The Stove Piper

As if playing the stove missionary in Chinangali 2 weren’t desperate enough, a couple of days later I transform into the Pipe Piper of Chinangali 1. Another frustrating start to a stove demonstration. This time we’re sure to have contacted the monitor, Noah, but he’s been too busy to tell people about today’s event. “I did arrange for a venue though!” he says proudly and leads us to an empty house. Again, CCM campaigning. Not even the owner is around but there are dozens of little pairs of eyes watching us from around the neighbourhood. School is over for the day. After a forty minute sluggish discussion in Chigogo between Justin and Noah about what to do, Noah sets out to gather some adults he thinks may be interested. I decide to escape the sun for a while and wait in the car for people to appear.

An hour passes and I’m glad to have brought some rice and veg in my Tupperware. As I munch and rehydrate in the shaded backseat I begin to notice giggles and “hawaryoos” shyly aimed in my direction. The little pairs of eyes have multiplied and are fixed on me. The windows are closed and I close my own eyes for a while in an attempt to wish I could become invisible and sleep for a while. The “hawaryoos” become louder and more frequent and naughty laughter begins to annoy me.

As I try to justify to myself why I feel irritable I realize there really is no good reason. I begin to think about what these children might be feeling instead. They’re not at school and are bored and yes, probably hungry too. But they’re laughing and hanging out together and full of life and curiosity. I begin think of Thomas’ stories from St Ignatius Primary School where he teaches maths. His biggest challenge is getting the pupils to be quiet and pay attention because he doesn’t use a cane like all his colleagues do and recommend. And here is a large group of kids with their eyes fixed on me, intently watching every move I make and ready to listen to anything I might say. “A perfect opportunity to be useful”, I tell myself as I roll down the car window.

“Bukweni!” I say. “Bukwa” they reply in choral unison. After introducing myself I start asking the name and age of my audience. There are at least forty children ranging in age from 6 to 13. I remember there’s a world map in the front page of our diary and give an impromptu geography lesson, explaining where I come from and asking if anyone can point out different continents on the map. They gaze at the map and for a few minutes struggle to locate even Africa amidst the other continents. I’m relieved when they are able to point at Tanzania, however, in a close-up map of Africa I find at the back of the diary. I’m reminded of my teaching experience in India last year and start getting into engaging with these thirsty growing minds. So I move onto English, and begin to learn Kiswahili human anatomy vocabulary, teaching them the English words in exchange.


I get out of the car and go the next step: the hokey POKEY!!! Yes. The hokey pokey indeed. The crowd has kept growing and I notice a group of mothers forming an outer shell to our circle. We sing and dance and laugh. Until the village drunkard breaks in. He’s persistent and forceful and is adamant to spoil the fun. But what really surprises me is people’s reaction to his behaviour. None of the mothers or grandmothers wants to step in and ask him to leave. It’s Anna, who is 13 year-old who takes him by the arm and with a smile on her face tries to pull him away. She’s pushed over and no one does anything about it. He continues to be a pain and it’s only after a good 10 minutes that Noah, who has finally returned with a few stove spectators, successfully tells the drunkard to get lost.



The children's curiosity is unquenchable and I wonder if being present at the stove demo is more important/ fun than continuing to play with them. Why not do both? I ask myself. And so I ask the kids if they’d like to see a really cool stove... Justin laughs and takes out his camera as he sees me approach the house with forty odd youngsters around me. After getting the kids into a line, I lead them one by one into the house where the ugali is cooking to greet Levina and take a look at the stove. There are now at least a dozen women outside the house asking Justin questions about the stove. “Is it true that snakes can come in through the chimney?”, “Why is it faster to cook with a traditional 3 stove fire?”, “How much firewood does it use?”, “Why can’t you use charcoal in it?”, “How can they be fixed during the rainy season?”... and so on.

Levina gets into the spirit too and uses her wonderful charisma to lead a lesson the way she does in our school trainings at Matumbulu Primary School. She talks to the children and answers questions. In the absence of a blackboard we use a branch to draw the usual illustrations on the sand and during a classic advert break hand out our fliers and ask the kids to give them to their parents. When the food is ready, the lady who is leading the cooking divides the ugali into three large and even portions: one to be shared by the dozen women attending the demo; one for the forty odd kids; and one for the only 3 men at the gathering.

The Chinangali missionary

We arrive at a village on morning with a bagful of veg and a sack of ugali flour. The landscape is as quiet as can be in the run up to elections. The village today is Chinangali 2. It’s closer to the main road than other villages and there are more cement houses propping up from the pale, dusty-dry landscape than tembes (traditional village homes). Villagers who work in the fields are not around. Those left behind are mainly children, aimlessly hanging about, and women who are busy drying their crops on the roof or grinding their mboga. The only men in sight are over the age of 50, and sadly, drunk. Or on their way there.



We are looking for the stove monitor. After a half hour wait we suspect she must have gone campaigning. CCM are giving out free yellow and green kangas and other merchandize to those who help campaign for them. Levina and I are leaning on the car’s door. We’re feeling a bit slow and tired after some last minute vehicle set-backs and a long drive in hot, dry climate.
- “Did she know we were coming?”I ask, starting to regret not checking myself if we’d made these arrangements before setting out.
- “I don’t know”
- “Oh no..., can you call her now to make sure? We can wait by the chairman’s office”
- “But I don’t have her number” says Levina lethargically.
- “Do you have another builder’s number?”
- “No...” Pause. “Wait...”
Levina goes off to a nearby banda, then comes back. “Yes she’s gone campaigning to Chamwino, and she doesn’t have a mobile phone”.

Right. We’ve hired a car for three times the price we’d normally pay for fuel plus have got all the ingredients for today’s stove demo! There’s no way our treasurer will understand if we cancel this one and we don’t have any upcoming free days to reschedule it. But luck is looking out for us. Joyci, the monitor, turns up out of nowhere. We catch sight of her and run towards her to ask her if she’s managed to gather the villagers wanting to learn about the stove benefits. We normally require at least 10 to be present at each stove demo to make it worth the effort. But Joyci has no one. “It’s election time soon”, she mumbles. The familiar excuse for any lack of progress, everywhere around Dodoma for the past 3 months. Villages come to a standstill as any form of gathering is prohibited for fear it becomes political. But the universities too are affected. They have been closed for 2 months longer than usual “to allow students to vote in their home towns”. Though it is widely believed it is a CCM tactic to dilute the student vote, largely in favour of CCMs opposition party, and to repress any form of manifestation. Incubating healthy opposition surely cannot be in CCM’s long term interest...

We convince Joyci to stick around for a few more hours and help us gather people for the stove demo, though this is a long shot considering there’s not many free people around. The chairman is welcoming and offers us his own home for carrying out the demo. I scratch my brain thinking of a way to gather a few viewers. Oh no. Door to door sales... It’s the only way gather people fast. Justin and Levina have already claimed the two stools outside the home and Levina is busy talking to the neighbour who will potentially stick around to watch the demo. I find myself searching for people who may be looking at us. We stand out as outsiders in our yellow T-shirts and despite my efforts to improve in Kiswahili, my physical appearance is still a give away ;) But there’s no one around. Where are the starers when you need them? I catch a glimpse of two women approaching far away with heavy water buckets on their heads. Perhaps they’re too tired and busy. I greet the men festering in the sogam-based local brew in an attempt to ignite the village elders’ interest and snowball the curiosity from there. Bad idea. They turn loud and get excited about there being external attention. But their tone is disrespectful and I quickly get out of their smelly circle.

And so my career in door to door marketing begins in a village near Dodoma. I wave and call out in broken grammar and limited vocabulary, skimming the horizon for any onlooker. “STT is carrying out a wonderful demonstration of how the rocket stove works”, “Those who come can enjoy the meal that you can see being cooked!”, I grin. “Have you heard of the rocket stove?”, “Don’t you know that the 3 stone fire will get you nowhere?”, in true Jehovah’s Witness style. “Rocket stoves are splendid for your health, for saving firewood....think of the wonders you could be doing instead of fetching wood or cooking for hours!”, a pushy development line. And then my last resort: “Free food!!!”.

Dodoma Life

One Saturday morning I open the curtains and notice the bougainvillea, severed by the gardener only a few months ago, is growing back beautifully. Coming back to dormant Dodoma after a short and intense visit home for 3 weddings and much love and bustle, has its challenges. I return to a house covered in a thick layer of black, moist dust. My gecko roommate comes out to greet me. It now has two extra little ones. “At least there were no break-ins!” I joke with myself.

Whilst being away the team has coped extremely well. The one-to-one trainings we introduced for the rest of the staff, together with a more efficient division of labour and a prolonged dosage of morale boost have began to flower and I find my colleagues, whom I am supposed to be supervising, are truly self-sufficient. With initiative and responsibility flourishing among the team members at this rate I begin to seriously consider whether Sunseed’s long-term future requires a two project development officer management structure at all.

To my surprise the social life in Dodoma starts to pick up. Dutch VSO friends, Renee, Lars and Walter, are still here as are the Italians, Malaika and Francesco, from the Italian Cooperation initiative. Then some lovely volunteers for the Jesuit mission, Jana and Thomas, arrive from Germany, and two nice girls my age, Kate from Canada and Maja from Switzerland (with whom I studied in the same department and year at LSE but had never met!).

I had brought a personal laptop this time round to fill in the many hours I anticipated I’d be spending alone at home but sadly it breaks a few days after I return. Ironically, time starts to fly anyway. I go on a bit more church hopping, with my colleagues Gideon whom I watch lead the vibrant choir at the Lutheran Church, and Levina to 6 am mass at the sparkling mosaic lined “Loman” (Catholic) Cathedral. Both two hour services, notices taking up at least 45 minutes of that time!

Besides the little kitten Malaika leaves in my care when she returns to Rome, there is now more company for all sorts of activities; climbing Simba Rock at sunset, taking my first dala dala into town, exploring new vegetable markets, visiting the Cheshire Home for disabled children, the kids at the HIV orphanage, and going for live music at Royal Village, driving to Hombolo lake for a picnic, and even attempting to line-dance Bongo Flavour at Club 84! Sunday afternoons by the pool become more frequent and a series of small dinner parties keeps my evenings occupied. But I start to wonder if this leisurely lifestyle is really a reason to remain working in a place that in truth does not need me.

Nane Nane

Banana wine tastes like fizzy vinegar. Rosella beer can be home brewed. Cashew nuts come from hand-sized heart-shaped orange-coloured fruit which can be used to make jam (see photo). They are so expensive because of the huge amount of manual labour involved in cracking their two shells. Monsanto is carrying out “suicide” crop trials in the Dodoma region. The rice crops may be genetically modified to cope with drought, but the seeds are patented and called “suicide” seeds because they do not reproduce themselves, forcing farmers to continuously purchase stocks. Besides this the farming techniques required for these crops will create dependence on imported farming machinery. The Bill Gates Foundation and Tanzanian’s government may well back the idea but will the local farmers a few years down the line?

These are some of the interesting facts I learn at this year’s Agricultural Fair, Nane Nane, on the 8th of August. Hundreds of stalls where government organizations and NGOs exhibit their agricultural initiatives across Tanzania, there is plenty of food, live music and dancing and a speech from the man himself: President Kikwete. Farmers roam about with their machetes, similar to the WFP donations to Rwanda in the 1990s. Regular citizens come to shop and watch the sleepy caged zoo animals. I meet a group of western American missionaries called the Cowboys for Christ who are introducing plastic containers for grain in the Kondoa region. Nick chuckles when he hears me complement a man on his ‘costume’, especially his cowboy hat and pointy heeled boots. “Oh, this is no costume sweetheart!” he replies adjusting his huge shiny belt and leather cuffs. (Gulp).