Mlandege

Today we were at Mlandege.  Mlandege is located on the southwest corner of Iringa.  It is a short ten minute trip from our location over to the church.  Peter was at our apartment a little early but Margaret hadn't arrived yet so we decided to drive up the hill to the bus stop to wait for her there.  The bus stop is right next to an ATM machine – so, having trouble sitting still, Tom decided to get some cash while we waited.  When he got back into the car he tried turning the key to get it started but nothing happened. After several tries we realized that the car was not going to start.  He tried to roll it down the hill and pop the clutch to start it up – but the hill was not quite steep enough.  It was our good fortune that two men came along to help.  One of them jumped in behind the wheel and with Tom, Peter and the second man pushing the vehicle, it moved fast enough that when the man at the wheel popped the clutch it started!  Margaret had arrived during all the commotion so we headed off to Mlandege.

Our long time friend Mangolesa is the pastor at Mlandege.  He was the district pastor at Ihemi the first few times that we visited there.  When we arrived at the church we saw someone running over to greet us – it was Mercy, Itiweni’s daughter.  She came along today to see her mother in action.  She showed us to the pastor’s office where Itiweni and Pastor Mangolisa were talking.  Mangolisa told us that he will be missing the meeting due to a funeral so we had a brief visit about his congregation and how a SACCOS could benefit the members.  He told us that their church has several small groups that are working on savings and credit.  There are groups for the choir, the women, the men, and the office workers..... in all there are six groups who are thinking they should come together and form a SACCOS.  

Pastor Mangolisa tells us he has heard about the wonderful things happening at Ihemi with their SACCOS.  He also says that even though they are in town, there is still a problem for most of the members who are in business.  There are some SACCOS around – but they are mainly private and people have had bad experiences going there.  What types of problems?  Many of them go bad and everyone loses their savings.  Those that do not go bad either charge very high rates (10%/month or more) or tend to only give loans to family members.  The congregation here does not feel they have a good place to go.

We went into the church and started the meeting.  There were 44 people who attended the meeting.  Mongolisa told us that there are 150 people in the groups and that they are all interested in forming a SACCOS.  The people here have been selected to represent all of the interested groups. 

Today was the first day for Margaret to conduct a class and she did a good job.  People started asking questions.  “What is the difference between savings and shares?”  “You say all of the members buy the same shares, can we do different savings?”and so on.  They are all very good questions.

When all of the questions had been answered a pastor in the group thanked us for our help then asked the group if they wanted to proceed with forming a SACCOS.  Everyone said “Yes.”  So we left and they started working on selecting leaders and collecting membership fees.  They plan to send their leaders to our training session in two weeks. 

We went over to the lounge area of the church to have chai and were joined by Mama Mangolisa.  She was sick much of last year but is now greatly improved and is almost back to her old self.  She tells us about what her children have been doing and how things are going for them here.  She said that she misses Ihemi because they had a good experience there. 

When it was time to leave, once again the vehicle wouldn't start.  In anticipation of this, Tom had parked so that it would be easy to push.  Brown got in to drive and the rest of us (except for Itiweni, who is still suffering from burns on her foot) started pushing.  Brown popped the clutch and it started right up.  When he put it in idle, however, the motor stalled and it died.  We repeated the push, roll, pop-the-clutch maneuver and once again it started.  This time it didn't stall and we kept it running for awhile to recharge the battery.  This is team-building, Tanzanian style.

We went to Mlandege where Pastor Mangolesa is.  We have known him since 2001 when he was the district pastor at Ihemi.

Mercy, Itiweni's daughter, ran out to meet us.  She was going to spend the day with us today.

There were 44 people at the meeting.  There had been a death in the parish the night before and many of the interested members had gone to the funeral.

Mercy helped Sandy and Peter hand out pens.  (We brought along 1,000 pens and are almost out.)

While Sandy took notes Mercy wrote in one of her notebooks.  Later on she went over by Tom.  Soon there was some giggling going on at the end of the bench.

Today Margaret did the training.  It was her first time.

"Can we have different savings even though we all have the same shares?"

Mercy insisted on carrying Tom's back pack to chai.  It was pretty heavy for her.

Mama Mangolesa was sick much of last year.  She seems to be OK now.

The car would not start so we had to push it again.

On the way back to our apartment we stopped to look at the Danish school.  Sandy and Mercy had to try out the swings.