OUR TRADITIONAL MEDICINE MAN

THE CULTURAL TOURISM AND ITS STAFF AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY OF MTO WA MBU SADLY WITH A GREAT DEAL OF PAIN, WOULD LIKE TO INFORM YOU THE DEATH OF THEIR BELOVED AND IMPORTANT TRADITIONAL MEDICINE IN THE VILLAGE WHOSE PHOTO IS OVERLEAF SHOWN FOR MEMORY.

Our beloved grandfather, medicine man has a played a great role in the cultural tourism activities in Mto wa Mbu village and his death we regard as a great loss in the cultural aspect. He stood several times with all people of all races to tell them what it meant being a servant of people.

He was a great man in our society we are greatly affected by the loss of this old man who made cultural tours safaris in Mto wa Mbu the major highlights fro travelers experiences in Africa.

BACKGROUND.

He came in the village about five decades or so in the village as he was traveling to see some of his relative from Maasai villages close to the Tanzania Kenya borders (loliondo). He found Maasai societies living in this fantastic part of the great East African rift valley.

As a custom of Maasai people he decided to rest for several days in the village with his tribesmen “I found people of my tribe living dangerously with wild animals, and their livestocks were in great peril of being affected by tsetse flies” he said. By that time he remembered just Germans who were routing through this village and said “they did not care about us they were busy with constructing the road but we saw them”

“It was very serious with Mosquitoes in the village during my time and I saw people dying from it, I was very desperate with the situation and I come from a clan which is good at traditional treatment” He continued saying that “ I asked my men If I can help them with malaria because it was the only killer disease at that time, they were please with my idea and they invited me to have that job done for them and I did it although I was interrupted by the programme OPERATION IMPERNATI (villagelization) by a person Julius Nyerere who took my people a distant place, I remained without a job but I was already interested with this job because my men gave me cattle, sheep, goats and even wives”.

This operation by the president made him remains without the job for several years and then he decided to go on with his safari across this land.

He stayed out of this village for several years, then he decided to come back after the programme of villagelization failed with the Maasai society. He continued working fro them for years and changes were taking place in the area.

He quitted his job as traditional men and joined the cooperative rural society in the village as a guard but he previously worked as businessman when he was doing the livestock exchange. With the cooperative rural society he spent much time there until when he decided to go back to his traditional professional as medicine man until when he died on the 1^st of November 2004 at Kigongoni government hospital where he hardly spent hours.

CULTURAL TOURISM PROGRAMME OBSERVATIONS

For a short time of period he was showing great changes on his health conditions and we consulted him for further checkups in the modern hospitals of which he did not agreed with our idea. We even saw changes on his mental ability which was too serious than before, example he could tell that he was forty years old and even started to forget some of his medicines and his sight problem became more serious to the end of the days that he could not see completely.

DOCTOR REPORTS ON HIS DEATH

It showed that he consumed one of his traditional medicines that made him weak and he was dehydrated very much after a frequent vomiting and diarrhearing. He was also facing a problem of under feeding which made him weak after taking herbs, so far there is no doubt that he died from this abnormalities.

In collaboration with his church members and other people in Mto wa Mbu village the cultural tourism programme in Mto wa Mbu made every thing possible to burry him although it is not a custom of Maasai people but he was convert to the Seventh Adventist Church. But very unfortunately only two women appeared claiming that he was their relative and we used them to send information other relatives and fortunate the news got the right destinations and we are now receiving guests who are coming to pay their tributes to the graveyard.

We buried him in the village when there are public burial places and the cultural tourism will cement his graveyard so that we commemorate him for his contributions towards the cultural tourism programme activities.

PERSPECTIVE OF THE CULTURAL TOURISM PROGRAMME

The cultural tourism programme in Mto wa Mbu greatly understand his contribution to the success it has, we also understand that his position in the cultural tourism prospects will never be restored and therefore the cultural tourism programme sadly reports the news please pass these news to the one you think knows him.