POVERTY ERADICATION,…WHICH KIND OF POVERTY?

R.Kazimoto

“….Tanganyika, today, is a poor country. The standard of living of the masses of our people is shamefully low. But if every man and woman in the country takes up the challenge and works to the limit of his or her ability for the good of the whole society , Tanganyika will prosper; and that prosperity will be shared by all the people...”

Mwalimu J.K.Nyerere on 'the basis of African socialism'.April,1962.

That was 50 years ago!

Today our agriculture is weather dependent, when the rains fail we are in for it. A few fields are irrigated though, but still there are problems there, a matter for some future article. But my main concern, which is what I dwell on this Sunday is an interesting mentality among livestock keepers here. They believe in witchcraft and are scared of their own neighbors’ ‘wicked eye’!  It is common to hear stories like this “….i woke up at night to attend to a call of nature in the backyard  and after hearing some unusual noises in the cattle shed went in and had a look, I found a cat helping itself from the udder of our cow.” This is usually the explanation given when the milk output is extraordinarily low, it is believed that witches transform themselves into small animals capable of entering the cattle housing through small crevices or holes, do not be fooled by the smallness of the cat though, it is a magical cat and its size therefore is not related to the amount of milk it can ingest!, a single cat like this can go from house to house milking cows dry in one night!

Now having such a line as defense who needs to work hard?, work hard for what?

Another myth is the one concerning the ability of witches to block your cows or pigs from getting pregnant, or cause them to have still births. You may also have sterile chicken, the sterility being man made!

And this ladies and gentlemen is how come we lack eggs and milk here!

But let’s now have a look at a few pictures of how the livestock are kept and what they are fed…to end up producing a glass of milk per day!!

 The two images above are of the same hut, fore and rear views same with sides and it is attached to the main house on one side.No windows so as to avoid peeping evil eyes.

 Same story different hut from within,stealthly photographed,can you see the animal?

 A cargo of tinder dry maize stalks for fodder,main additive banana trunk chopped into pieces and water!

See the full stomach? that's an end in itself!,the holes at the foot of the wall are to be repaired,the light you see comes in through the open door behind me.

Various poverty eradication programs targeting household livestock keeping projects have come and gone but changes are nowhere to be seen, the missing component,among other things, is the transformation of how we think and what we believe.