Description of Usolanga

After completing one month of Swahili language training in the town of Iringa, Sacha and I are sent to our placement site in the village of Usolanga.
Usolanga (also called Mboli Boli) is a remote village in the Pawaga region of the Iringa District, approximately 75km from Iringa town. Iringa is situated 1500m above sea levels while Pawaga is North East of Iringa at the bottom of the famous Rift Valley (A valley running from Israel to Tanzania). There is only one road that leads to Pawaga. Traveling to Pawaga is a steep descend that passes many mud hut villages and a large forest. During dry season, the scenery is a flat, yellow desert with dry tree frames. With the hot sun, the temperature can rise to an average 35°C in mid-day. Once the rainy season comes (it only lasts for 3-4 months), everything blossoms and a lush green landscape emerge.
The village of Usolanga has approximately 3000 villagers, 50 percent of which are children under the age of 15. It is therefore a “young” and “growing” village. The major tribes in the village are Gogo, Hehe, Masaai and Sukuma tribes and Swahili is the main spoken language. There is currently no electricity and running water. Water is scarce and the only source of water comes from a river 5-6 km away. The villagers either collect water at the only pump in the village or order river water delivered by donkey carts. Neither gives clean drinking water.
The village consists of mud huts, one central market, a Catholic church, an Anglican church, a primary school and St. Luke’s Dispensary. The dispensary was established by the Anglican Church and it is there that Sacha and I work as primary health care worker and community nutrition worker, St. Luke’s is the only health care centre serving the villagers and other nearby villages with vaccines, wound dressing, and medicines for simple treatments of the common diseases such as malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, etc. Some patients come from hours away by foot to see a doctor. Adjacent to the dispensary is the Reproductive Child Health Center (RCH) that provides services such as family planning, midwifery and monitoring of child growth. An average of 10 mothers give birth at the dispensary per month. The staffs include one doctor (Dr. Mheta), two nurses (Atu and Stella), an administrator (Simon), a janitor (Maria) and a night-guard (Yohanna or Marecani – he has 2 names). We work alongside the staffs to teach mothers about nutrition and health and aid the doctor and nurses in their work.