My Journey.

I travelled to Ughandi B village Tanzania in September 2003 a drought year. Most of the villagers were unsure of me because I was the first white person they’d seen, my every move was followed with fear and excitement. I was visiting the Ng’eni family whose son Abraham I’d met in 2002 when he was in the UK on a Christian youth worker course. Abraham invited me to travel back to Tanzania with him when his course was finished. I was overwhelmed by the greeting from his family when we reached Dar es Salaam airport, his mother came from the village to meet us.

Ughandi B lies in Singida Region Central Tanzania, it has no modern conveniences like electricity, water or flushable toilets. Journeying to the village was quite an adventure mainly because of road conditions and buses driven by maniacs. The final 15-20 miles we had to hire a vehicle with driver. Although we set off from Singida town the main town of that region early in the day, we broke down twice and ended up spending hours in sweltering heat changing wheels and finding bolts to fix our vehicle. Most of our journey was spent in ruts driving at a 45% angle trying to avoid protruding rocks and large trucks which sent out huge plumes of dust as they passed.

The last few miles we drove across open land until we reached Ughandi B and the Ng’eni family home. Many villagers had heard of my coming and were there to meet me. They looked on me as some kind of saviour and treated me like a VIP. The elders squeezed inside the small farm house and although they couldn’t understand my language they didn’t want to miss a thing, they watched intently as I drank their boiled tea.

Every move I made sent the village children running away from the door where they felt safe to observe me.

Abraham's father then gave me a brief tour of his land and I was able to see where the maize and other crops had failed that year leaving villagers starving.