Cheifs, Witches and Theives

Some moments in village are beautiful and life changing and some make you want to strangle someone and some make you want to curl up in a ball and cry. They told us the highs would be high and the lows would be low. The last month I've had both. I've been running at sunset. The view of the sunsetting through the tall reddish grass is heavenly. I had a really low low a few weeks ago when someone pried open my bedrooms windows and stole my Ipod, solar charger, cell charger, a flashlights and 60,000 tsh (about $50). The theft was unfortunate and scary but the events that unfolded following the theft is the really juicy part.

We immediately called the Village Chairman or Mwenye Kiti after we discovered that things had been stolen. At first we didn't realize that the thief had just reached in and taken things through the bars on the windows and we thought someone had been inside our home. That was the really scary part because we didn't know how they got in or when they would be back. I found out that the Mwenye Kiti is also the tribal chief of the village and therefore holds almost all the decision- making power in the village. He is related to almost everyone in the village. Our next door neighbor and landlord is his niece. Her son had been caught stealing before and just this January he was caught stealing a radio from another teacher's home. He was arrested by the village police and he eventually gave the radio back. Because of his past record and the proximity of his house to ours he was the main suspect and the Mwenye Kiti took him and two of his friends he was with the day of the theft in for questioning. All three boys are secondary school students and the secondary school headmaster came to question them. Devota and I sat in the Mwenye Kiti's office for hours waiting for some answers. The boys confessed to nothing and the Mwenye Kiti let them go to "gather more evidence". 3 days past and the village started to talk. Gossip gets around very quickly in a village or 1300 people. People kept coming up to us and saying how sorry they were and telling us to be careful. Apparently Matilda, our next door neighbor, landlord and niece to Mwenye Kiti is a practicing witch. A real witch! All the people in the village are scared of her. They said her son, Dickson, steals from people all the time and he always gets away with it because the victims are frightened of being "witched" if they accuse the boy of stealing. Unfortunately for Dickson I am not scared of being witched and I wanted this case investigated to the furthest extent of the law.

A small boy about 7 years old told his mother he saw Dickson reach in our windows on the afternoon of the theft. His mother told her friend who told us. We then got the story out of the little boy ourselves. At this point we realized the Mwenye Kiti was not going to do anything about this so we went to the Village Executive Officer. Her position is supposed to hold just as much power as the Mwenye Kiti's but she is not from Igula, she is not from the same tribe as the village people and she is a women. The combination leaves her with very little actual power in the community. She is also afraid of being witched by Matilda. But after we told her what the little boy had told us and how upset everyone in the village was about Dickson getting away with another theft, she asked the village police to arrest the boys again and take them in to custody at the Ward office in Ilembula, the next village over. The boys were questioned again and confessed to nothing but their stories did not match up. The Ward executive officers then said we must take the boys to the police station in Makambako. The village does not own a car and the one car the Makambako police own was being repaired in Iringa. So the Ward Executive officer asked me to pay for bus fare for all three boys, one village police officer, Devota and myself. They would have never asked a Tanzanian to pay. I was furious and did everything I could not to pay. But I knew if I didn't pay nothing was going to get done. So I gave the village police officers 12,000 tsh. When we got on the bus the conductor ripped Devota and I off and made us pay 500 tsh extra. I tried to argue with him but at this point Devota was sick of translating for me and I was tried of yelling. The village police had made a deal with the conductor earlier to only be charged 7,000 tsh for him and the three boys and he prompting pockets the rest of my money. Fortunately SPW reimbursed me for the bus fare. Otherwise I probably would have pulled all my hair out and gone crazy with the hypocrisy and injustice of the situation. But hey TIA, This is Africa, shit happens.

The three boys, the Village Police, Devota and I all sat right next to each other snuggled up on the crammed bus basically sitting on each other's laps. Dickson had his hands tied with rope and the other two boys had the ends of their shirts tied together so if they wanted to run away they would have to run together. I'm sure we were quite a spectacle. The boys were questioned at the police station and I had to write down my own statement. Then we all piled into someone's pickup truck the police had borrowed and drove back to Igula where Devota and I helped the police search all the boy's houses top to bottom. From Mama's underwear drawer to the bags of beans. It took hours and was so exhausting and ridiculous it was hard not to laugh. We found rattles used for witch craft ceremony's in one of Matilda's houses but we did not find any of the things that were stolen from my bedroom. It's not that surprising considering the boys had 3 days to hide or sell the things between the first time they were arrested to the second. One of my favorite parts of the story is that the thieves stole the solar charger but didn't get the correct wires they need to hook it up to the ipod and the ipod was very low on battery. No one has a computer so the ipod will be good for another 30 minutes and then be completely useless with out a computer and the solar charger will never work. Anyone smart wouldn't buy the Ipod and solar charger with out checking to make sure the charger actually charged the Ipod. For all I know the thieves figured out they couldn't sell the stuff and smashed it in a field somewhere instead.

The police wrote out a report and there is supposed to be a court date but with no other evidence but the 7 year old boy, it's going to be hard to convict any of the boys. Matilda was surprisingly nice about the whole thing. She apologized and said she would do everything she could to help us. She even said she knew her son had stolen before and she would try her best to discipline him more so it doesn't happen again. We found out a few days ago that her and Dickson went to the nearest big town of Mbeya to visit with a powerful witchdoctor and ask him to kill whoever really stole the things. I interpret this act as revenge for Dickson having to suffer in jail for a few days and not a outreach of help on her part to us. Otherwise she could have just asked the powerful witchdoctor to tell her where my stuff is. Either way this experience revealed many things about who we can trust, the power dynamic in the village and the high level of ignorance and fear most of the villagers live under. I put up some posters around the village offering a cash reward for the return of my ipod and solar charger. No inquiries so far but I'm not keeping my hopes up. If anything I'll take this fiasco as a learning experience and one more crazy story from Tanzania. Even sans IPod the experience is still worth it. Oh yeah and we are getting gates put on our windows so it doesn't happen again. Peace and Love from Tanzania- Amanda