Motivated by the hardships she faced in the late eighties/early nineties bringing up her own disabled child, Mama Bakhita managed to mobilise fellow parents with mentally disabled children thereby founding Amani Centre in 1992. Since then, their goal has been to provide health care and education services to children with mental disabilities and to carry out community based rehabilitation through home visits and counselling. Thus, the Centre helped to raise public awareness for the rights and needs of disabled children. Up to now, 1.300 children have benefited from the Centre’s programmes, buildings have been constructed for training sessions and offices and farming grounds have been bought in order to offer both an income and jobs for older disabled persons.

We were quite impressed by what Mama Bakhita has put in place for the last thirteen years by mobilising communities and non-governmental organisations. Besides living at the Centre in Morogoro, we also got to see the farm and the grounds of the future training centre for community workers about 75km north of Morogoro. The original plan was to further visit two families of disabled children together with community workers. A funeral of an important servant who had worked in the secretariat of the ruling party distracted the plan. As one of the village’s influentials it was inappropriate for Mama Bakhita to do something else whilst a funeral took place. Hence, she attended the funeral and we had a short picnic with some youth. After this the youth went to quickly pick up Mama Bakhita and we were asked to wait at her auntie’s banda being entertained with lunch. Two hours later the others got back and we had learned another lesson of hakuna matata. 

Back at the training centre we got to see another one of the projects, which Mama Bakhita has initiated: a day care centre for elders. Arriving there we were warmly greeted with cheerful singing by the group of elders. Under a large tree a ceremony awaited us. We were seated in the middle of a row of chairs, the chairman of the group to our left, Mama Bakhita and the group’s secretary to our right. In front of us we had an altar-like bench on it a box and a visitors’ book. The rest of the people gathered in a half circle around us. The master of ceremony welcomed us and introduced us to the day care centre for elders and the group’s activities. Thereafter we introduced ourselves, Mama Bakhita translating. The group meets twice per week exchanging their views, discussing their problems and helping each other in times of need. A person has to turn 60 before he/she is regarded as elderly and can join the group. During the ceremony, Mama Bakhita handed over crutches that had been presented to a community worker who attended a workshop in Norway and three bags of clothes donated by an Asian women’s group in Morogoro. According to Mama Bakhita’s translation it is a custom within the group to make donations in the cardboard box in order to pay for next Saturday’s breakfast and lunch. The donation giving process was accompanied by singing. Thereafter, the box was opened and the money ceremonially counted and recounted aloud after everybody who wanted to (or was supposed to?) had donated. We shook a lot of hands before returning to Morogoro. Yet before reaching Amani Centre, we experienced our first African car breakdown. Actually a very unspectacular overheated engine…

We spent one day hiking in the Uluguru Mountains, which surround Morogoro. A steep path, which must be extremely difficult to climb during the rainy season lead us up to Morningside, a former German weekend retreat built in 1911. On the way up we met many women carrying heavy baskets filled with crops from their fields on their heads down to the market in Morogoro. On the way down we met many more now returning from town with sugar, flour and wood. We sweated much, especially on the way up, and had a hard time imagining that some people walked/climbed this as a daily routine. From Morningside, which still looks remarkably intact after so many years, we had a nice view over Morogoro and the Uluguru Mountains although often distracted by clouds.

From Morogoro to Mbeya
Although the German government and others have again released a security warning for Tanzania, we are not scared of terrorist attacks. The bus rides, however, can be quite terrifying at times. Despite the fact that we have chosen to travel with the safest company with the newest vehicles and most sane drivers (according to our guidebook) safety is not really an issue but getting to a place as fast as possible is. Therefore, on what we would regard as a scenic route through mountainous terrain (In this particular case the TANZAM highway crossing through the Udzungwa Mountains in southern Tanzania.), bus drivers try everything to go at full speed. Fortunately, we have only seen one capsized bus so far and we will try to keep it that way.

An eight hour bus ride brought us to Mbeya where we were again welcomed by many touts trying to get us into the place that pays the highest commission to them or to sell bus tickets to us. One of them stuck to our little group of three wazungu (foreigners), Frank, a Dutch chap, also heading down to Johannesburg but with a few more days to spend before he has to catch a flight home and the two of us. The first three guest houses were full, the fourth didn’t have any mosquito nets and the ceilings were too high to put up our own, the fifth was full and by that time we were so desperate to find a place as we had been walking with our backpacks on through the dark streets of Mbeya even being greeted with “Welcome, HIV” that we accepted rooms in the Mbeya Peak Hotel, a rather expensive option. It was especially amusing that our tout repeatedly uttered that he was accompanying us because he didn’t want wazungu to suffer…

The hot shower with full water pressure as well as the good mattress made us happy again. The dinner around the corner for one twelfth of the room price also eased the financial burden. 

First African border crossing on foot
Monday turned out to be the daladala day. Starting in Mbeya we hopped on to one that brought us to the Tanzanian-Malawian border where we gladly stretched our legs walking from one border post to the other. The paperwork was no problem at all and we happily received a few more stamps in our passports. The border itself is the river Songea where people were washing their clothes on both sides. No guards, weapons or anything in sight. Just when we passed the final fencing, a minibus was about to turn and leave for Karonga. Squeezing in with five more wazungu and several other passengers, we jetted along excellent Malawian roads the only break being the change over to another minibus taking us on to Mzuzu. As most of us wazungu lacked Malawian Kwacha, a plan was made to quickly stop at a local bank and then head on. The minibus driver will never repeat this offer as two Dutch girls as well as two Italians tried to get money on their Visa cards. Concerning this undertaking, Frank’s guidebook suggests to drop your credit card early in the morning and pick up the money late in the afternoon. We had plenty of time to enjoy the roadside barbeque, excellent grilled bananas and spicy (!) nyama choma and get to know the other Tanzanian/Malawian passengers. Hakuna matata!

The rest of the bus ride to Mzuzu went smoothly although our legs are just too long for these Toyota Hiaces. Everything hurt when we finally reached Mzuzu around 5 pm only to board another minibus right away to Nkhata Bay at Lake Malawi. The free tout-pickup service to Mayoka Village where we wanted to stay anyway came in handy after covering about 600km in crowded minibuses ;) This hippie establishment with a Caribbean feel provided us with a bungalow/hut including lake view from our bed and plenty of pasta/fish for dinner. Anyone interested in cheap diving courses (open water for around $150) this is your place. We were a bit too afraid of bilharzia that does exist in Lake Malawi although the locals were saying that this part of the lake is not affected. After a relaxing full day of lazing around, doing our laundry and canoeing in dugout boats watching the Mozambican mountain ranges in the distance and pretty fish beneath us, we again boarded minibuses via Mzuzu to Lilongwe. So far, the ride from Mzuzu to Lilongwe has been the most painful by far: 20 people and luggage cramped in four rows behind the driver. It is amazing what joints, muscles and flesh can take!

Lilongwe and then
From what we have seen and read so far about Malawi, the choice of goods on markets is more limited and people’s clothing is less colourful and less varied compared with Tanzania. The country is obviously poorer. This is also reflected in the country’s capital where the city centre doesn’t really feel like one and where we were advised to stay out of certain areas even during daytime. We tried to take in that advice and after eating dinner in town yesterday evening, we asked the restaurant staff to organise a cab for us. A chap had presented himself to us as the organiser of the cab asking for 50 kwachas for the provided service. He immediately purchased a cone of soft-ice from around the corner… The first car that showed up turned out to be a private vehicle with a flat battery and thus couldn’t restart. The second ‘cab’ driver tripled the price and wanted his friend to come along. After some negotiations and waiting around, we boarded that car without his friend for double the original price. On the way we discovered that the car didn’t feature headlights nor did the driver know where he was going. Arriving at the guesthouse, he was probably more scared of us than we were of him. Nonetheless, the Malawian people seem to be very open to foreigners and children get less excited about the wazungu.

From here we will head on to Mount Mulanje in the south of Malawi for some hiking only to return to Lilongwe next Monday to catch a flight down to Jo’burg. More minibuses!