What shanga means

By Leah H. Mwainyekule

SHANGA.  When you say this word in the Tanzanian community, heads turn, eyebrows are lifted, giggles are heard, and even laughter erupts.  Yes; beads, known in Kiswahili as shanga are a very important ingredient when it comes to sexual relationships.  They can make a relationship healthy, or break it to pieces.  They can cause trouble, or be a source of reconciliation.  They can bring up competition, or even make peace.  But to one charismatic lady, they are much more than that…to her, shanga means money.

Amina Dilolo Salehe is a simple lady.  She is fifty five years old, divorced, takes care of her grandson, and makes a living through designing and selling beads.  The beads that she makes are specifically the ones worn at the waist by women, and are believed to help spice up the relationship between the two sexes.  She is well known for her talent and has a lot of customers, but she doesn’t forget where she came from.

“Just two years ago my life was completely different.  I lived a kind of life where I wasn’t sure how my tomorrow would be.  I depended on working in other people’s farms where I could gain only 2,000 shillings per month.  It was terrible because my husband and I split twelve years ago, so I really had to work hard in order to be able to survive,” she narrates.  That was when the Worth program was introduced in Mkambarani, Morogoro region in Eastern Tanzania.

“I used to make beads, but nobody knew about me back then because it was something that I did just for fun.  When I joined the Worth group called Mshikamano, I started saving money and then took a 20,000 shilling loan,” explains Amina.

With that loan, Amina was able to purchase more beads so that she could design them fit for the ladies’ waists.  But she had to think of something that would really make the ladies crave for her beads only, and not go for the other nearest dealer.

“And that’s when I decided to come up with designs that are completely different, with sexy names.”  Names of her designs include segere, mwanamke nyonga, mugongo mugongo, utalijua jiji, msumari and ua waridi.

According to Amina, segere is a design that complements the famous dance played by the Zaramo tribe, and mwanamke nyonga is a kind of design that symbolizes the beauty of women using their waists to bring happiness.  Ua waridi is a kind of design with the shape of rose petals, and utalijua jiji is a design with beads depicted as traffic lights.  Another design, mugongo mugongo depicts the spinal cord as well as a famous dance beat where one uses their back to dance to the tunes of music, while the design called msumari has beads piercing out like tiny nails, and she shows them off while singing the famous taarab song “msumari huo unachoma; wapi moyoni, machoni? Kotekote! ” Yes, a really charismatic lady.

“Life difficulties force you to learn something different,” says Amina when explaining about how she came up with those names and designs.  “This has made me get a lot of customers lately, and right now my business has expanded to Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, where people place orders and comepick them,” she says.  Nowadays she could make up to 15,000 shillings a day by just selling her designer beads.

But she doesn’t hesitate to pour praise to the Worth program: “I don’t know where I would have been right now, or what I would have looked like.  All I know is that right know my troubles are over. I don’t have to worry about eating anymore or working in other people’s farms.  I’m done with that now, thanks to the Worth group that taught me how to save money, and get a loan that has made me who I am today.”

And her desire is not only to make money, but also to make others happy.  “Girls here compete with each other on how many strings of beads one is wearing.  I once counted the strings on a certain girl’s waist, and they were actually fifty!” she says laughing.  But the good thing is that they make relationships stronger, and her pocket fatter.  And Worth has a lot to do with that success.

Amina is now happy, thanks to the famous designer beads that have made her a household name in the Mkambarani ward.  She is also happy that other people are happy with her designs.  The Worth group, she says, is her savior and the reason for heads turning, eyebrows lifting and laughter erupting.  Shanga is the word she loves to hear.

  

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The puppet show as a life changer

By Leah Mwainyekule

THE pregnant wife has gone to the antenatal clinic for checkup.  The husband is home and furious that his wife has taken so long there.   He is waiting for her return so that he could show her who the real man is.  And yes, as she comes back he sends her packing, accusing her of infidelity.  What he doesn’t know is that he has been totally unfair to his wife.  But there is only one way to know… the puppet show!

The puppet show is a performing arts tool being used by youths in Kipili ward in Nkasi district, Rukwa region in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, to campaign for the gender oriented sexual and reproductive health and rights promotion.  And these youths even have an artistic name – Sound Beach Boys.

The Sound Beach Boys of Kipili are the favorite artists of Kipili.  They perform their duties under the coordination of the Mwambao Development Movement (MWADEMO), who are partners of the Resource Oriented Development Initiative (RODI) in implementing the TMEP project.  It is funded by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU).  

The Tanzania Men as Equal Partners (TMEP) is a project that aims to partner with Tanzanian men for gender oriented sexual and reproductive health and rights promotion.  The Sound Beach Boys (SBB) implement this project through performing arts, whereby they use puppets to send the message and even sing rap songs that campaign for the program.

Bazilio Kapunda is MWADEMO’s Executive Director,  he says that the artists have managed to do public awareness using puppets after attending a two week training in Sumbawanga, and the shows they do have managed to attract a lot of people because it is something new seeing puppets do the talking.  But what is most important is that the message reaches the community.

In the puppet show called “what you don’t know…” Mama Sadiki is being accused by her husband of going to meet other men and coming back home late, claiming that she took long at the antenatal clinic.  The husband sn’t want to listen.  He first beats up his pregnant wife and tells her to leave his house.  Unfortunately, some neighbors who are his friends agree with his decision, saying that women now have so many excuses to meet their boyfriends behind their husbands’ backs.  Luckily, one passer ­­­­by hears the men talking proudly, then he advises them not to misjudge their wives.  He tells them that husbands have the responsibility of escorting their wives to the antenatal clinic, and that way couples who go there are given first priority than those who do not.  Baba Sadiki understands, and promises to take his wife back and be with her whenever he is required.

“When we perform shows like this, you see a lot of people listening to us attentively and laughing at the humor.  But what is most, they get the message and have their questions answered after the show,” says Desderius Msafiri, who plays Mama Sadiki’s voice.

Lazaro Godfrey Kayumba is a rapper of the SBB and William Medad Kamangu is a dancer.  “We use all these methods to attract people.  People love entertainment, people love a little bit of laughter, and so if you use performing arts to send your message to the community you will definitely get good results,” they explain.

The boys say that their aim is to do as much shows as possible so that they could create awareness on reproductive and sexual health issues, and they believe that by working hard on their performances, the community will really appreciate the education that they are getting.

The Southern Beach Boys might be a group of only seven young men, but it is a group with a difference.  It is a group that performs to bring positive change in the community, and all this is done through puppets.  Through such kind of entertainment and humor, you could definitely expect the best.

  

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