While back me and my friend Hamza Matete decided to take a
little ride out of town. We went to this village called Nyali, it’s about 22
kilometers from Magomeni Kilosa. The rest of the road heads all the way to
Mikumi national park. Hamza’s father lives at Nyali, he has a farm and there were other relatives of his he
wanted to say hi to. So I decided to tag along, we rented a motorcycle and
start our journey at evening. It took us about 50-60minutes to reach there. The
place was nice, Agriculture is a basic activity of this village. Most of people
in Nyali are farmers and some do small business like owning small shops or
genges were they sell important goods like sugar, cooking oil, salt etc..
HOUSE HOLDS
Most houses are built
by mud, or mud and bricks (matofali
in swahili), the mud houses are nice and very traditional. They are
built by mud and tree woods, the tree woods are like pillars used to support
the house from falling, it’s like a human body! the skeleton is inside and skin
outside except the house doesn’t move. No need for foundation. The roof is the
last thing to be put on top of the house (It’s
sometime made up of grass, long grass, coconut tree branches or even iron sheet).
Most of these houses usually have two or three bedrooms, one room on each side
and a sitting room in middle. There is no floor and the windows are very small (note that other houses are built by only mud
without tree woods).
I lived in one for couple of years back, trust
me, there is no heat inside on summer seasons.
ELECTRICITY
& MEDICAL CARE
There is no electricity
on this village, so people use candles and chimney as a source of light at
night. Some people who are rich use generator and solar powers, they charge
others to charge their mobile phones and batteries. There is no hospital
either, people are required to walk to a near village called Zombo for medical
treatment at the dispensary. Most villages in kilosa depends on Mlimani
district hospital.
EDUCATION
There is only one primary school, Nyali primary school. students who pass their standard seven exams
are taken to start their secondary education At Zombo secondary School which is
in a village nearby.students walk long length to reach their schools. which makes it hard for some of them to reach there on time and sometimes miss few classes and some dont go there at all. (kids on picture are going back to school after school hours to play football)
MEANS OF TRANSPORT
Nyali village is in the
middle of kilosa and mikumi, people who travel long distance use bus or
motorcycle. Some who go short distance usually use bicycle or walk on foot,
example to near villages like Miyombo,
Zombo, Ulaya, Chimbwi etc.
FUN
Most Villagers have fun after
they come back from work, they go to local clubs (kilabuni in Swahili) and
drink traditional alcohol mbege, mnazi, gongo(
but gongo is illegal in Tanzania) some who can afford drinking beer such as Safari lager. Young people also have
time for having their own fun too, most of them play football, watch movies on
local theatres, swim on rivers and dancing on weekends days or on special
holidays (most of these dancing are called vi-go-do-ro, sand dust
everywere u don’t need a white shirt when this happens).(kids are playing football)
Hamza fixing a motocyle
hamzas aunt preparing futari for dinner
one of hamza's cousin
