There are no hotels or lodges in the Southern Paré of East Africa therefore it is difficult to reach this part of Tanzania, that is, difficult for a tourist. This area does not cater for westerners, except for those willing to spend time traveling to find these hidden jewels. I have worked on Serengeti safaris, climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and traveled several times to Zanzibar. All this was a fantastic adventure but I was not quite satisfied. I wanted to experience Africa proper, to experience as much of Tanzania as I could. It was time to visit somewhere where there were few, or better still, no tourists, where I would experience the real culture of Africa.
When my chance came it was, unfortunately, under tragic circumstances. Now I was finally to journey deep into the Southern Pare Mountains. I wished that this journey had never presented itself. The circumstances of this journey began as I lived in Arusha, Northern Tanzania.
The village where I stayed was called Ngulelo just south of Arusha on the misty slopes of Mount Meru. My near neighbors had befriended me, along with their eight-year-old son, William. My Christian name was unpronounceable for many Tanzanian’s and as my surname was Williamson I became known in the village as William. This sharing of a name with young William forged a bond between the two of us.
Williams Mother and Father had never been able to afford a marriage certificate but his business had looked up and William’s father had decided he would marry the mother of his child. The date of the wedding was set.
The morning of the wedding William was bitten on his face by a dog. He almost lost his eye – he did miss the wedding.
Weddings in Tanzania normally take the whole afternoon and evening. Usually, on these and other community events, William would sit next to me and we would talk and meet people, laughing and crying with the community. William would share the adventures he had experienced since the last community event - that is, since the last time we had spent time together.
I missed William at his parents wedding. I sat alone and the empty seat I kept for William remained vacant as his wounds were tendered to at the hospital. The following day some of the elders thought the dog might have rabbis but others said categorically that it did not have rabbis. William’s father was asked to take William for shots just in case the dog was infected. William did not go for the shots as the cost was deemed not worth the hassle and the money, offered by the elders for the medication, was refused.
William died very quickly. I was not present at his death, so quickly did it occur. Early one morning I met Mama Gifti the wife of the Pastor. It was unusual for her to be out so early. She stopped me and asked if I heard that William had been admitted with rabbis into hospital the night before. I had not.
I then hit me that Mama Gifti was in tradition dress, a Kanga. The Kanga is two matching pieces of fabric, one tied around the waist, the other used as a shawl and instead of the normally colorful print, the kanga was plain white. This traditional piece of attire was not usually worn by Mama Gifti. This could only mean one thing. The Kanga is worn by all women at funerals. White is also the color of death.
William was dead. The men had split into two parties. The Pastor and some of the men had gone to pay the hospital bill and make arrangements to pick up the body. Others had gone in search of William’s father who had gone missing, distraught that William had died. Blaming himself, he had fled from home to be alone for a few hours.
Mama Gifti told me that as William lay on the hospital bed the night, before his mother wept. William comforted his mother telling her pleases not to cry. ‘Yes’, he told her, ‘soon I will die but I go to a better place’. William died soon after these words. The day he died was his eighth birthday.
I went straight to see the mother of William – she gave me a parcel and dispatched me to the Hospital. The Pastor and I met in the hospital mortuary, we chose a nice coffin for William. We opened the brown paper parcel. William’s mother had given me his suit. The suit William had never worn, the suit for the wedding just a few days before. The Pastor left to pay the medical bills and thereby release the body. I watched over the body of William as the mortuary assistant dressed him and used super glue to glue his eye lids closed and then his lips.
William’s parents asked me to accompany them to the funeral; William would not be buried in Arusha Town but taken “home” to the Paré Mountains.
We left in a couple of battered 25 seater buses, especially hired for this trip. The coffin was in the isle of the bus, and young William’s body had begun to smell. We left in the evening at 10 pm. About thirty of us squeezed onto each bus. We raced and rattled through the darkness, out of Arusha, then through Moshi town, when, after passing Kilimanjaro to our left, we turned south toward the Pare. After about four hours of travel, we entered into a very small town named, Somé. Here we left the comfort of the tarmac and traveled for another hour, maybe two, along deep sandy roads, lit thankfully by a full moon, shining down from clear skies.
Eventually we arrived at the base of the mountain range. It was still dark and therefore impossible to negotiate the narrow rocky roads up the side of the mountains. We parked in a one street town. It was so quiet, I didn’t know it was possible to experience such stillness and quiet. As we stretched our legs our voices echoed and ricocheted about the place and we wakened the locals. A few roadside stalls opened to sell toothbrushes and hot tea and we brushed our teeth out in the open, spiting into the sand. Then sitting on the stone steps of the old buildings drinking black sweet spicy tea, we waited for the light of morning.
William’s father and mother never left the Bus. They waited in silence
At 6.00am we were off again, this time a steep assent, up and up and up. The mountains here are breathtakingly beautiful, rolling into the distance, with trees, birds and water everywhere. We took a further ninety minutes to get to the home where were to burry William. The land was terraced and we sat outside a small house under a tree. The whole community had come for the burial. The views were breathtakingly beautiful. We were so high, looking down onto the tops of lesser mountains covered in thick forests and early morning mist. The people were warm and welcoming, plying us with more spiced tea. The buses had arrived with not only the body but sacks of rice and supplies to cook to supply the masses with food after we had buried William. The women became busy preparing the food, the men sat around in silence, broken now and then with murmurs of conversation.
This trip was full of sadness and regret about the young boy. We were all feeling we had not done enough to save him. The grave was on a steep incline close to the house. As the long funeral dew to a close I stood next to the grave and said my goodbyes to a very brave little friend whom I shall never forget. At this point the Pastor paused and asked that the only non-African at the funeral say a few words about William. I started to speak of our friendship but my voice broke and I wept, I could not continue. Every time I speak of this, tears are not far away. Even now, as I write about this event, my eyes fill with tears and my lip it trembles.
One day I plan to return to the Pare Mountains to explore them for myself. To take some time and drink in Africa - away from tourist and phony or over-organized cultural visits. I will take some flowers and visit the grave of William and even though it is only a grave I will talk to him of all my adventures since our last meeting.
Author : Ian Williamson
http://www.isnare.com/?aid=179141&ca=Short+Stories
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