Solar powered laboratory at Kiabakari

I have brought a family member to the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Health Center at Kiabakari today.

The power blackout at Butiama means that clinical tests cannot be performed at the Butiama HospitaL.

The laboratory of the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Health Center uses solar power. It is indisputable that a little sunshine can make a lot of difference to our nation's health.

Egumba traditional dancers perform at Butiama

The Egumba Ngoma Group peforms at Butiama regularly.

On this occasion it performed for visitors from Scotland, France, and Canada. And from Butiama! When the show begins, residents of Butiama are also drawn to watch the action.

Posts related to this one:
http://madarakanyerere.blogspot.com/2012/03/egumba-dance-group-in-action.html
http://madarakanyerere.blogspot.com/2009/01/visitors-to-butiama.html

Chausiku Suleiman's unending pregnancies

I recently was in Arusha and visited a woman called Chausiku Suleiman who lives at Maji ya Chai, on the road to Moshi, near Tengeru. She has a strange story to tell: She continuously conceives and becomes pregnant each time she gives birth - without copulation.

She is 47 and has given birth to 16 children within a span of 30 years. She is married and the problems began after her fifth pregnancy. Three weeks after giving birth she sensed she had become pregnant again. Her current pregnancy is said to be more than three years old.

Chausiku Suleiman with some her children at Maji Chai near Arusha.

When I asked whether she has sought medical advice on her condition, she said doctors have been unable to diagnose her condition and have told her they cannot detect a foetus in her womb. 

She suggested that they sense she is imagining a problem that does not exist.

Mt. Kilimanjaro as seen from Longido

In late February at around six in the morning, while on a study tour of the Cultural Tourism Enterprise at Longido near the Kenyan border, I woke up and looked through the window and saw a silhouette of a mountain against the rising sun. Having taken an interest in mountains and mountaineering in recent years since I first climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2008 I took out my camera and as I held it up against the window of my guest house bedroom two children who were walking with pails on their way to fetch water, a boy and a girl, came into view on my viewfinder and the boy shouted at me saying, “That’s a very bad habit.”



Mt. Kilimanjaro as seen from Longido.

I did not respond, but angrily waved him to rush out of my camera’s sight and took this photo. It was only after I observed the photo days later did I realize I had a photo of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I had never observed the mountain from the western side as far west as Longido.

Visitors to Butiama: Dr. Thomas Molony

Dr. Thomas Molony, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of African Studies of the University of Edinburgh, is staying at Butiama for most of the month of July writing a book on Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922 – 1999), Tanzania’s founding president.



Dr. Thomas Molony

His biography on Mwalimu will cover the period between 1922 – 1952, when Mwalimu graduated from the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Molony has conducted research in Tanzania and the United Kingdom for some time and this is his second visit to Butiama. He aims to have the book published before the end of the year, in time for the 50^th anniversary of Tanzania’s independence on 9^th December.