Nyamaguku

Speaking of contrasts, on Thursday we got to see the other end of the spectrum, a town that makes Musoma look big. My mom's nonprofit has one villiage with 16 or 17 houses with solar lighting. It is often referred to as the research villiage by Robi and my mom because the name is so hard to remember. Upon arriving, the first house we go to is that of the richest man in the village. He is not an especially nice person, it seems. He is like Scrooge: he is rich, but he doesn'teven have furniture in his house and he almost didn't let my mom take a picture of the system in the rafters. I was worried at that point that the whole village would be that way toward us, but it wasn't so. Most greeted us warmly and one particularly outgoing older woman posed in a picture with Evan and the system. Everyone seemed happy to have the two electric lights, and only wanted more lights and a bigger system for a TV, radio or cell phone charger. Before having these lights installed in their houses, the only source of light after 7 was a kerosene lantern, which not only created disgusting smoke to breath in but also was expensive, and as with all petroleum products, the price just keeps going up. The waiting list on this one small village has already reached 90 people.
My mom has pointed out how unusual it is to be invited into peoples' homes in rural Africa, and it is true that it is very uncommon, but so is the thing my mom is doing with solar lighting. The systems are humble, but even they are an improvement over what they had and what they have in most of Tanzania and rural Africa still.