Lugalo

  

Lugalo... A place like others in the heart of Tanzania...

A typical mountainous African village. Houses made of mad, roofs of grass, nights illuminated from the only stars, fresh mornings greeted by the singing of cocks and the bangs of the hoes. The families depend on their works in the fields; they eat what they cultivate and what, during the rain season, starts growing spontaneously hither and yon. Some women try to buy a bit of success by boiling the local maize-beer in caldrouns. Enterprising young boys, after being emigrated into the big cities and having tasted a still harder life, come back to their natal village for starting some kinds of small businesses: a shop, a simple inn, a garden center. Taxi-motorcycles, with neither insurance nor rearview mirror, dart on the red mad way. Others during the lucky months of December, January and February, work as day labourer in the close fields in order to earn some shillings, hoping that the amount will be enough to pay the bride price agreed with the parents of their future wife.

Lugalo, a small world in the middle of nothing? No. “It is almost city!”, that's what one says. With the time, that is what it will become. The reason is simple: the road. The tarmac Dar es Salaam – Lusaka route, connecting Tanzania to the close Zambia (TANZAM-highway), is passing through the village. Moreover Lugalo is exactly at the crossroads separating the city of Iringa (which is only 20 Km far) and the important town of Ilole. The shop makes its fortune with the thirst of the travelers.
The motorcycles, specially during days of weddings and funerals, cash in the fare of whom is too much tired to wait for the connection. The wealth of the village is growing. One can already see the roof of iron sheets of the mayor. Somebody is digging the foundation of his new spacious house. An old woman enjoy drinking her fanta. The fruits of the “tree of soap” are rotting, forgotten. And the hydraulic system has seen many betterments: drinkable water, coming from natural springs in the mountains, flows into the pipes which branch off through the whole village.

Among the wonders of Lugalo there is the catholic church: built an half of century ago thanks to the contributions of the local families, it overtops the land; a point of reference for villagers and travelers. Moreover the schools: primary and secondary. The children are no more forced to walk interminable distances every morning.
Everybody has the right and the possibility to access basic education. The new dispensary is growing close to the school. It does not have yet a roof, but the more optimistic voices say that no longer to come it will in use. The electricity's wires are passing at the border of the road. Only the trasformer is still missing. Maintaining a certain distance, a white historical monument remembers the five hundred German solders killed in 1891 during a colonial fight conducted by the “hehe” tribe chief Mkwawa.

Lugalo has the strength. It is motivated, young and full of energy. It wants to change. The oxes will be soon substituted by tractors. There will be new schools. The shop will be made bigger, and will sell cement and roofing tiles, helping the building of new houses. The arable land will be plought. The spiny and wild vegetation will leave place to sunflowers' fields and orchard. Maybe a new carpentry... You are all warmly welcome!

              *Siri ya maisha ni ujasiri*