Getting Aquatinted with the People of Mpeketoni

Isaac and I began conducting interviews in the community. As part of putting together an expansion plan for the Mpeketoni grid, we will be interviewing current customers regarding the way they use electricity.
The grid expansion plan will serve as a guiding document for connecting areas away from the center of Mpeketoni town. Most of the potential new customers will be residences, farmers, and a few large institutions like schools and churches. Rather than trying to estimate their future demand by asking them how they think they would use electricity if they had it, we will use interviews with people that have had electricity for a few years to predict the new customers future demand.
So far we’ve met with people from the Catholic Church, a few homes and farms close to town, and a few posho mill operators. Posho mills are small electricity or diesel powered mills for grinding corn into a very fine powder called posho. Posho is the basis for ugali – just boil some water, add the posho powder, stir it around for a bit, and violá you have ugali. Sounds pretty good, eh?
The interviews have been very comfortable and have gone quite smoothly. When you enter someone’s yard or approach the door you just yell out “Hodi!” to indicate that you are approaching their home. When they open the door or come to greet you they respond with “Karibu” meaning welcome.
Interviews with the priest and his assistant at the Catholic Church along with one of the small farmer/residences on the outskirts of town have been the most fun. The farmer/residence was a former employee of the GTZ development effort in Mpeketoni who still does some consultancy work with them in Sudan. He told us many stories about GTZ and the history of Mpeketoni and the surrounding settlements along with a short rant about how poorly he feels the electricity project is currently being managed. All that was said before we even started with our questions. We spent close to two hours at his house.
At the church we were invited to have tea with the priest and his assistant. After we finished our questions about the way electricity is used at the church, they responded with their own round of questions about what we were up to. Needles to say, the interview ate up another two hours. The priest and his assistant were quite fun to talk to and managed to convince Isaac and me to attend the church service the next day.
The service was similar to other Catholic services that I’ve attended in the past, apart from being in Swahili. But there were a few things that really stuck out as being different. The most obvious was the singing and music. The priest and the choir gathered outside the front of the church at the beginning of the service. As they proceeded into the center of the church the choir sang stunningly beautiful music accompanied by small hand held percussion instruments. It all sounded much more like what you would expect in a traditional African village rather than a Catholic church. Throughout the service the choir led us in many songs with that same sort of beat and flavor. What a way to lift the spirit!
Isaac ran a bit late to the service so we didn’t manage to meet up before I found a place to sit. Being a visitor in a new place and feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb, I decided to sit quite discretely in the far back corner. The church was packed with people – quite possibly about 500 attendees. For the most part I was able to keep track of what was going on during the service even though it was all in Swahili. However about two hours into the three hour long service, various people came to the front microphone to make announcements. I wasn’t keeping up with any of it so I zoned out for a bit. I did recognize one of the people that stood at the microphone as being someone that Paul Mutinda had introduced me to a few days back, Eugene. After Eugene talked for about ten minutes, a few of the people sitting around me began to look at me and sort of nod toward the front of the church. As I sat there confused one person leaned over and said, “He’s calling you to the front”. Gasp.
So there I was walking up to the middle of the church in front of 500 people not sure what he wanted. I’m sure Eugene understood the look of terror and confusion on my face because when I got to the front he just said: “The power just went off so the mic isn’t working, you’ll have to speak loudly. Just tell them your name and where you are coming from”. I turned around to face the crowd.

“Jambo”, I softly stuttered.

“JAMBO!” the 500 faces instantly replied back.

I quickly rattled off my name and a very short description of what I’ll be doing with MEP. I made sure to let them all know how hospitable every one has been and to thank them for hosting me in the community. Eugene followed by translating what I had said into Swahili. He then looked at me and asked if there was anything else I would like to add. I looked around and peeped back to him, “Nope”. I added a quick “Asante sana (Thank you very much)” as they clapped and I snuck back to my seat. So much for trying to be discrete!

Isaac met up with me after the church service and invited me to come along with him to the shambani (rural areas). He lives on a ten acre plot with his the middle brother, Paul, but he has half of a ten acre plot the other direction from town that he shares with the oldest brother, Jeff. Isaac wanted to go out to his five acres to see how things had gone with the harvest of corn that he had planted on the five acres. Jeff showed us some of the crops he has been growing and picked a bunch of fresh green peppers and tomatoes for me to take back to the Havanna Guest House. Isaac then took me on a grand tour of the plot to show me where he hopes to build a house for his family near Jeff’s house. He also showed me some of the Mango and cashew nut trees that his parents had planted on the plot nearly 30 years ago. Isaac’s future house site has a great view across the cornfields to the west right where the sun sets.
Before we left, they made sure I was filled up on rice and chicken. They had used the last toothpick while cooking the chicken, so after dinner Isaac sent one of the kids to fetch us a particular type of tree branch that makes a fine substitute for a toothpick. It is also the same plant that can be used to fight off a bout of malaria according to Isaac.
On the way to Jeff’s house we used Isaac’s bike and one of the MEP technician bikes. While we were there though, the MEP technicians needed the bike and Isaac sent one of the kids to take it to town. So after dinner, when it was already almost pitch black, except for the stars, I rode back on the back of Isaac’s bike. Most bike riders, including Isaac, don’t have headlights for the bikes. Along the way we would be a bit surprised as an oncoming biker would weave around our bike, leaving but a few feet to spare. Fortunately, most of the bikes are so beat up that you can’t get going very fast and even a head on collision between bikers wouldn’t cause more than some scratches. Isaac assured me anyway that bike crashes are rare even given the lack of headlights. I’m just glad there aren’t any cars around here.