Life in Shirati Part Mbili: Discovering my neighbors and hood

On Thursday I was also able to become acquainted with the town of Shirati.  Nyamusi kindly took me on a walking tour of the Kabuana area of Shirati (there are two major sections of town: Kabuana and Obuere).  I got to see his home, which is very nice, with a full living room and TV, bedrooms for all the children, and a kitchen/dining room of purple and gold (I’ll go with royal colors rather than mention THAT school down south of AR).  He’s currently building a home in the back for him and his brother, which is tradition. Most of Kabuana revolves around the main road that goes through town (similar to small towns in Arkansas), and there are store fronts and vendors everywhere.  There is one pub and restaurant, Girango, and the district hospital is directly across.  Nyamusi’s mother owns a kinda five-and-dime shop that sells phone minutes, school/office supplies, greeting cards (Nando and my postcard), and various sundries.  The hospital is a big compound with multiple wards, inpatient care, a surgery “theater”, an entire nursing school, and a leprosy unit.  Only in recent decades have the leprosy patients been allowed to be in the same area as other patients because of the stigma that surrounded lepers for so long.  I then saw the outpatient leprosy camp as well as the new camp that they are currently building to house 16.  It’s very nice and exciting that these people (mostly older men who were already affected badly before modern treatments) are finally taken care of and included rather than cast out to live by the lake.  Shirati, I have found is very similar to a small town in Arkansas in that they have pretty much anything they need food/living wise.  The only problem is major medical specialty procedures must be done in Mwanza (the Little Rock or Dallas of the region).

We were invited to a wedding reception on my second day here.  It was held at the Motel 2000, the biggest hotel in Shirati, which is owned by Manine Kawira, the brother of the couple who own SHED where I’m staying.  The party was for Chris, a “doctor” (really a med tech but townspeople call him doctor) at Shirati Hospital who is from Musoma, 2 hours S of Shirati.  James and I go decked out in local shirts that were made by one of the seamstresses in town, and the hotel is totally decked out in white drapes with blue and white lights behind the head table where the bride, groom, and their two attendants sit.  In front of them is a table with three cakes (one for them and one for each family) and one bottle of every coke available, a bottle of champagne, and water.  The program is pretty long with a lot of talking (in Swahili, so I’m clueless), but it includes a lot of speeches and background music, most notably a long talk by what turns out to be the baker of the cakes.  After her talk, the groom presents a cake to his new family and the bride to hers.  Then loud music starts playing and with the cokes and Fantas (I chose black current, which is grape on a sugar high, SO GOOD!) that we have all been given, everyone present gets up and in line clinks bottles with members of each family and the wedding party.  Finally, comes the gift giving, which is ceremonial in that each gift is given in front of everyone, one by one…we made it through four gifts and our patience ran thin and had to go home…so unfortunately we missed the feast and party afterwards but maybe next wedding…