in the dispensary: if patients have to stay overnight, they bring their own kerosene lamps. However, they do have one fridge which is powered by some type of gas in a cylinder. One of the nurses spends one day a week going into Dodoma to recharge their cell phones (it takes a whole day because of the bus schedule). We took an hour or two of the nurses’s time, and when we left the clinic there were a dozen or so mothers and babies waiting patiently under the tree outside, so we asked them some questions, through Mr. Mallole, about their lives. Then we went down to see the wells in the dry river-bed (most of which were themselves dry already). Mr. Mallole came into his own at this stage, greeting all the villagers and explaining what we were doing. Apparently they all said ‘Thank you for bringing the Americans to our village. We will definitely vote for you again at the next election’. Because this visit was arranged at short notice, we did not meet the village chairman or village council. Going back into Dodoma, we stopped at the Water Engineer’s office and met him. He said that there is a good bore-hole near Mapanduzi (12 cu. m. per hour) but 180 million /- is needed to complete the system, with 8 water-points in the village (1500/- to $1 US). Mr. Mallole was so pleased with the day that he showed up at our hotel later with a box which turned out to contain 12 bottles of Tanzanian wine! We gave two to Mr. Kitange, and have added the other 10 to our luggage . . . very heavy.
While at the bus station buying tickets, we met another M.P. who is himself an engineer. ‘Please come to my district in the Southern Highlands’, he said. We regretted that we could not, but we will get back in touch with him. On Saturday we took the bus to Dar es Salaam (7 hours) and found a miserable, dead, dusty city. Then on Saturday night I got sick, sick, sick. The hotel room had very intermittent electric power, and no water to the toilet (but water to the basin most of the time). I won’t give you any more details, but it wasn’t pretty. By Sunday afternoon I felt sort of OK so we got on the ferry to Zanzibar, but I spent the trip leaning over the rail. The hotel here is nicer. I could not take any food yesterday without getting sick again, so I just stayed in the hotel: Jeremy explored the old town. Today I had some breakfast OK and it’s now lunchtime and I have a little appetite, so I think I’m on the mend. Jeremy has gone off to a beach at the north end of the island for the day. I will wander round the old town this afternoon. We were planning to return to Dar es Salaam today and visit TAREA, a guy in the Vice-President’s office and maybe a couple of people at the University, but I didn’t want to do that if I was sick. So we will stay in Zanzibar another night and fly from here to Dar es Salaam tomorrow to catch our flight to Amsterdam.
Jeremy will be back in Boston on Thursday, but I am taking a detour to England and will arrive in Boston Saturday afternoon. Jeremy and I will do our best to give you all a feel for our trip on Sunday. Wine will be served – quality unknown. Please send me an e-mail if you will be coming, so we have enough food for lunch for everybody.
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