Trip to Musoma

So a couple of weeks ago, I once more found myself at the Ubungo bus stand in Dar es Salaam at the unsociable hour of 5:30am, about to board the bus of doom to Mwanza. Travelling with me were two other CDF volunteers, Franzi and Felister, as well as CDF’s Legal Officer, Grace.

That day, there was a small, innocuous article in the Daily News about a 15-year old girl in Tarime, who had been beaten so severely by her father and elder brother that she was hospitalised. She had refused to be married.

I won’t bore you with the details of our journey again (another agonising 17 hours) – suffice to say that we passed through a very impressive electrical storm with huge bolts of lightning illuminating the Eastern Rift Valley. Franzi also noticed a live chicken under our seats about 8 hours into the journey (we had been wondering what was pecking at our feet…)

The next morning, we took a bus to Musoma, about three hours from Mwanza. It’s a sleepy fishing town, situated pleasantly on the shores of Lake Victoria and has a very laid-back vibe (granted, not uncommon in Tanzania). Huge, phenomenally ugly marabou storks dotted the trees and rubbish tips along the lakeshore. It’s a shame that you can’t really swim in Lake Victoria because of the risk posed by bilharzia-carrying snails. Picturesque it is though.

Traditional Leaders

We were in Musoma to help Grace to conduct training about child marriage and FGM. The first day’s training was for the religious, local and traditional leaders of Musoma Rural District. The aim was to provide the leaders, who have a lot of influence within their communities, with the knowledge and tools necessary to gather information about the practice of child marriage and FGM in their district, to educate others, and to help in the fight to end these practices.

When we arrived at the venue in the morning, a few of the leaders were already there (very unusual in my experience so far in Africa - you can often wait an hour or more for someone to turn up for a meeting with little or no excuse). I instantly warmed to a little old lady who had a face furrowed with wrinkles and a pair of sparkling, intelligent eyes.

First impressions can be deceiving though – when all the participants introduced themselves as part of a warm-up for the training session, I discovered that Esther (the little old lady) is an Ngariba. Ngaribas are the traditional birth attendants who deliver many babies in rural areas in Tanzania, where women cannot get to a hospital or simply prefer to give birth at home. Although they don’t have any conventional medical training, Ngaribas are also the ones who carry out FGM on young girls with razorblades or pangas (huge, rusty knives). The friendly face of FGM was a bit of an eye-opener, to say the least!

The training introduced the concept of children’s rights to the leaders, and also explored who is considered a child in Musoma. Not unexpectedly, the leaders explained that anyone who is not yet able to help with work on the shamba (family farm) is considered a child. Bear in mind that I have seen kids as young as 4 or 5 toiling with their parents in the fields. In addition, any girl who has not undergone FGM is still considered a child (FGM will generally take place at around the age of 12 in Musoma).

But it seems that things are changing, slowly. One village chiefu explained that he had always seen child marriage as a positive practice, having himself married a girl of 15 when he was 22. He was very happy as she was strong and bore him many children. But his daughters were also married before the age of 18, and now they are all divorced or separated from their husbands. This means that they have all returned to the chiefu’s home with their children, and are financially dependent once more on him and his wife. Needless to say, this is not the way the chiefu expected to live out his old age.

Another local leader told us that his daughter had become pregnant while still at school – without being married, which is generally considered shameful in Tanzania. But he and his wife had decided to help take care of the baby so that their daughter could finish school. She now has a good job and supports her younger sisters through their education.

On the other hand, I was a little shocked when one of the female traditional leaders said that she thought that pregnant girls should not be allowed back into school after having given birth – she said that they should be punished for their mistake. Tanzania has a policy that pregnant schoolgirls are allowed to go back to school (although much depends on the discretion of the headmaster), but if the girl is unmarried the shame often means that her family will not allow her to complete her education.

In the end, however, the leaders swore a declaration that they would each help to combat child marriage and FGM in Musoma Rural District. They were also given tracking sheets produced by CDF, which they will use to interview young women in the community about child marriage and FGM. This information will then go back to CDF, but will also hopefully help the religious, local and traditional leaders to assist girls if necessary.

Sister to Sister Club

The next two days, Grace was training the Musoma Sister to Sister Club, which was set up by CDF. It’s basically a network for girls who are at risk of child marriage (whether it be because they have undergone FGM or because of their family situation), and is set up so that they can support each other, sharing their experiences and ideas. CDF provides regular training to the Sister to Sister Club members in order to educate them about their rights and to empower them. The Sister to Sister Club also educates other schoolgirls about the risks of child marriage and FGM.

Still, even for the members of the Sister to Sister Club, child marriage remains a serious risk. Grace noticed immediately that one of the girls, Ruby, was missing. The club chairperson told us that she had heard about a week ago that Ruby had been sent to another village to be married. Ruby is just 14.

The members of the Sister to Sister Club were given a refresher course on children’s rights and then asked to consider three different styles of communication: passive, assertive and aggressive. After Grace characterised these different styles, she divided the girls into three groups and asked each group to come up with a role play demonstrating these types of communication. The role plays gave us a real insight into the concerns in these girls lives. Two of the role plays were about wives confronting their cheating husbands (passive and assertive), and one was about a young wife fighting with her family-in-law (aggressive).

The girls are also encouraged to share their stories in order to help one another. One girl named Anastasia told us about her life. She is an orphan aged 18, living with her aunt. When she was 14, her aunt could no longer afford to keep her in school, and Anastasia had to stay at home and work. She begged her aunt to send her back to school, but instead was sent to a relative’s home to work as a maid, with the promise that when she returned, she would be sent back to school. While Anastasia was working for the other family, she fell pregnant. She was sent back to her aunt, and eventually delivered a stillborn son. And despite the promise, Anastasia has still not been sent back to school. But she says the Sister to Sister Club keeps her strong, and that she still has not given up on her dream of completing her education.

On Day 2, Grace explored the different myths about sexual and reproductive health, asking the girls to tell us the different beliefs that exist in their community, especially about contraceptives and HIV/ AIDS. This basically turned into a massive Q&A session. The girls seemed especially concerned that the pill (which is available at little cost from pharmacies, and free from hospitals) increases the chances of having a disabled child. There is also a very dangerous, and persistent, belief that young girls who are virgins cannot be HIV positive and that having sex with a virgin will cure a man of AIDS.

Grace, who has been trained specifically on HIV/ AIDS issues, handled all of the many questions with aplomb, even explaining to the girls the correct way to use a condom. It was great to see, because this is information that is vital to these girls’ lives. Afterwards, Grace explained to me that although children are supposed to receive some sex education in school, more often than not, the teacher is too embarrassed to do it or just glosses over the issues. And young girls often don’t have anyone they can talk to about this, let alone ask questions of. Obviously, the girls in the Sister to Sister Club trust and look up to Grace. Hopefully, the information that she has provided them with will help them to protect themselves, and also to pass on correct information to other girls.

Before we wrapped up, the Sister to Sister Club members were also given copies of the tracking sheet, so that they can talk to their peers and monitor child marriage and FGM in their communities, and alert CDF to cases in which they might be able to help.

I left Musoma feeling pretty positive about the training we had done there, especially with the Sister to Sister Club. It’s going to take a long time to change traditions and beliefs, but it really seemed to me that the dialogue with the traditional leaders and the information provided to the girls might make a difference.

When Will I Be Famous?

When we were doing the first day of training with the religious, local and traditional leaders, a reporter from Channel 10 was also present, walking around the room and (slightly disconcertingly) filming close-ups of everyone. He called Grace a couple of days after we got back to Dar es Salaam, and told us that we were on the news! We all raced downstairs from CDF’s office, which is on the top floor of a small hospital, to the waiting room to watch it with the patients. They did a full 5-minute story about CDF’s work to combat child marriage and FGM, showing the all of the (horrific) close-ups of the traditional leaders, Grace and yours truly! Eek…

Life's a Beach

A few pictures of the beaches just to the south of Dar es Salaam














Superhighway














Cattle drive!

Do they know it’s Christmas time in Africa?

In Dar, yes. Let me explain: a week and a half ago, while visiting my local supermarket on my weekly shop for bottled water, candles (for the power outages), cereal and UHT milk I was shocked to be confronted by garish tinsel strung along the top of each aisle, paper cut-outs of Santa Claus and elves, and “Auld Lang Syne” and “Jingle Bells” being piped across the intercom. I actually stopped dead, then erupted into fits of hysterical giggling as I browsed the aisles, especially as I encountered a Christmas hamper-cum-nativity scene, stocked with produce as diverse as pilchards, mayonnaise and Ribena. So this is the result of globalisation…

Samaki Samaki

I thought I’d share with you all a picture of my daily lunch: walli samaki, or rice and fish. I’ve become a lot better at eating my grilled-to-a-crisp unidentifiable samaki with only my right hand then I was at first, but I still can’t stomach sucking out the eyes like my workmate Emmanuel does with gusto once in a while (mainly to scare me, admittedly). If I want to spice things up a bit, I go for ugali instead of walli, which is the maize polenta-like carb dish favoured by Tanzanians. It’s pretty much flavourless, so relies on some sauce or vegetable accompanying the dish, but fun in that it wobbles like jelly and can be sculpted into mad shapes if you’re inclined to play with your food. The picture below is from Kivukoni, Dar’s harbour-front fishmarket, stocked every day with grouper, barracuda, kingfish, tuna etc etc. These fellas are a bit bigger than what usually ends up on my plate!

Street Law

Last Saturday, I was sitting outside a café on one of Dar’s leafy streets, sipping at a well-deserved Coke after visiting the National Museum (which was as random as you might expect, exhibiting Julius Nyerere’s fleet of Rolls Royces and a stuffed manatee amongst other treasures). Suddenly, a man came pegging it down the road, followed by a woman with a baby on her back, waving an umbrella in the air and shouting “Mwizi, mwizi!”. Some alert passer-by managed to stick out a foot and trip up the man, who fell flat on his face. Within seconds, a crowd of about 15 people had encircled the man, and I clearly heard the sound of the guy who’d tripped the thief up give him a massive punch. The woman with the baby arrived breathlessly and started explaining to the mob (which had expanded exponentially by that time to about 40 people, of all types, from street kids, to the old baba who’d been having a cup of tea next to me, to ladies with real Louis Vuitton hand bags) what had happened – at least, that’s what I think, since it was all in Kiswahili of course. Anyway, in less than five minutes they’d all made the thief give the lady back whatever it was he stole in the first place, and everyone was on their way again - including the thief.

Jacko Halloween

Yes, they also have Halloween here! I know because I went to a normal bar on 31 October with a couple of friends, and it turned out to be a massive party, partly to celebrate Halloween, and partly in honour of Michael Jackson. The bar was trussed out in fake cobwebs, plastic skeletons, candelabras, giant spiders, and – somewhat bizarrely – what resembled giant jungle lianas. There’s always a twist in Africa! They screened the full 13-minute version of Thriller on a big screen, and when the music video got to the famous zombies-dancing-in-the-graveyard bit, about 10 ghoulish zombies emerged from the crowd along with a young Michael and performed the dance routine to perfection. Nice!

Tomorrow morning I'm off on a trip to Musoma, by Lake Victoria, for a week - more when I return!

Trip to Tarime

Hello again everyone! I’m back in Dar after my trip, which was absolutely fantastic. Well, apart from the 17-hour bus journey from Dar to Mwanza, Tanzania’s second city…

Some entrepreneur has obviously figured out that the more people are crammed onto a bus, the bigger the return on ticket sales. The aisles on the buses have been narrowed down to hip-bruising proportions, and 5 seats stuffed into one row (3 on one side of the aisle, 2 on the other). Obviously, on the way to Mwanza, I got the middle seat - next to a very friendly guy with unfeasibly wide shoulders. 5 hours into the journey I started to wonder how his mother actually managed to give birth to him – must have been by Caesarean. 7 hours in I was happily distracted by the start of a harrowing 2-hour ordeal on an unfinished section of road, during which the bus careened and bumped across the sandy path at top speed, at major risk of overturning. Every oncoming vehicle that passed sent up a huge cloud of red dust. 12 hours in I was about ready to jump out of the window as the driver put on the “Best of Westlife” CD for the third time in a row… By the time 17 hours had passed and we’d finally arrived in Mwanza, I was seriously considering never ever setting foot on a bus again!

But Mwanza is lovely – the climate by Lake Victoria is much cooler and less humid than in Dar, and the city itself is very pretty, perched on rocky outcrops by the side of the lake. However, as it is one of Africa’s fastest growing cities, growing by about 12% per year according to my (slightly outdated) guidebook, Lake Victoria has suffered: its fish stocks are overfished, and Mwanza discharges sewage directly into the lake as the city’s systems struggle to cope with the exploding population. Part of what makes Mwanza so picturesque, in fact, are the slums that have crept up the hillsides surrounding the lake, the rickety mud huts squeezed in between each other and the huge granite boulders that also dot the hills.

From Mwanza we travelled 4 hours by bus to Tarime, a town on the northern border with Kenya. This journey was slightly more bearable as part of it was spent crossing a corner of the Serengeti, complete with zebras and baboons to distract from the hard seats and rough road (and the Westlife… again…). We even got to cross over the swollen Mara river, which comes down from Kenya and sees the great annual migration of wildebeest across the Serengeti cross its shores, a fair few falling prey to the hungry crocs lying in wait.

Tarime is a relatively large market town, which heads up the district of the same name. There are actually some gold mines in Tarime district, which are operated by the Canadian mining company Barrick, but it was sadly evident that the locals don’t see much of the profit from the gold.

The main tribe in the area is the Kuriya, who are pastoral and traditionally practise both child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). The men are also notorious for their aggressiveness and short tempers – although in the time that we were there, we were met with nothing but kindness and hospitality. The fact remains that cattle are all-important, especially in marriage negotiations, where they are used to pay often an often hefty dowry or ‘bride-price’ to the girls’ family. Sadly, girls are not really viewed as a part of the family they were born into, as they will leave to join their husband’s family when they get married. The bride-price that is paid for girls is often necessary for the family’s sons to be able to marry. The harsh reality is that the young girls who are married off at a tender age rarely have any idea what married life will be like for them – essentially a life of servitude eking out an existence on the husband’s family farm and bearing children.

We were in Tarime to meet some of the girls who had been forced into child marriage, and to hear their stories. Four girls from the Girls’ Network, established by CDF as a way for former child wives to support each other, had agreed to meet us and answer our questions. What struck me most when I met Lucy, Restituta, Mgaya and Basilisa was how young they were – 17, 24, 18 and 14 respectively. But what they were about to tell me would shock me even more. It’s easy to sit in an office and read about the anonymous victims of child marriage, but actually meeting them and hearing them speak openly about their lives really brings the issues home. All of their lives had been filled with hardship, poverty and violations of their basic human rights. Yet they were all willing to hope that their society could change so that their children’s futures would be brighter than their own.

Mgaya was just 13 when she was forced by her parents to marry – they were incredibly poor and needed the bride-price of 1 cow and 1 goat that was offered for Mgaya. She had never met her husband before; one day she arrived home from school to find that she had been ‘married’ and her parents sent her off to live with her husband. Mgaya’s daily life on her husband’s farm was typical. She would rise at about 5am to go out to work the fields with her husband, then come home, clean the house and the cow-shed and do the cooking. Mgaya’s husband would beat her, and left her when she was just 3 months into her first pregnancy, at the age of 14. She ended up going home to her mother, as she just could not cope with caring for a child – she says she didn’t have a clue about motherhood. In the meantime, Mgaya’s parents had also separated, so when her husband demanded back the bride-price her mother could simply not afford to pay it back. Therefore, Mgaya is technically still married, which means that she cannot get married again (not that she wants to). Mgaya dreams of going back to school (she had to drop out when she was married) and becoming a teacher. She says she will educate her two sons to become good men who do not beat their wives.

Basilisa was also just 13 when she ran away with a man – but unlike Mgaya, she chose to do so. Basilisa blames the peer pressure that exists amongst girls in the Kuriya tribe to get married early. One day, on her way home from school, a 26-year old man offered her a lift in his car, and promised to buy her whatever she wanted if she got in. She ended up running away with him. But life with him did not turn out to be what she expected. Her mother had not yet taught her to cook, and he was so angry at this that he used to beat her. Basilisa had enough of the violence when she was 3 months pregnant (at just 13) and went home to her mother. She freely admits that she is still a child, unprepared for the responsibilities of motherhood and married life. When her baby was born, she used to forget to breast-feed her. Luckily Basilisa’s mother takes care of both her and her baby, and there is no bride-price to pay back.

All of the girls emphasised that education is the key to fighting practices such as child marriage and FGM, and to put an end to the violence against women. They particularly want more girls’ schools to be established in Tarime. At the moment, there is only one girls’ school, run by the Roman-Catholic church. The girls who attend this school do not undergo FGM because the Roman-Catholic sisters are against the practice. Also, those girls tend not to get married as early as other Kuriya girls. Even if they do not continue on to secondary school, they still do not get married straight away.

There is a general lack of schools in Tarime, even though primary school education is compulsory in Tanzania. Many children therefore make a long journey across the border into Kenya every day in order to go to school, as there are more schools there. In addition, although primary school education in theory is free for everyone Tanzania, there are some costs associated with it – for example, for uniforms and books – which in practice prevent many children from going to school, especially girls.

The next day, we drove about 30 minutes from Tarime to a village called Nyamwaga to meet Ghati, another victim of child marriage. Ghati is 18, and has 3 children by two different men. She was married off at 13 – her father had died and her uncle insisted she be married so that her bride-price could be used to settle the debts he was owed by her family. Ghati had never met her husband before, and basically entered a life of slavery, toiling on his parents’ farm and being beaten every day. One day her husband beat her so badly that she nearly lost an eye. After that, she went home to her mother. Ghati does not see her husband anymore, and he does not pay her any money to support their children. When we saw Ghati, she had just had another baby, Innocent (who was just 1 month old) with another man in the hopes that he might support her and her children, but she had not heard anything from him for several months and he has not yet met his son. Ghati’s situation is absolutely desperate – she makes a meagre living by selling bananas at the roadside but cannot even do this whilst Innocent is so young.

Nyamwaga itself is steeped in poverty, a cluster of mud huts with thatched roofs and dozens of children who should be in school running around. Although a major gold mine is located down the road, the Tanzanian government has given the concession to operate it to a Canadian company, who at best employ the locals for a pittance, and at worst displace families living around the mines without any compensation. The Kuriya do not do any goldsmithing or anything to add value to the gold that comes from the ground, and therefore do not see any of the massive profit that is later gained on it. At best, a few ‘artisanal’ (read: illegal) miners manage to sell a few lumps of the metal on the black market in Mwanza for a low price, risking the wrath of the mining company in the process.


On top of this, the Kuriya grow marijuana as a cash crop, and disputes between the different marijuana-producing areas often result in bloody clashes between different clans, with the villagers telling harrowing stories of neighbours killing neighbours in the night.

On the way back to Tarime from Nyamwaga, we drove past a long procession of people walking down the road. Rolling down the window, we asked what was going on – and it turned out to be a wedding. A bride was being escorted to her new husband’s house. She came up to the car to accept our congratulations, dressed in all her finery and her hair coiffed in an elaborate updo. From her facial expression, she might have been going to a funeral. She couldn’t have been more than 16.

Mambo from Tanzania!

Mambo from Tanzania - that’s hello/ how’s it going? I’ve been here for a week now (granted mainly holidaying in Zanzibar) and have just survived my first two days of work.

Day 1 got off to a rocky start as I managed to cram myself onto a daladala (minibus that shuttles around Dar es Salaam) going in the wrong direction and so ended up a bit late to work… and when I finally turned up, there was no power. The power here in Dar seems to be cut routinely, which the locals refer to as ‘rationing’ and take in their stride. Nevertheless it is pretty disruptive.

On a more positive note, people here in Tanzania are incredibly friendly, and I will often get a “Mambo!” from total strangers walking along the street. Of course I also get the occasional, taunting “Mzungu!” (white person) but that’s mainly from the kids. Taxi drivers tend to be either avid Arsenal or Chelsea fans, judging by the look of their air fresheners. I’ve already learnt to direct them to go ‘lefty’ or ‘righty’ when they need to make a turn, and to order ‘bready toasty’ in my nearby upscale hotel (with free WiFi, enabling me to post this blog) if I want toast.

I should mention that I am working here in Dar for 8 weeks with an NGO called the Children’s Dignity Forum (CDF). CDF works specifically to promote children’s rights in Tanzania, and particularly focuses on the issues of child marriage, gender violence and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Since there was no electricity, I got stuck into the background reading. I first read about FGM in Tanzania, which is particularly prevalent in the northwest of the country, including the regions of Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Mara. Traditionally, girls will undergo FGM before they are married (anywhere from the age of 12 – 18). However, the government introduced legislation in 1998 making it a criminal offence to cause a girl under the age of 18 to undergo FGM, in effect making the practice illegal. Worryingly, the report I read (from 2005) identified that some girls are therefore now undergoing FGM at a much earlier age (from 6 months to 7 years old) in order to avoid detection by the authorities (for example, at school).

FGM seems to be an ingrained part of society in these regions of Tanzania – so much so that some girls would prefer to undergo FGM than to risk not being accepted by their communities. This despite the fact that FGM carries with it some pretty serious physical and mental health risks, not least of which is extremely painful and difficult childbirth. In fact, it is so endemic that one of the leaders of Save the Children of Tarime (a town in the Mara region, on Lake Victoria near to the border with Kenya) held a big feast to celebrate a daughter who had just undergone FGM, whilst actually campaigning against the practice. This kind of double-standard is apparently not uncommon.

I also read a case study from some research carried out by CDF in Tarime, which really fleshed out the consequences of child marriage. It was a about a girl who was married off to an older man at the age of 14 (and who also underwent FGM shortly before her marriage).

Because she was too young to understand her marital responsibilities (which included the daily tasks of fetching the water, collecting firewood and cooking) and because she would often neglect them to play with other children in the village, her father-in-law demanded her bride price (Tsh 300,000 or roughly £150) back from her parents (who apparently refused). When the father-in-law came back from her parents’ village late at night, he ordered his son to tie up the legs and arms of the girl, and then took a knife and cut off the girls’ earlobe. He also cut off a portion of the other ear, and chopped off one of her fingers when she was attempting to defend herself against the attack. When he was done, the father-in-law took the body parts and fed them to the dog. The son and father-in-law then untied the girl and chased her away. She reached the relative safety of a neighbours’ house before fainting and waking up in hospital with the scars that will obviously be with her for the rest of her life.

One of the most desperate results of child marriage is that the girl often ends up being abandoned. When it becomes clear that she is not up to the tasks expected of her as a married woman, her family-in-law often try and return her to her family. But in doing so, they will demand the bride price back, which can be a substantial amount of money or cattle. When the girls’ family refuses to take her back into the family because they cannot afford to return the bride price, she will often end up abandoned by both her husband and her parents. To exacerbate the problem, some girls will end up having children with other men in the hope that they will support her, which is rarely the case.

It’s pretty grim stuff, but something that CDF is hoping to change, mainly through training girls on the rights violations that constitute child marriage and FGM, and establishing networks within the communities so that the girls can support each-other. CDF also deliver training to community and religious leaders on these issues. It looks like I’ll be travelling to Tarime towards the end of next week with Grace, a Tanzanian lawyer who works at CDF, to a Stand Up and Take Action event organised by Global Call for Action Against Poverty, in support of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). I’ve been asked to write a speech about the relationship between the MDGs and child marriage, which will then be translated into Kiswahili and given at the meeting (eek!). Hopefully I will also have the chance to meet some of the girls in the villages who are members of the child marriage support network.

I’ll be back with more when I’m back – and hopefully some pictures too (I’m having slight issues transferring pictures from my digital camera to the computer)!