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German Benedictine Abbeys Ndanda and Peramiho are two rare oasis for travelers who decide to explore the south of Tanzania, the poorest region of one of the poorest countries in the world. The Benedictines arrived in German East-African colonial territories at the end of the 'nineteenth century: among the main goals of their missionary activity in the region bordering on Mozambique, Tanzania (then a Portuguese colony) were those to counter both the further expansion of the nascent Islamic presence Lutheran Church in the same colonial territories.
We travel for about 500 kms along the only road through the forest. It was the route along which the Sultan of Oman, Seyyid Said was running in the first half of the slave trade, Lake Nyasa (the third largest lake in Africa) to the coastal town of Kilwa on the Indian Ocean.
From there the slaves were brought and sold in Zanzibar elected in 1840, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman. The Islamic presence in these lands is still far more ancient and noble. Already in the ninth century Arab merchants attending the African coast and, between the fifteenth thirteenth century, the sultans of the region of Shiraz (Persia) had 30 city-state founded on the coast, including the fact Kilwa then thriving business hub and capital of the gold. Today is a fishing village with some beautiful beaches.
It 's a hard path that puts a strain on even the strongest stomachs. The sun beats down and melts the bodies of the passengers well before the compressed Ndanda jeep that will take us to the dusty town of Tunduru, where we will stop. We cross the sparse villages poor and thirsty, in the jeep there is always room for someone that goes. Just squeeze a little bit more. Father Titus, Rector of the Catholic seminary at nearby Peramiho, travels with us. He has just published an article on the most important national newspaper and we explained the contents: the superstitious practices and rituals of witches are widespread in the villages of Tanzania, albinos are often chased, caught and mutilated by their own relatives in black leather.
The Catholic Church is opposed to everything and tries to counteract the power of sorcerers. The answer, says Father Titus, is in the Mass. Nods his argument is irrefutable, I have no doubt that he is right. Let
some bridges over rivers mostly dry. Someone tried in vain to dig wells to find water or groundwater. The rainy season has begun, but late. The climate here is not academic review. The water tables fall and the population, although still poor in Tanzania, increases. Titus Father I ask if the high birth rate in this region of Africa is not a big problem. He skates. I guess the solution is still in the Mass. Along some rivers, near Tunduru, precious stones were found especially sapphires. Some groups of Thai and the Tamils \u200b\u200bof Sri Lanka have settled in the forest, scour the rivers and operate a bit 'of local businesses. But the bulk of the profits go to brokers in Dar es Salaam and international trade. A Tunduru remains the dust.
continue towards the city of Songea near which, in Peramiho, the missionary-explorer Brother Cassian (Bressanone) in 1898 founded the first nucleus of what is now an imposing Benedictine Abbey.
The site was favorable because of the rich sources of water therein. Similar was the reason that led to the Benedictines to settle Ndanda. Since 1984 the monks of Peramiho use the waterfall at the confluence of two rivers that run through the area to produce 500 kW of hydroelectric power. The plant was built by German engineers and Swiss. The hospital, run by the Benedictine Sisters, the school, the farm and the many complex structures of the Benedictine are powered by the electricity fed to 25kms from the production site . Even the villages in the area began to be electrified. A rarity in this part of Africa.
L 'Abbot Anastasius us to visit the hydroelectric power plant. It 'a simple, direct, comes from a farming family on the outskirts of Heidelberg, has clear ideas and knows the things of which he speaks. Explain that in the dry season hydroelectric production is insufficient and therefore brothers and sisters are seeking new sources of electricity supply. Diesel and gasoline are also very expensive in Tanzania. He therefore proposed to start in the land owned by Benedictine cultivation of jatropha, whose seeds can get good quantities of biodiesel. I had already mentioned the virtues of the plant on this blog.
With about 100 hectares of the Abbey could cover its requirements for fuels and, in some areas more, you could power the generators to produce electricity during the season when the river flow is low. The abbot goes by that the fact that: lead us to visit the camps where Jatropha is already great. Soon will come the machine for pressing the seeds and bio-fuel will be available.
The principle of self has always animated the monks, the environmental culture here is not a fad but a necessity.
L 'Abate is expansive. We learn that the monks' life in Africa is not so monastic It is also clearly evident. The faithful's offerings are generous by Germany and many German Catholics, while attending fewer and fewer parishes are willing to pay pennies for several fellow-missionaries who are in the tropics. The good religious consciousness is also expressed by a check. So the missionaries do not fare badly, and in fact do not even have to work so much. They essentially plan and coordinate, manual labor is done by Tanzanians ... at a mild pace of course.
the Brothers monks therefore remains a long time to look after the souls and make converts. They must also think about the sisters nuns who feel alone in the tropics: the Benedictine motto must therefore be completed: "Now, finches et labora" is certainly more up to date. The Brothers are not limited however to meet the sisters, they must also think of a missionary spirit to native Tanzania living in hardship. Thus we learn that it is standard practice polygamy and sexual situations far-pyrotechnic frequent. The missionary contribution exuberant birth rate in the local villages is considerable: there are so Tanzanian mothers give birth to several children mulattoes, proselytizing Catholic Benedictine is made concrete in bed. The penetration missionary in Africa has always been effective because it carried with sharp weapons, Bismarck knew this.
Of course the issue of population does not seem to worry too much about exactly how the Benedictines did not worry Father Titus. The hypocrisy in the Catholic and well-known. For now, Tanzania has a population remains very poor and people of different faiths live together in peace but in neighboring Rwanda, the high population density was one of the causes triggering of the 1994 massacres . Islam and Catholicism are intended to make converts, many newborns are more so the higher the probability of their swell the ranks of the faithful. In this land pervaded by ignorance is hard to understand Karl Marx was right qando said that "religion is the opium of the people."
Coming Songea, after leaving the Abbot of Peramiho known different locations of the Adventist Church, Assemblies of God and of the various sects that proliferate among the desperate, here as in South America and elsewhere.
I continue with the positive images associated with those fields of Jatropha and solar cells that help the monks and Peramiho Ndanda in their projects of self-sufficiency energy. As funded largely by the faithful in Germany.
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